Recently, HTX Ventures, the global investment arm of Huobi HTX, released a new research report titled "RWA Perps: A New Expansion Direction for the On-Chain Global Financial Market," systematically analyzing the explosive logic, technical architecture, and competitive landscape of RWA perpetual contracts in 2026.

HTX Ventures believes that RWA Perps is a key step for on-chain finance to transition from "asset on-chain" to "risk on-chain." It embeds the price fluctuations of global macro assets such as gold, crude oil, US stocks, and indices into the blockchain in the form of perpetual contracts, where users trade not the ownership of assets but the global macro volatility. This marks a migration of the trading coordinate system.

From "Asset On-Chain" to "Price On-Chain": Two Fundamentally Different Paths

Understanding the eruption of RWA Perps requires first clarifying a fundamental cognitive gap. Tokenized Real World Assets (Tokenized RWA) follow the "asset on-chain" path: tokenize real assets, where user-held tokens represent ownership or profit rights to the underlying assets, involving custody, compliance authentication, redemption mechanisms, and other complete off-chain infrastructure, with high listing thresholds and long cycles. RWA Perps, on the other hand, follow the "price on-chain" path: providing price exposure for off-chain assets through perpetual contracts, allowing traders to leverage trade on price movements without the need to hold or custody the underlying assets.

This difference has unleashed explosive demand. Lack of ownership means lower compliance thresholds and faster listing speeds; 24/7 trading fills the liquidity gap in traditional markets, addressing issues like US stock weekend closures and the absence of overnight trading in crude oil on-chain; and through on-chain stablecoin collateralization, users can engage in low-cost leverage trading of traditional high-threshold assets like gold and US stocks without the need for opening overseas brokerage accounts or undergoing cumbersome KYC processes.

Explosive 2026: Quarterly Trading Volume Surpasses Last Year's Annual Volume

In the first quarter of 2026, RWA Perps officially moved beyond the experimental stage. The quarterly trading volume reached $524.8 billion, surpassing the full-year 2025 volume of $313 billion in just one quarter, while the average daily open interest simultaneously increased 5.6 times to $48.2 billion. The core force driving this inflection point is the "permissionless market deployment" brought by the Hyperliquid HIP-3 protocol. It compressed the on-chain RWA asset listing process from months of approval to minutes, directly triggering the demand release of the entire track.

This outbreak was the result of the resonance of four long-term driving forces and a sudden catalytic event. The scale accumulated by tokenization over the past year and more has allowed users to cross the trust threshold for "on-chain non-crypto assets"; the introduction of mature assets such as gold, oil, and US stocks onto the blockchain has reduced traders' learning curve; the crypto community's deep familiarity with the perpetual contract paradigm has made the switch to RWA assets almost seamless; and engineering breakthroughs in oracles and pricing oracles have addressed early pain points such as market closure gaps and tail liquidity.

The real "live test" occurred over a weekend in March 2026. When a US military operation against Iran coincided with a weekend window and the traditional oil market came to a complete standstill, the CME's WTI price remained in the $91 to $92 range at Friday's close, with no mechanism to absorb this sudden information shock. Meanwhile, on-chain oil perpetual contracts rapidly rose to the $96 to $109 range within hours and touched nearly $115 as the conflict escalated. Within 48 hours, the on-chain market became the only globally effective mechanism for oil price discovery. When the traditional markets reopened on Monday, the CME oil price gapped down directly to align with the on-chain weekend price range, with the traditional market's opening price largely serving as a lagging confirmation of the on-chain price. This event transformed "24/7 trading" from a product selling point to a pressure-tested real infrastructure capability.

Pricing Power Shift: On-Chain Market Triumphs in Real IPO for the First Time

The expansion of RWA Perps follows a logic from "simple high-frequency" to "complex low-frequency": from commodity dominance to stock and ETF expansion, and then to the currently most-watched Pre-IPO frontier. In May 2026, AI chip company Cerebras listed on Nasdaq with an opening price of $350; prior to this, on-chain Pre-IPO perpetual contracts quoted $340 one hour before listing, with a margin of error of only 2.9% from the actual opening price. Meanwhile, Hiive, an institutional secondary platform for qualified investors, quoted around $220, approximately 37% lower than the actual opening price. The on-chain market's pricing accuracy for private companies was first validated to be superior to traditional institutional secondary markets in a real IPO.

Huobi HTX's Positioning: Building a Full-Category TradFi Matrix from Commodities to US Stocks

In this race, CEX and DEX are clearly taking on distinct roles. As of mid-May 2026, the total weekly trading volume of RWA Perps across the entire market reached $55.9 billion, with CEX accounting for 71.6%, a proportion that was less than 15% just six months ago—CEX is becoming the core channel for RWA Perps to reach mainstream users.

Huobi HTX's TradFi product line is a typical example of observing CEX's strategic intent. In February 2026, Huobi HTX officially launched the TradFi perpetual contract section, with the product format identical to crypto perpetuals: USDT-settled, no expiration date, 24/7 trading, supporting leverage, and cross or isolated margin. The initial focus was on commodities and quickly expanded to cover US stocks and major indices.

As of June 9, 2026, Huobi HTX's TradFi section has listed a total of 96 assets, forming a clear three-tier structure. Precious metals and energy form the base, with gold, silver, platinum, palladium, WTI and Brent crude oil, copper, natural gas, and other varieties successively added. The US stock individual stock layer has the widest coverage, with tech mainstays like NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, TSMC, etc., traditional blue chips like JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway simultaneously listed, and also includes cross-concept stocks such as CoreWeave, Circle, Coinbase, MicroStrategy linking crypto and TradFi. The index and ETF layer cover the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, QQQ, SPY, and Ashmore MSCI Korea, Japan, and other cross-market varieties, with ongoing expansion.

Relying on a centralized matching engine with low latency and depth, Huobi HTX seamlessly integrates TradFi contracts into the trading interface familiar to crypto users, significantly lowering the cognitive barrier. This forms a clear division of labor with DEX: CEX is responsible for user acquisition and popularization, while DEX caters to users and funds with a clear demand for decentralization. These two are not in a zero-sum competition but are expanding the overall market boundary together.

Conclusion

The rapid expansion of RWA Perps has not masked its structural constraints—oracle accuracy, market closure gaps, liquidity directional risks, dual regulatory barriers, each layer is a potential breaking point. The long-term winner in this race lies not in the speed of trading volume expansion but in the depth of risk management and compliance architecture. The direction, however, is clear: as on-chain markets begin to handle global macro asset price discovery and prove their effectiveness in extreme market conditions and real IPOs, the boundary between on-chain finance and the global capital market is being redefined. Huobi HTX's early positioning in TradFi perpetual contracts is a proactive response by leading trading platforms to this long-term trend.

About HTX Ventures

HTXVentures is the global investment arm of Huobi HTX, integrating investment, incubation, and research to identify the world's best and brightest teams. As an industry pioneer, HTX Ventures has over 11 years of blockchain development experience, excelling at identifying cutting-edge technology and emerging business models in the field. To drive growth within the blockchain ecosystem, we provide comprehensive support to projects, including funding, resources, and strategic advice.

HTX Ventures currently supports over 300 projects covering multiple blockchain fields, with some high-quality projects already trading on the Huobi HTX exchange. Additionally, as one of the most active FOF funds, HTX Ventures has invested in 30 top funds globally and partnered with leading global blockchain funds such as Polychain, Dragonfly, Bankless, Gitcoin, Figment, Nomad, Animoca, and Hack VC to jointly build the blockchain ecosystem.

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