Crypto exchanges are morphing into stock brokerages to stop capital from fleeing to Wall Street

Crypto exchanges are morphing into stock brokerages to stop capital from fleeing to Wall Street

Markets

Wall Street and crypto are crashing into each other as tokenized treasury markets hit $14.6 billion

Not all crypto exchange executives agree, but the data does not lie: centralized exchange trading volumes dropped more than 11% to $4.61 trillion, their lowest since late 2024.

By

Olivier Acuna

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Edited by

Jamie Crawley

Jun 14, 2026, 1:00 p.m.

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Retail investors are using digital wallets to buy synthetic U.S. stocks outside traditional market Wall Street hours of operation. (Daniel Lloyd/Unsplash)

Summary

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Major crypto exchanges like OKX, Kraken and Hyperliquid are rapidly adding perpetual futures and tokenized markets for stocks, commodities and index funds to keep traders and capital on their platforms.

Executives say this shift reflects a broader convergence between crypto and traditional finance, as users seek 24/7 access to a wider range of assets and tokenized real-world assets surge in value.

The expansion into synthetic and tokenized equities brings significant regulatory, settlement and liquidity risks, making long-term success dependent on strong compliance, security and investor protections.

A significant transformation is currently underway across the established cryptocurrency market. The top crypto exchanges are morphing into multi-asset financial platforms, breaking down the traditional barriers that once kept crypto and Wall Street completely apart.

Crypto exchange

OKX rolled out 13 new "X-Perp" markets

for European traders on Tuesday, giving retail users direct access to "Magnificent 7" tech stock futures, alongside major commodity indices like gold, silver, and crude oil. The platform also added perpetual markets for major index funds like the SPY and QQQ, enabling users to trade exposure to the largest U.S. equities outside standard market hours.

Exchanges like OKX are deliberately expanding their services to stop cash from leaving their platforms, while catering to everyday traders who now want to bet on more than just crypto.

Kraken, for example,

rolled out 24-hour perpetual futures

for synthetic U.S. stock tokens, offering non-U.S. retail traders up to 20x leverage on equities outside standard Wall Street operating hours. Onchain perpetual platform Hyperliquid

also moved aggressively into TradFi, putting Wall Street

on alert.

Retaining trader fees

Centralized exchange trading volumes recently dropped more than 11% to $4.61 trillion, hitting their lowest performance level since late 2024,

according to CoinDesk Data’s April 2026 market reviews

. "Retail participation across crypto has moderated, but the demand for trading has not disappeared," said Behrin Naidoo, founder of Neutral DeFi Protocol. Naidoo, an alumnus of London Business School who previously managed global market strategies and fintech investments at J.P. Morgan, PwC, and RMH, told CoinDesk that the problem isn't a lack of interest, but rather an infrastructure gap.

"Once assets like gold, oil, and equities became accessible through crypto infrastructure, they became more attractive than many crypto assets themselves."

By putting stocks and commodities under one login, platforms ensure that when a trader pulls their cash out of bitcoin during a slump, that money stays locked inside the app as stablecoins rather than walking out the door to an old-school stock brokerage.

Convergence over capital flight

Crypto company executives argue that this is not a defensive move driven by fear of Wall Street. Instead, they view it as a natural convergence of two distinct financial systems.

“Money is not leaving crypto; if anything, it’s brewing,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget. Chen suggests that the recent market pullbacks were expected, particularly with major technology initial public offerings taking center stage. "Tokenized stocks and assets are the best product-market fit. With it, users are not limited to stock market hours and still retain economic rights, such as dividends. This has changed the old Wall Street rules completely.”

This traffic goes both ways. While crypto apps are listing stocks, Wall Street is moving cash onto blockchain networks, such as tokenized U.S. Treasurys backed by firms like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. That niche exploded from

$750 million in early 2024 to $15.3 billion

by May 2026. But banks across the U.S. and around the world are increasingly expanding their crypto services to clients as they, too, seek to remain competitive.

“This is not about demand shifting away from crypto,” says Shunyet Jan, Head of Spot and Derivatives Business at Binance. Jan points out that the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market shot up 589% from early 2025 to mid-2026. “It’s about users wanting a more complete financial experience in one place.”

Operational challenges

But bringing regular stocks onto crypto networks isn't exactly easy. The crypto exchange executives noted that selling derivatives on public companies outside the traditional stock exchanges poses significant settlement risks and creates substantial regulatory challenges across different countries.

Furthermore, the long-term survival of this trend relies entirely on strict "regulatory readiness" and robust security, KuCoin CEO BC Wong told CoinDesk. Without those guardrails, copycat products do not give investors standard voting rights, insurance, or the legal safety nets they usually get with traditional brokerages. If the actual stock market hits a flash crash or locks up overnight, the crypto platforms running these products could easily find themselves stuck in a critical liquidity crunch.

“The categories themselves are dissolving,” says Kyle Chiu, Chief Marketing Officer at Gate. “A crypto exchange can ship a new asset class in months; a bank integrating crypto custody takes years of committee approvals. The winners will be defined by who serves the broadest set of assets to the most global user base with the least friction.”

Chiu also noted that this shift changes how capital moves during market drawdowns. Instead of traders withdrawing their funds from crypto platforms entirely when the crypto market is up, they can now rotate their portfolios into U.S. equities using stablecoins. Chiu also said this trend is dissolving the old boundaries of the financial industry, creating a race to see who can serve global assets more seamlessly.

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Latest Research

CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High

CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High

In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.

By

CoinDesk Research

Jun 15, 2026

In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.

Why it matters

:

In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.

View Full Report

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