Gold, S&P 500 emerge as top markets on perp DEXs, CryptoRank data shows

Perpetual futures on decentralized exchanges were supposed to be crypto’s thing. Bitcoin longs, Ethereum shorts, maybe a leveraged bet on the latest memecoin. That playbook is getting a serious rewrite. CryptoRank data covering the past 90 days shows that traditional assets, including gold, the S&P 500, oil, and even SpaceX, are racking up billions of dollars in volume on perp DEXs. SpaceX leads a surprising leaderboard Among non-crypto assets, SpaceX (SPCX) sits at the top with $84.6B in total trading volume over the measured period. Oil came in second at $29.1B, followed by gold at $28.5B and the S&P 500 index at $26.9B. The SpaceX number is particularly striking because the company isn’t publicly traded on any stock exchange. The only way most investors can get exposure to it is through private secondary markets, select ETFs, or, now, synthetic perpetual contracts on DeFi platforms. Some analyses indicate that tokenized and synthetic traditional assets now make up roughly 33% of total DEX perp volume. Hyperliquid’s infrastructure play Much of this activity runs through Hyperliquid, which has established itself as the dominant venue for on-chain perpetual futures. The pla...