New Pre-IPO Perps on Anthropic & OpenAI | MEXC Goes All in

Welcome to issue No. 2 of Perpetuals Weekly, a digest covering the growing markets in commodity, index, ETF, and equity perpetual futures (perps). This week’s issue covers volume spikes and new listings in pre-IPO stocks Anthropic and OpenAI, and related, retail-driven trades in FLY, BIRD and HOOD. (No, falconry is not the common thread.) 

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We integrated data from two new exchanges this week to our coverage: MEXC, a volume leader, and Coinbase International, representing a US firm’s activity in RWA perps (via a Bermuda entity). If you got last week’s newsletter and you’re paying attention, you might notice some discrepancies: week-over-week comparisons here are vs. historical data on all nine exchanges, not vs. the smaller set of exchanges covered last week. 

The full list is now Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase International, Dreamcash and XYZ on Hyperliquid, Lighter, MEXC, and OKX. This issue covers the week ending April 19, 2026. 

If there's a ticker, exchange, or data cut you'd like to see included, reach out at [email protected].

RWA perps markets had a normal weekend, ignoring a $292M bridge exploit of the Kelp liquid staking protocol. They tracked macro dynamics as expected, with perps volume only picking up into the teens of billions on one day, Friday, on the nine exchanges Perpetuals Weekly tracks. That was the same day the S&P 500 crossed 7,100 for the first time and the Nasdaq Composite entered its longest consecutive winning streak since 1992. Commodities dominated volume as usual, but their share of RWA perps volume vs other asset classes declined slightly, with equities gaining 1.6 percentage points, to account for 9.3% of the market.

Perps volume swung down by 24% amid declining volatility and increasing optimism about Mideast stability in the broader financial markets. The past five weeks show a baseline around $60B in weekly volume in ETF, index, commodity and equity perps on the nine exchanges tracked here—spiking above $75 billion on weeks when the fear index spikes. The week starting today may return to that pattern: the VIX bumped back up above 19 in morning trading on Monday, before giving back a bit later in the day. (Perps traders who want VIX exposure may have to wait. There’s a Hyperliquid listing on Trade[XYZ], but it’s not showing any trading, yet.)

Gold traded places with WTI oil for the top ranking in commodity perps volume; the top markets were on MEXC and Binance, respectively. (Trade[XYZ] on Hyperliquid had the top market in BRENT oil.) HOOD replaced INTC among equity perps in the top 10. Both moves line up with risk-on movement: Declining volumes in oil perps track the broader two-week rotation back into tech growth stocks and HOOD’s rise tracks a renewed appetite for memetic stock trades. (More on BIRD and a few aerospace stocks under new listings, below.) Tech blue chip NVDA bubbled under, followed by INTC and SNDK in the 12 and 13 spots by volume, and then crypto bellwether COIN.

Reported volumes in MEXC’s HK50 market shot up without a known catalyst in the Hong Kong stock market, and no other HK50 perps market in our data set for comparison. HIMS wasn’t far behind, riding a perpetuals volume tide that followed the peptide stock trade as enthusiasm for MAHA-pumped supplements pushed Hims & Hers stock up 48% on the week to an Apr 17 close at $28.82. Volume there was led by Hyperliquid trading on Trade[XYZ]. Semiconductor ETF SOXL was the distant runner-up in growth, following its listing the prior week on Bitget, which still has the only SOXL market we track.

RKLB is another one to watch. It was the third fastest-growing RWA perps asset this week, led by volume on MEXC, trailed by Bitget, which just added RKLB the prior week. Exchanges are setting up perps markets on aerospace stocks as anticipation grows ahead of a planned SpaceX IPO: check the new listings section, below, for more on pre-IPO stocks and aerospace. 

MEXC added two new pre-IPO equity perps, Anthropic and OpenAI, following a SpaceX perps market, which began trading there March 8. They’re not the first pre-IPO perps: Ventuals has all 3 on Hyperliquid; Helix has Anthropic and SpaceX, all active since the fall. Private market data sources exist, including Caplight, but MEXC is pulling prices from the Ventuals markets, some of which are at times reporting thinner volume than what MEXC has reported, as averaged in the table above. 

Space-related: two new aerospace equity perps listed this week: FLY on Bitget and ASTS on MEXC. Back in our atmosphere, Trade[XYZ] was quick to list BIRD after its memetic run-up on a sneakers-to-AI pivot. And someone at MEXC must have been reading this newsletter last week when we were noting a lack of financials equity perps. You love to see it, but WFC wouldn’t have been our first choice in the bulge bracket.

The addition of MEXC somewhat changes the makeup of our top exchanges tracker: they have dozens more RWA perps listings than any other exchange we track, but still got outpaced in volume by relative newcomer Binance, this week, with a much smaller number of markets. Trade[XYZ] on Hyperliquid is still the only DEX posting volume in the same league as centralized exchanges.

TSLA earnings this Wednesday 👀

We’ll add more exchanges in the coming weeks, prioritizing volume leaders and a mix that includes onchain and offchain exchanges, operating under a representative set of regulatory regimes. 

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