New AI Equity Perps, Plus DEX Leaders & a Big CostCo Trip

Welcome to the third issue of Perpetuals Weekly, a newsletter tracking the growth of perpetual futures markets on non-crypto, “real-world” assets (RWAs). This week we add three DEXs to the exchanges we track: Aster, EdgeX, and grvt. You can find all three in a new DEX volume leaderboard below, tracking onchain RWA perps volume and top markets, specifically. 

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This issue covers the seven-day week ending at midnight UTC on April 26, 2026. It draws on volume data from Aster, Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase International, Dreamcash and Trade[XYZ] on Hyperliquid, EdgeX, grvt, Lighter, MEXC, and OKX. If there's a ticker, exchange, or data cut you'd like to see included, reply to this email or reach out at [email protected].

Much slower Sunday trading this week than the past two. In the commodities-driven RWA perps markets, we’ve seen notional volume cross $5 billion in each of the past two Sundays, when commodity perps like GOLD and WTI typically jump in volume as the traditional trading week begins. However, despite an eventful weekend, with a third assassination attempt Saturday night on US President Donald Trump, volume in RWA perps this past Sunday reached just $2.1 billion.

RWA perps markets overall are holding steady as markets ignore looming impacts of oil shortages that are moving through global supply chains. ETFs, led this week by EWY and QQQ on Binance, and SPY on EdgeX, were the only RWA perps category to grow week over week, from $435.2M to $467.8M—but they represent less than 1% of the total RWA perps market measured here. Commodities, equities, and indexes were all down slightly.

RWA perps show a kind of flippening of traditional derivs volume distribution: commodities consistently lead RWA perps volume, making the top of this chart a pretty consistent proposition, week to week. The “digital gold” and “gas” narratives on which crypto’s blue-chips were founded are easy metaphors for the crypto-native traders active here. It may flip back if regulators embrace RWA perps, allowing inflows from capital currently active in traditional alternatives like short-dated options and CFDs. 

It’s index perps and equity perps in the bottom half, led by indexes volume in Trade[XYZ] markets on Hyperliquid, and equity perps blue chips on Binance, but with some signs of the potential in onchain trading (DEXs): INTC’s 232% volume growth to $132.9M on Dreamcash (also Hyperliquid markets) helped push the chipmaker back into the top 10, replacing HOOD.

COST led RWA perps by week-over-week volume growth, as trading on Trade[XYZ] on Hyperliquid shot up nearly 30X, to $17.2M. This one was a random walk, besides maybe a narrative on declining US consumer confidence. (All the volume growth was overnight Saturday into Sunday.) Note that NI225 would have been in the No. 1 spot, except that we trimmed an extreme outlier candle in its new market on MEXC, which printed $127M in volume in one hour, shortly after the market opened for the first time. 

HK50 index perps, listed only on MEXC, saw the steepest percentage drop in volume, by 71% to $5.7M. CRCL equity perps’ 37% drop in volume impacted overall volume, sucking $385M out of the market. The crypto bellwether declined in all nine listed markets except grvt (up 3.8% to $16.2M) and Aster (up 19.9% to $1.4M). 

A smorgasbord of hot and cold new markets this week included three hot ones on grvt, a leading RWA perps DEX. These and most of the other new offerings this week are already listed on other exchanges this newsletter tracks—with exceptions including two AI-adjacent stocks on Bitget, both manufacturing equipment used in data centers: AAOI (Applied Optoelectronics Inc., fiberoptic networking equipment) and BE (Bloom Energy Corp., fuel cells). NB: “country” is the home flag of the major traditional price discovery venue for the asset. This might get a little subjective on commodities like BRENT or COPPER, but for the most part it’s clear.

This week’s newsletter shows no change in the top five exchanges or in the positions on this chart, and not much change in the relative volumes—except that Binance and MEXC both added about a billion dollars in reported volume, while the other three exchanges declined, week over week. 

Among onchain perps venues (DEXs), only Hyperliquid has so far made it onto our broader leaderboard, competing with offshore, centralized exchanges. To better track growth in onchain markets, we’ve added this chart, which for now lists all five of the DEXs this newsletter tracks. EdgeX and Lighter swapped ranks relative to what we would have reported last week. It’s also notable that Aster, a perennial leader in DefiLlama’s perp DEX ranking by overall volume, trails these RWA perps leaders in this category.

In addition to the usual unpredictability, there’s plenty of events on the market calendar to drive volume this week. Thursday we’ll see US 4th quarter GDP, alongside earnings from AAPL, an equity perp that perennially bubbles under the top 10 and is listed on 10 of the perps exchanges this newsletter tracks. Traders following the GLP-1 narrative will be watching LLY leading into their earnings, the same day. With the volume in WTI, energy momentum traders don’t have as much need for XOM or CVX, but expect attention on both of those ahead of Friday earnings—with Bitget and MEXC listing XOM, and MEXC listing CVX. 

If you have questions about methodology or other data you’re seeking, please get in touch: [email protected].