Perpetual Futures Now Rule Crypto Trading as Volumes Sink to a 31-Month Low

Everyone says everything is becoming a perp. They're right about the direction and wrong about what it means. This week I worked through why crypto's loudest growth story is really a story about share, not size: who actually collects the tolls, and the one number on the venue everyone calls cheap that's off by roughly half.

— Jeff Albus

Perpetual Futures Now Rule Crypto Trading as Volumes Sink to a 31-Month Low

Perpetual futures are winning the crypto market, but the prize is smaller than it was a year ago.

Stocks, indexes, gold and pre-IPO names have begun trading as round-the-clock perpetual contracts, and on venues almost entirely unknown to investors a year ago. The share numbers are a bit of a land grab, but they don't really represent growth. In fact, the market these contracts are taking over seems to be shrinking beneath them.

The drain is happening everywhere except the price. When a firmware flaw turned Coldcard hardware wallets into a nine-figure theft in late July, holders ran for the exits, sending their coins to exchanges and fresh wallets in order to get out from under a single compromised vendor. Over a short few days, roughly 210,000 bitcoin left long-term-holder wallets in the largest exodus since December 2024.

But as far as price was concerned, it barely moved the tape. Bitcoin remains right where it's been all summer, hovering around $63,500, or about 50% below its October high. This in the same interim when the stock market has been setting records. A market that doesn't flinch at a shock like that has no marginal buyer left. What is still moving is moving between venues, not into the asset, and the busiest venue left is the perp.

In this issue, subscribers get:

• The contraction: centralized perp volume just hit a 31-month low and onchain perps fell 21% in a month. Why “everything is becoming a perp” is a statement about share, not growth.

• The hollow spine: bitcoin's carry trade has paid less than a 2-year Treasury for over 165 days, a stretch matched only once, in 2022-23. Why that collapse is the engine, and why the precedent is usually quoted wrong.

• The mirage test: July's tokenized-stock “surge” was mostly one zero-fee promo token, and what it leaves behind flips the growth story negative. Plus the dated test that settles it on August 31.

• Who actually collects the tolls: one venue clears 40% of onchain perps, but it is cheaper on screen than in reality, a major bank says its share is under attack, and the deployer behind most of its growth has no backstop.

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