RWA futures only overtook crypto in one narrow market sample, analysis shows
RWA futures edged crypto in a selected-venue comparison
A new report from OKX and Token Terminal says real-world-asset (RWA) futures on trade.xyz surpassed crypto futures on Hyperliquid in July. The report recorded $107.6 billion in RWA contract volume against $105.7 billion in crypto contract volume.
That comparison, however, only covers two specific platforms. It does not show an industry-wide change in market leadership.
Key numbers
- RWA futures volume on trade.xyz reached $107.6 billion in July, slightly above $105.7 billion of crypto perpetual volume on Hyperliquid.
- The selected RWA series grew from $760 million in October 2025 to $107.6 billion in July.
- Open interest in the report's selected RWA series rose from $16.1 million to $1.72 billion over nine months.
- CoinDesk Research reported $460 billion of July RWA perpetual volume on centralized exchanges, or about 15.2% of $3.03 trillion in total centralized-exchange derivatives volume.
- CoinMarketCap Research measured $792.2 billion of July RWA perpetual volume across 19 venues, but did not provide an all-crypto comparison.
Broader datasets show a smaller share
CoinDesk Research's numbers put RWA perpetuals at roughly 15.2% of its centralized-exchange derivatives total, a much smaller share than the trade.xyz-versus-Hyperliquid comparison suggests.
CoinMarketCap Research found $792.2 billion of monthly RWA perpetual activity across 19 centralized and decentralized venues. That figure confirms the category is large, but the report does not include an equivalent all-crypto denominator, so it cannot show RWA's share of all derivatives.
How changing the denominator can reverse the result
CoinMarketCap's DEX analysis shows how venue selection affects the outcome. Across nine fully collected decentralized exchanges, RWA contracts stayed below 20% of volume. When a tenth venue, the HIP-3 group, was added, the measured RWA share crossed 50% on July 8.
That happened because HIP-3 activity in the dataset was more than 99% RWA, while Hyperliquid's much larger crypto book was excluded from the calculation. Adding an RWA-heavy venue without adding the related crypto venue changed the denominator enough to flip the result.
What is confirmed
The report's selected data shows RWA futures volume on trade.xyz ($107.6 billion) was slightly higher than Hyperliquid's crypto perpetual volume ($105.7 billion) in July. The selected RWA series also rose sharply from $760 million in October 2025 and open interest reached $1.72 billion.
Separate datasets from CoinDesk and CoinMarketCap found hundreds of billions of dollars in monthly RWA perpetual activity across broader venue sets.
What is still unclear
No single dataset provides a like-for-like comparison of RWA and crypto derivatives across the entire market. The report's crossover result depends on the specific venues chosen, so it is not a settled fact about the whole derivatives market.
Why this matters
These measurements show that crypto exchanges are becoming substantial markets for derivatives linked to offchain assets, such as real-world assets. But claims that RWA futures have overtaken crypto futures should state the sample that produced them, until researchers use consistent venue coverage and comparable denominators.
Sources
Newisty Editorial Team covers technology, cryptocurrency, digital products, online platforms, developer tools and the wider digital economy. Our content is researched from official sources, company announcements, public documentation, market data and other primary or reputable sources. Articles are reviewed and edited before publication for clarity, accuracy and useful context.