Glassnode and Fasanara Digital map TradFi’s move into crypto derivatives in Q4 2026 report

Glassnode and Fasanara Digital have released their Q4 2026 Digital Asset Report. It examines how digital asset market structure is changing as the fourth quarter gets underway. The headline finding: traditional finance is increasingly using crypto derivatives. Perpetual contracts tied to stocks, gold and oil are growing on major trading venues. What the report covers The joint report spans four areas: liquidity, derivatives, tokenized assets and institutional flows. Its stated audience is allocators, meaning the people who decide where large pools of capital go. The derivatives finding deserves the most attention. Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are a crypto-native invention. They work like a standard futures contract with no expiration date. Instead of settling on a fixed day, perps use periodic funding payments between longs and shorts. Those payments keep the contract price close to the underlying asset. Now, according to the report, venues are listing perps on equities, gold and oil, and that activity is growing. Who is behind the numbers Glassnode is an on-chain analytics firm. It reads data directly from public blockchains to track how coins move, who holds them and how long t...