US stocks’ open interest hits $2B on crypto exchanges, surpassing precious metals for the first time

For most of 2025, gold was king on crypto exchanges. Precious metals perpetual futures rode a wave of record commodity prices, drawing traders who wanted 24/7 leveraged exposure without touching a traditional brokerage account. That reign is over. As of June 30, 2026, open interest in US stock perpetual futures on major centralized crypto exchanges hit $2.01B, overtaking precious metals at $1.69B. The crossover happened on June 18, and the gap has only widened since. A 77-fold surge in 18 months The broader category of traditional finance assets traded on crypto exchanges, sometimes called “crypto TradFi,” has grown at a pace that makes even crypto-native rallies look modest. Total open interest across six tracked exchanges climbed from roughly $60M in January 2025 to $4.67B by the end of June 2026. That’s a 77-fold increase in about a year and a half. Trading volume tells an even more dramatic story. In the first half of 2026 alone, combined spot and perpetual futures volume for TradFi products reached $1.45 trillion, approximately 10 times the entire volume recorded across all of 2025. US stocks in particular saw a volume spike of 337% month-over-month in June 2026, landing at $1...