RWA perps market hits $117.3B in monthly volume, up 44x in a year

A year ago, perpetual futures tied to real-world assets were a niche product. In August 2026, traders pushed $117.3 billion through them in a single month, according to analysis from a16z crypto. That is a 44-fold jump year over year. Even more striking is where the activity happened: roughly 86% of it, or around $101 billion, ran through onchain venues rather than centralized exchanges. What the numbers show A quick primer first. A perpetual future, or “perp,” is a derivative that lets traders bet on an asset’s price without owning it. Unlike a traditional futures contract, it has no expiration date. The a16z crypto figures suggest that menu is popular. Monthly volume reached $117.3 billion in August 2026. That actually represented a pullback from July, when volume peaked at $145.1 billion. By the end of August, RWA perp open interest stood at $4.8 billion. In July 2025, it was just $161 million. That works out to roughly 30x growth in about a year. Stocks overtake commodities The mix of what people trade has also flipped. A year earlier, commodities dominated RWA perp activity, accounting for an 84% share of volume. By August 2026, equities had taken the lead at 48% of trading vo...