The narrative of the crypto world "a gust of wind" is not as good as trading US stocks on Perp DEX?

Written by: seedly.eth

'On-chain US stocks' is not a new concept, but in the context of the recent consolidation in the crypto market and the lack of clear direction for mainstream coins, this sector remains a hot trading area.

In the past year, many projects in the market have gradually attempted to bring US stock indices, government bond yields, and even individual stocks onto the blockchain. However, most of these products remain in the “shadow asset” stage: either the price sources are overly reliant on oracle systems, or the trading depth is insufficient, or there are still significant price discrepancies with traditional markets, making it difficult to be considered a truly “substitutable market.”

The HIP-3 upgrade of Hyperliquid seems to be a turning point. This upgrade technically allows for the permissionless creation of native on-chain order book perpetual markets, which to some extent ends the traditional asset trading on-chain that mainly relies on synthetic assets or oracle-driven models, providing another possibility for building an independent market with self-price discovery capabilities on-chain.

Taking the XYZ 100 launched by TradeXYZ as an example: since its launch, its trading volume has continued to rise, with daily transaction amounts stabilizing at tens of millions of dollars, and the open interest limit has increased from the initial 25 million dollars to 60 million dollars.

Background

TradeXYZ, as a native protocol incubated by the Unit ecosystem on Hyperliquid, focuses on bringing real-world assets (RWA) - such as U.S. stocks, indices, etc. - into on-chain trading scenarios through tokenization. The protocol supports both spot and perpetual contract trading modes, integrating Unit Protocol to handle the liquidity and settlement of spot assets. Users can deposit, withdraw, and trade using USDC, with its core product currently being equity-based perpetual contracts built on the HIP-3 standard, aiming to bridge traditional financial markets with decentralized trading experiences.

XYZ 100 is a full-chain CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) model that supports up to 20x leverage and 24/7 trading. Prices are anchored through the Nasdaq futures oracle of CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange), and during non-trading hours, an 8-hour EMA (Exponential Moving Average) is used to smooth prices to avoid extreme fluctuations.

HIP-3 is officially launched around October 13, 2025, and TradeXYZ will almost simultaneously launch XYZ 100, with alpha access available only to the first 100 whitelisted users (who need to accumulate a trading volume of over 5 million USD on Hyperliquid).

In just two days, XYZ 100's trading volume exceeded 63 million USD, with an OI of 15 million USD, far surpassing other RWA perpetual contract DEXs.

Why are crypto traders turning to the US stock market?

First of all, the “high volatility and low certainty” of cryptocurrency is being crushed by the “steady growth” of the US stock market: Although there are signs of institutional accumulation for BTC, the “leverage collapse” on October 11 has left retail investors feeling apprehensive.

Currently, the US stock market is booming. This week, the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq indices have set new historical highs for three consecutive trading days. Meanwhile, on-chain trading platforms are attracting global investors with their unique advantages: through 24/7 uninterrupted trading, no KYC verification, and up to 20x leverage, users from different time zones such as Asia and Europe can adjust their positions at any time, completely breaking free from the constraints of the traditional T+1 settlement mechanism and weekend market closures.

However, the daily trading volume of traditional Nasdaq E-mini futures on CME still reaches hundreds of billions of dollars, while the size of on-chain assets is comparatively just a “decimal point digit.”

The competition in the on-chain US stock track

With the rise of this wave, the entire on-chain US stock ecosystem is rapidly evolving, with multiple protocols entering the market from different angles:

On Solana and BNB Chain, xStocks offers spot trading for over 80 US stocks/ETFs through its alliance ecosystem, allowing users to directly collateralize and lend Apple or Tesla tokens. The protocol's cumulative trading volume has exceeded $2 billion, accounting for 58.4% of the tokenized stock trading volume in 2025, with over 30,000 daily active users, gradually capturing retail market share from Robinhood.

Derive.xyz focuses on multi-chain options and perpetual contracts, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and some RWA indices, attracting advanced players with its institutional-grade tools and real-time oracles. Although the fees are high and the learning curve is steep, the total trading volume has reached 18.6 billion USD, with the monthly average trading volume of the RWA perpetual sub-market maintaining at 500 million USD.

Kraken xStocks has received preliminary approval from the SEC with the backing of the exchange and is migrating to layer two networks such as Arbitrum to enhance composability. Its cumulative trading volume has surpassed $5 billion, with unique holders exceeding 37,000, covering over 60 assets. However, the non-fully on-chain custody model still carries centralization risks.

Vest Markets takes an alternative approach, focusing on reducing slippage issues in weekend trading through the RFQ filling mechanism, with a 24-hour trading volume of $34.05 million. Its blockchain audit and LP incentive model are innovative, but the current market depth still appears insufficient.

The Ostium based on Arbitrum provides a fully on-chain experience for synthetic RWA perpetual contracts, having expanded from US stocks to commodities such as crude oil and gold. The protocol's TVL growth rate exceeds 150%, with a perpetual contract trading volume of $2.36 billion in Q1, offering an important option for zero KYC entry users.

Risks and Challenges

Of course, all of this is not without controversy.

Ostium Labs co-founder Kaledora pointed out that the model for reconstructing market depth on-chain order books is more suitable for crypto-native assets than for traditional financial assets, as the latter has a more stable, centralized, and deeper liquidity structure. In Kaledora's view, a better solution is the “on-chain brokerage model”: directly referencing the price depth of TradFi markets and accessing it through on-chain channels, rather than attempting to rebuild an order book on-chain to compete with the CME.

Additionally, there are risks associated with Oracle & manipulation. During non-trading hours, on-chain prices rely on algorithms to smooth trends, but this is not foolproof. Previously, PAXG gold contracts experienced abnormal price fluctuations that led to the liquidation of millions of dollars in positions, which served as a warning for all RWA products - when the market is closed but on-chain trading is still occurring, the risk of price deviation does indeed exist.

The uncertainty of regulation is also concerning. The U.S. SEC is examining the compliance of these on-chain U.S. stock products, and if they are ultimately classified as securities, then existing DeFi protocols may need to apply for the corresponding licenses. Although many projects are already exploring compliant pathways, most still operate in a regulatory gray area.

Summary

The crypto world once entertained itself within its own circles: new chains, new coins, new stories, new narratives. But the real financial power comes from who can carry the markets that global capital truly wants to participate in.

And Nasdaq has always been there, with trillions of dollars flowing there, where the world's most valuable companies are traded.

Therefore, true players in the crypto space never care where the battlefield is, only where the opportunities are.