Tokenization has gotten nods of approval from the Larry Finks of the world. It’s top of mind for every large financial institution. Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton are just some of the many that have tokenized their assets. Over $34 billion worth of assets have already been tokenized and that’s excluding the $300 billion in tokenized dollars. But there is one other mechanism that’s scaling faster and I believe to be more impactful: the perpification of real world assets, or RWAs.
RWA perps hit $347 billion in volume in May, a 1,472x rise from the $230 million traded at the start of 2025. Daily open interest on DEXs alone hit a new highs of $4.5 billion in July. By the end of May, exchanges facilitated $1.32 trillion in volume, 13x what we saw in all of 2025.
Markets should be 24/7
Part of their rapid ascent is tied to crypto traders seeking exposure to RWAs like commodities and AI equities. The other factor is that perps are a better product (in many cases) than their TradFi alternatives such as futures for commodities and options for equities.
