Trading in crypto-platform derivatives linked to public equities climbed to roughly $1.75 trillion in cumulative volume between January and Aug. 25, 2026, as activity shifted rapidly from metal-linked contracts toward U.S. and South Korean stocks, according to data compiled by RootData. Monthly turnover rose from about $11.6 billion in January to more than $600 billion by Aug. 25, placing equity-linked contracts at the center of a fast-expanding corner of crypto-market trading.
July produced the largest monthly total in RootData’s dataset, with $664.4 billion in equity-derivatives turnover. That was about 57 times January’s volume. August remained above $600 billion before the month had ended, suggesting the July increase was not simply a brief burst of activity around a small number of listings.
Equity contracts took most of TradFi-linked activity
The acceleration became pronounced in June, when monthly volume reached $322 billion after $73.3 billion in May. RootData calculated that June’s daily average trading volume increased 353.9% from the previous month.
The growth coincided with a change in the products attracting the most activity. Earlier in 2026, precious-metals contracts linked to gold and silver accounted for more of the trading in crypto-linked traditional-finance products. By midyear, the focus had moved toward contracts tracking listed companies, including U.S. technology names and South Korean equities, as well as leveraged exchange-traded fund products.
Equity derivatives accounted for less than 20% of activity in this product category early in the year, RootData said. Their share climbed to nearly 75% in June and exceeded 80% in both July and August.
That concentration suggests that traders increasingly used crypto-native derivatives venues to express views on familiar equity benchmarks and individual corporate names, rather than treating these products primarily as an alternative way to trade commodities. The pattern also places liquidity and risk management around a relatively narrow set of stock-linked contracts, especially during periods of heightened volatility in technology shares.
Open interest rose in stock-linked names
Trading volume measures contracts changing hands, while open interest measures the value of positions that remain open. RootData recorded several substantial open-interest peaks across equity-linked contracts during the summer.
SK Hynix’s contract, listed under the ticker SKHYNIX, reached an open-interest high of $875 million in late July. In August, contracts linked to SpaceX and SanDisk reached peaks of about $910 million and $1.73 billion, respectively.
The SanDisk figure was the largest among the contract-specific peaks cited by RootData. Open-interest growth can indicate sustained positioning rather than short-term turnover, though it does not reveal whether traders were predominantly betting on gains or declines. Large outstanding positions can also make a market more sensitive to rapid moves, liquidations, or changes in available order-book liquidity.
The mix of names in the dataset points to demand extending beyond the largest U.S. listed companies. RootData’s pricing sample included Apple, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Arm and Amazon, alongside the QQQ and SPY ETFs. It also covered MicroStrategy and Circle, two companies closely watched by digital-asset market participants because of their direct or indirect exposure to the sector.
Binance led turnover among four tracked venues
Across Binance, Bitget, OKX and Bybit, Binance accounted for $853.58 billion of equity-derivatives turnover from January through Aug. 25, RootData found. That represented 61.3% of the four-venue total.
Bitget ranked second with $270.85 billion, or 19.5% of volume, followed by OKX with $234.39 billion, or 16.8%. Bybit recorded $33.41 billion, representing 2.4%.
The distribution was similarly concentrated in open interest. Between July 25 and Aug. 25, Binance’s average daily open interest was $3.35 billion, equal to 69.1% of the total across the four venues tracked. Bitget averaged $790 million, while OKX averaged $530 million and Bybit averaged $180 million.
Such concentration means the depth and resilience of the market depend heavily on the largest platforms. A contract can appear broadly available across venues while much of the active positioning and executable liquidity remains in one or two order books.
Liquidity and listings show different competitive strengths
RootData’s measure of order-book liquidity, using weighted depth within 2% above and below the market price, placed Binance first with an average of $10.10 million per day. Bitget followed at $4.82 million, ahead of OKX at $3.87 million and Bybit at $1.16 million.
Binance and Bitget therefore carried more than 70% of the combined weighted depth in the four-venue sample. Deeper order books can reduce the price impact of larger trades, although conditions can change quickly around corporate earnings, macroeconomic releases or sharp movements in the underlying stock market.
Bitget posted the narrowest weighted bid-ask spread across a sample of more than 10 heavily traded contracts, at 0.0144%, according to RootData. Binance was close behind at 0.0145%, followed by OKX at 0.0154%. Bybit’s weighted spread was 0.0237%.
The small gap among the three leading venues indicates that quoted pricing was broadly competitive for the most actively traded names. Liquidity was not evenly distributed across all contracts, however, and the depth figures show a more substantial lead for Binance and Bitget.
Contract availability told a different story. As of Aug. 25, Bitget listed 298 equity-linked contracts, the largest count in RootData’s comparison. Bybit listed 206, Binance 170 and OKX 156. A larger catalogue gives traders more individual names and sector exposures, while turnover data shows that the bulk of activity remained concentrated in a smaller set of high-demand contracts and venues.
The rapid growth in stock-linked derivatives adds another layer of connection between crypto-market infrastructure and conventional equity pricing. With monthly turnover now measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, movements in prominent stocks, ETFs and related macroeconomic events are likely to command greater attention from traders active on these platforms.
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