Primitive Ventures: Why Are We Optimistic About On-Chain Perpetual US Stocks?

Author: YettaS, Partner at Primitive Ventures

As gold and silver continue to hit new highs, Trade.xyz’s daily trading volume approaches 2 billion USD, and Binance almost unhesitatingly launches TSLA perpetual contracts, the trend becomes hard to ignore: Traditional financial assets are becoming a new gateway for the crypto market to absorb global liquidity.

Just a year ago, most CEX operators probably couldn’t accept the fact that: An onchain trading venue can leverage TradFi assets as a wedge to begin directly eroding and reshaping the core territory of centralized exchanges.

We all know that crypto funds are inherently volatile; from a product structure perspective, equity perp is precisely at the intersection of several key upgrades, which is the fundamental reason it stands out in this cycle:

• With CBOE / CME gradually accepting crypto in-kind margin this year, the liquidity and availability of crypto assets as collateral will significantly improve.
• Once DTCC establishes a direct onchain connection, the settlement layer will begin to permeate onto the chain, providing a native onchain settlement channel for stock assets from the source.
• The truly interesting part follows: tokenized stocks as collateral → perpetual exchanges accepting → institutions systematically engaging in basis farming.

Onshore issuance, offshore distribution

The US has never exported finance by exporting financial institutions themselves, but by exporting “access rights”. The petrodollar system disperses dollars globally, spilling inflationary pressures; stablecoins replicate this logic by wholesale US debt, turning the entire world into new USD holders without the need for banks or brokers. Onchain stocks are the next step in this logic. From unbanked to unbrokered, USD assets will once again be dumped globally.

CEXs saw the opportunity and potential threat early on, thus chose to expand first. Ondo and xStocks focus on issuance—connecting with brokerages, custody of real stocks, and minting 1:1 tokenized stocks across multiple chains—but it has proven that issuance alone does not automatically create a market.

The first wave of genuine demand comes from traders who cannot access the US brokerage system and crypto-native users seeking US stock exposure without relying on TradFi infrastructure. Issuers have completed the most critical compliance and custody work, but the funds flow to the side that truly controls trading attention and distribution. Offshore platforms embed products directly into trading interfaces, naturally attracting trading volume. Ultimately, we see the vast majority of tokenized stock trading volume concentrated on BNB Chain, accounting for over 80%.

If offshore spot markets unlock retail demand, onchain equity perp further attracts professional traders’ flow. These users are global trading participants who want to trade or hedge US stocks without being limited by broker access, trading hours, or jurisdiction.

Take HIP-3 as an example, which provides professional traders with a systematic basis trading interface, capturing cross-market dislocations, covering stocks, crypto assets, and indices. Under the overlay of potential airdrop incentives, trading volume continues to hit new highs.

The golden window for onchain stock perpetuals

Once the spot anchor exists, perpetual contracts almost always become the most efficient trading tool, for the reasons as straightforward as ever:

• 24/7 trading, no market hours restrictions
• Cross-asset margining, highly capital efficient
• High leverage allowing true risk appetite to be expressed
• Can be integrated into DeFi strategies
• Provides a clear margin pathway for RWA / tokenized assets

The entire tech stack is rapidly taking shape:

Infrastructure

• HIP-3 / HyperCore: high-performance order book engine supporting any perp market
• Orderly: unified full-chain order book, anyone can launch perp without code
• Chainlink: stock price oracle (core data layer)

Platforms

• Trade.xyz: based on HIP-3, currently the largest equity perp DEX
• Ostium: FX / commodities / stocks, leaning towards CFD structure
• Ventuals: pre-IPO market (HIP-3)
• Felix / Vest / Aster / Architect: each with different focuses on settlement, coverage, and distribution

Terminals

• Based: multi-asset interface aggregating Hyperliquid, HIP-3, and prediction markets
• Frontends like Phantom / Metamask: converting wallet traffic into trading activity

Looking ahead, the focus is shifting from “tokenization” to “money velocity,” where real onchain GDP will be generated. The ultimate winners will not just be those capable of minting onchain packaged assets, but those who can scale by transforming any asset into usable collateral, providing the deepest liquidity, and the most efficient matching / risk control engines.

The future can be envisioned as a global unified “margin network”: Bitcoin, US stocks, gold, US bonds are no longer locked within their respective systems but are like building blocks, always ready to be used as collateral; perpetual contracts become the most universal risk expression tools; stablecoins play the role of cash; various trading and arbitrage strategies operate 24/7 on-chain, continuously combining. Assets are no longer “held,” but constantly called upon.

Racing against time

The window has opened, but the time left for onchain equity perp is limited. The biggest threat is not demand, but the official release of onshore products. History repeatedly proves that once regulators give the nod, distribution will quickly flow back into the existing brokerage system—0DTE options are the most direct example: after approval, they were rapidly absorbed and dominated by Robinhood.

More importantly, the countdown has begun. SEC and CFTC are systematically studying perpetual derivatives, their market structure, and risks, which usually means regulatory boundaries are being actively outlined. Meanwhile,

• Bitnomial has become the first CFTC-compliant perp
• Coinbase has also launched 5-year futures with funding mechanisms, which are almost indistinguishable from perp in trading behavior.

Offshore and onchain players still lead only because products have not yet been standardized. Once rules are established, advantages will quickly fade. The real opportunity lies not in waiting for certainty, but in locking in users and liquidity while the window remains open, and shaping rules through rapid iteration and regulatory collaboration. Time is not just a background variable but a core constraint that determines victory or defeat, and the countdown has already begun.

Just as Tether once leveraged crypto’s distribution ability to quietly push USD worldwide, today’s onchain economy is essentially doing the same—using crypto market liquidity and trading tools to deliver US stocks and US assets to a broader audience with higher frequency, higher leverage, and higher liquidity. Onchain is not opposing offchain but rewriting the operation of the existing system with faster speeds and greater capital efficiency. The real watershed is whether one can seize this mechanism in time and complete the cognition and deployment of the new frontier onchain.