As competition intensifies with traditional finance and decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cryptocurrency exchanges are rapidly expanding into the tokenized traditional financial asset market, Cointelegraph reported. The market capitalization of traditional asset-backed tokens, including precious metals, US stocks, commodities, global indices, and foreign exchange, increased approximately fivefold from $1.4 billion in January last year to $6.6 billion in June this year. The exchanges surveyed include major platforms such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, and MEXC. While precious metal tokens led the initial market growth, US stock products rapidly emerged thereafter. Particularly in mid-this year, US stock perpetual futures surpassed precious metal products in both trading volume and open interest, driven by semiconductor-related stocks and IPO expectations. Most of the trading was accounted for by perpetual futures, while spot trading was relatively limited. This derivatives-centric market structure is explained by investors' preference for leverage and the ability of exchanges to list perpetual futures without directly holding the underlying asset tokens.
