Welcome back to another edition of StrataMedia Research, the series where our institutional research team breaks down some of crypto’s most important topics, providing the data, insights, and analysis that moves markets. 

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On this edition of StrataMedia Research, Jacquelyn sits down with institutional research analyst Alexander Beaudry to break down his most recent report titled Equity Perps Are Nothing Without Equity Spot. In the episode he explains how the equity perpetual futures market has grown from roughly $104.21 billion in volume in 2025 to over $1.32 trillion in 2026. He argues that while equity perps have shown an ability to predict asset prices during non-market hours, their lack of a 24/7 spot market has made it hard for arbitrageurs and market makers to align the market when equities exchanges are closed. 

Check out the conversation on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Read the full report below for a complete understanding on the promises and pitfalls of the equity perps market.

Most assets up for trade see a spot market come up first, and derivatives inevitably follow after. That has held true for gold, energy, grain, and even crypto. Equity perpetuals have strayed from that tradition. 

Instead, today we have an equity perpetuals market that offers 24/7 leveraged trading on a spot market that only operates 24/5, resulting in a weekend window during which arbitrageurs largely can’t operate. While the equity perpetual futures market has proven that it can get close to predicting the price of assets, the lack of arbitrage and the reliance on external price feeds and funding rates create specific hurdles that discourage institutions from using them.

While the market for tokenized stocks has grown alongside its perpetual counterparts — with onchain tokenized equity from leading issuers growing 265% this year to roughly $2.54 billion — these difficulties have hobbled its progress:  

Crypto exchanges saw trades of perpetual futures of traditional assets reach $1.32 trillion in the first half of 2026, compared to $104.21 billion for all of 2025. Meanwhile, spot tokenized equities recorded trades worth $52.63 billion in the same period. 

Let’s explore why this model works, where it doesn’t and what can be changed. 

Just like how some traders on prediction markets have grown skilled at predicting the outcomes of real world events, perpetuals traders have gotten good at landing at the right prices for real-world assets. 

Tiger Research found that, for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, perpetual contracts predicted the direction of the next morning's opening trades correctly 82% to 96% of the time. They sometimes also got close to how much the share price would move. A 1% move on the perp overnight lined up with a 0.93% jump when Samsung reopened, and a 1% jump for SK Hynix.

So even without active spot trading, or a base asset to tie the futures market to ground truth, the market was still able to accurately account for shifts in an asset’s price. This may prove important for predicting the effects of news events or shifts in demand outside of normal market hours, and even be useful information for institutions that trade these assets on traditional exchanges.

The Cerebras IPO is another example: Hyperliquid ran a pre-IPO perpetual futures contract on the AI chipmaker before it listed. Underwriters priced the IPO at $185, but in the final hour before the Nasdaq opened, the futures contract traded at a volume-weighted average of $354.54. When the stock started trading, it opened at $350, which put the contract within 1.3% of the actual price.

A normal futures contract has an end date, which is when it is settled against whatever a stock is actually worth. If a contract due in December drifts too far above where a stock is trading, a trader can sell the contract, buy the stock, and wait for the prices to align.

But perpetual futures contracts, as you can tell by the name, have no end date. Instead of an expiration date and set price, they use what’s called a funding rate. Each contract is tied to an index price, usually supplied by third-party data providers called “oracles”, and when it trades above that index, the traders holding long positions pay the traders holding short positions, and vice versa when the contract dips below the index price.

Such transactions are meant to pull the contract’s price back, but they only work if an arbitrageur can act. If a perp is trading rich, an arbitrageur may short the perp and buy the actual stock.  But they can only do so if both the contract and the spot market are tradeable at the same time. Which is currently not quite possible because the stock market, the machinery behind tokenized stocks, doesn’t operate around the clock. 

That’s changing, although quite slowly. Ondo and Binance currently offer 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks, but many other large issuers, such as xStocks, only let traders create and redeem tokens between Sunday evening and Friday evening. Trading activity almost disappears after that window, with total volume across onchain venues falling by 70% to 90% every weekend. 

It doesn’t help perpetuals traders that the money moves on the traditional timeline, too. A market maker who has shorted a futures contract and gone long on the actual stock may have hedged his risk on paper, but stock trades take a day or two to settle, and the banking rails that move the stock do not run on weekends. If the contract moves on a Saturday, the trader may not be able to adjust their position until Monday. 

Exchanges buy information about assets from data providers called oracles, upon which perpetual futures contracts trade. These providers stream price data about assets, which sets the price the exchange uses for everything from what a position is worth and how much margin it needs, to when it is closed.

Oracle price feeds can serve as a useful reference, but they aren’t the ultimate truth for the market, because traders can correct prices by managing their trades according to how the stock market moves. But if they’re trading, say on a Sunday when the stock market is closed, the oracle feed is the only thing tying the perpetual contract to the asset it represents. Instead of betting on the stock, traders are therefore also betting on the validity of the data feed.

Two incidents in July showed two ways in which this dependency can be exploited.

On July 15, Ostium, an RWA perpetuals exchange on Arbitrum, saw its vault drained of $23.8 million after an attacker manipulated the exchange’s oracle to submit false pricing data and traded against it. 

On July 27, a single trade on NXT, a thin Korean pre-market venue, sent Trade.xyz's SK Hynix perpetuals mark down by19%. Roughly 960 accounts were liquidated, as a result, which led to a total loss of $17 million. 

In order to support arbitrageurs and reduce the reliance on oracle price feeds, the most obvious solution is to increase 24/7 access to spot equities.

The obvious solution is for an exchange to let traders hold tokenized stocks and perpetual contracts in one account. Someone shorting a perpetual contract could post a tokenized stock against it. That would let both halves of the trade settle on the same rails, which does away with the waiting problem as well as the price feed visibility issue. 

Kraken’s acquisition of Backed Finance in December 2025 bought it one half of that solution, and Binance has been testing using tokenized stocks as collateral for derivatives.

Another way could be for issuers to let people create and redeem tokens at any time, even on the weekends. Ondo Finance and Binance's bStocks already do this, though it requires the issuer to hold or source shares around the clock, increasing operational complexity and risk for the issuer.

A third option would be for the stock market itself to stay open longer. Several venues are already moving in this direction, including 24X National Exchange, NYSE Arca and Nasdaq. Still, none have yet proposed staying open on the weekends, so while the overnight gap may be closing soon, the weekend gap will likely still be open for some time.

Equity perps offer one of the best value propositions of any blockchain use case to date: 24/7 trading and exposure to global markets for people who historically lacked access. Roughly 80% of overnight perpetual trading volume comes from the Asia Pacific, where leveraged exposure to a U.S. stock has traditionally required a broker relationship, a currency conversion, and waiting until the exchanges open.

Perpetual futures have proven that they can get very close to assets’ real-time prices. What’s missing is a way to keep that price accurate without needing to rely on a data feed that can be manipulated. 

The good news is that these problems are starting to be fixed, as we’ve covered. 

The weekend still remains a challenge. That is when prices drift the most, positions can’t be adjusted, and when traders rely on price feeds. 

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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.

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