Commodity Perps Surge, Equities Hit Volume ATH, Binance Adds 6 New Markets

Welcome to Perpetuals Weekly, a data-driven look at perpetual futures markets tracking non-crypto assets: commodities, equities, ETFs and indices. Perpetual futures have seen impressive growth in the past two quarters, often attributed to their simplicity, cost-effectiveness and 24/7 availability for leveraged, directional trading. This newsletter is for anyone watching that space. 

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This issue covers the week ending April 12, 2026, and draws on volume data from Binance, Bitget, Dreamcash and XYZ on Hyperliquid, Lighter, and OKX. If there's a ticker, exchange, or data cut you'd like to see included, reach out at [email protected].

Global oil price volatility on peace-talks optimism drove an April 7 surge in commodity perps volume. Daily commodity perps volume hit a peak of $13.8B on Tuesday before pulling back to $5.7B by Friday, then moving into the new week’s trading hours with $4.8B in volume on Sunday. Equity perps volume ran a narrower band of $900M to $1.4B per day, peaking Tuesday alongside the commodity spike. Perps markets on ETFs and indices remained a further order of magnitude behind, together averaging under $700M per day across the week.

Commodities’ dominance of RWA perps markets dates to before the start of the Iran war. It remains hard to gauge whether commodity dominance is a temporary condition or a long-term characteristic of the growing appetite for 24/7 perps markets on non-crypto assets. 

Aggregate weekly volume came in at $63.3B, up 25.7% from the prior week's $50.3B. That continues a volatile but broadly upward trend from the $21.5B recorded on these exchanges in the week of February 16. Commodities drove the gain ($52.6B versus $40.9B the prior week),  largely on WTI and GOLD. Equities volume reached $6.2B, its highest weekly volume yet in this dataset, while ETF and index volume also expanded. The week of March 23 remains the prior high-water mark for commodities at $59.4B.

WTI led all assets at $20.5B for the week, followed by GOLD at $13.6B and SILVER at $10.6B. BRENT added $7.3B. The four commodities leaders combined for $51.9B, about 82% of total weekly volume. 

Hyperliquid XYZ was the top venue for WTI, BRENT, SPX, and NDX. Binance listed the highest-volume markets in GOLD and SILVER.

Equities volume this week was led by tech blue-chips TSLA and INTC, and crypto bellwether CRCL. SPX and NDX led indices at $2.1B and $1.9B.

Week-over-week growth tracks assets that meet a minimum threshold at the 33rd percentile in prior-week volume. ORCL (+226%) was a surprise at the top of this list, driven by April 7 spikes on OKX and XYZ (but not Bitget) that tracked broader peace talks optimism but had no other known stock-specific catalyst. AAPL may have benefited from the same macro, and certainly got a boost from a new listing on Binance.

A few interesting names bubbled under our ranking and thresholds: AI-related stocks AMD, CRM and CRWV were No. 11, 12 and 13 by growth, with 58%, 49% and 44% growth to $56M, $9M and $22M, respectively. MCD on Bitget, probably one of the quirkier equity perps out there, congealed a bit down to $6.3M, after jumping like hot grease week before last, from $423K to $7.5M; worth noting for investors tracking consumer discretionary flow. 

Looking ahead: financials earnings season kicked off today with GS reporting, but there are currently no financial sector tickers listed on the equity perp exchanges tracked here. NFLX reports Thursday; it could be one to watch for both earnings-eve positioning and post-print flow. 

Seventeen new listings this week across five exchanges, with eight appearing on this list of perp exchanges for the first time: 

The Asia index listings on XYZ are the highest-profile firsts: NI225 averaged $317K/day and KS200 $60K in their first sessions.

Binance grew its list of equity and ETF perps (SNDK, MU, AAPL, TSM, QQQ, SPY), bringing day-one volume surges for these assets already covered by earlier movers. NFLX joined Bitget this week at $437K average daily volume. CRWV debuted on OKX at $346K. Early volume figures for new listings remain modest relative to the established names, but listing activity across multiple exchanges signals continued expansion of the tradeable universe.

In an RWA perps market that has been focused on the tremendous growth shown by Hyperliquid, the most notable feature of the top exchanges chart is Binance’s leadership position. Historically, centralized exchanges have outpaced onchain venues in perpetual futures volumes, by multiples. Hyperliquid’s position here in RWA perps is notable for closing that gap. The six exchanges tracked in this report are a mix of centralized and decentralized exchanges; they don’t yet reflect the full state of the non-crypto perpetuals. 

We’ll forego any predictions for the coming week, other than we expect to see consistent growth across equity and commodity perpetual futures. With that expectation in mind, we plan to add other asset categories (FX, rates) and improve the data here with broader exchange coverage beyond this initial six. 

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