Crypto▲ Bullish
US stock perps pass $2B open interest, overtake precious metals
US stock perp open interest hit $2.01B, overtaking precious metals. Perps were 98.5% of crypto TradFi volume in June; first-half flow hit $1.45T.
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Perpetual futures tied to US stocks now hold more open interest on centralized crypto exchanges than precious metals, a crossover that happened on June 18 and has widened since. The contracts give traders leveraged exposure around the clock, without a traditional brokerage account.
Open interest in US stock perps stood at $2.01B on June 30, against $1.69B for precious metals, according to CoinGecko data. The broader category of traditional finance assets traded on crypto exchanges, sometimes called crypto TradFi, has grown quickly. Total open interest across six tracked exchanges climbed from roughly $60M in January 2025 to $4.67B by the end of June 2026, a 77-fold increase.
Precious metals led the category for most of 2025, when record commodity prices pulled in traders. The lead flipped in June, when equity contracts overtook metals. Volume tells the same story: combined spot and perpetual futures trading in TradFi products hit $1.45 trillion in the first half of 2026, about ten times the total across all of 2025. US stock perps alone recorded $189.84B in June, up 337% month-over-month. Precious metals peaked earlier, at $236.76B in March, before fading.
Semiconductor stocks and anticipation around high-profile IPOs, including SpaceX, appear to be the main catalysts, the report said.