Tuesday Insights: Perps Go Mainstream ₿ A market structure built for crypto is rapidly spreading across stocks, commodities and FX. 01 | No Expiry Traditional futures eventually settle. Keeping the same exposure means rolling into another contract, often across several available maturities. BitMEX removed that step with XBTUSD in 2016: one leveraged swap with no expiry, kept close to spot through periodic funding. 02 | Why It Won By August 2026, perps accounted for 84% of crypto derivatives volume, averaging $116B per day against $17B for dated futures. Keeping activity in a continuous contract also avoids splitting liquidity across an expiry ladder, making the format especially suited to active trading. 03 | Crossing Over A year ago, market data tracked just 16 equity, ETF and index perps across three exchanges. By August, that had jumped to 584 across 16 venues, expanding into stocks, gold, oil, currencies and other markets. Daily RWA perp volume reached $18.8B by September. 04 | Outside the Cycle That growth continued even as crypto perp activity declined. RWA contracts reached 18.5% of futures volume across tracked venues, giving exchanges trading activity less dependent on the crypto cycle. Institutional access is following, with Ripple Prime now offering 24/7 swaps across 100+ traditional reference markets. 📌 Key takeaway Perps are becoming a cross-asset trading format.