Summary

  • Crypto exchanges are rapidly expanding into traditional finance by offering perpetual futures tied to stocks, indexes and commodities, with trading volume surging to $1.32 trillion in the first five months of 2026.
  • These stock-linked perpetuals let traders gain 24/7 price exposure to assets like the S&P 500 without owning the underlying shares or receiving shareholder protections, appealing to institutions seeking lower friction and retail investors seeking access.
  • Major platforms such as Coinbase and Binance are building “everything exchange” models that combine crypto, equities and derivatives in a single account, including using tokenized stock positions as collateral, even as large funds remain cautious about decentralized venues.

About two years ago, Wall Street began bringing crypto into traditional finance (tradfi), through exchange-traded funds (ETFs), custody, funds and other regulated products. Crypto exchanges are now moving in the other direction, bringing stocks, indexes and commodities onto their platforms through perpetual futures or PERPS.

Crypto exchanges processed $1.32 trillion in perpetual futures tied to traditional assets during the first five months of 2026, compared with $104.21 billion in all of 2025, according to CoinGecko. Monthly volume rose from $230 million in January 2025 to $347.17 billion in May 2026.

Bitget said the growth has changed the makeup of its business.

“A year ago, we didn’t even have a perpetual stock product; 100% of our volume came from crypto,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget in an interview with CoinDesk. “A year later, we now have about 28% of our total trading volume coming from the stock business, and those are mainly stock perpetuals.”

Shunyet Jan, an executive overseeing trading market structure at Binance, said traditional exchanges are now adopting products and trading hours first used by crypto platforms.

Source: CoinDesk

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