A real-world-asset perpetual is a perpetual futures contract that tracks the price of a traditional asset. The contract carries no expiration date and settles in a stablecoin.
The contract price comes from an oracle feed that reports the real-world price and is used to set entry, exit and liquidation levels. A funding rate keeps the contract price aligned with the oracle price of the underlying asset: when the perpetual trades above the oracle price, longs pay shorts, and when it trades below, shorts pay longs.
There is no closing bell. RWA perpetuals trade continuously, a structural break from the assets they track, since the stock market closes on Friday and the perpetual does not. Decentralized exchanges have also excelled in facilitating price discovery for real-world assets like crude oil, especially on weekends when traditional exchanges are closed.
Perpetuals give price exposure; they are not ownership of the underlying asset. A tokenized version of the same asset is an on-chain representation that an issuer actually custodies, while the perpetual settles gains and losses in stablecoins without ever holding the asset.
Commodities accounted for between 69.7% and 95.3% of monthly RWA perpetual volume over a six-month stretch in CoinGecko's RWA Report 2026. Gold and oil are where the real liquidity sits.
Canborsa lists real-world-asset perpetuals alongside its other markets, charging 0.07% per side with funding settled every hour across all 86 markets.
An RWA perpetual is a perpetual futures contract that gives leveraged, long-or-short exposure to a traditional asset, settled entirely in stablecoins with no expiration date.
An oracle feed reports the real-world price of the underlying asset, and a funding rate keeps the contract price aligned with that oracle price.
Yes. RWA perpetuals trade continuously even when the underlying market, such as a stock exchange, is closed for the weekend.
No. Perpetuals give price exposure only; they are not ownership of the underlying asset.
Perpetual markets for stocks, gold, indices and pre-IPO names — settled on-chain, no wallet-to-exchange transfers.
