The trading volume of perpetual contracts in crypto reached 166 trillion in August, nearly four times that of the five major exchanges in Korea.

Written by: Tiger Research

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Cryptocurrency exchanges are entering traditional assets like stocks and commodities through perpetual contracts. Perpetual contracts linked to Korean stocks have seen a trading volume of 307 trillion Korean won within months. This report outlines the rise of offshore liquidity and what conditions need to be met for Korea to participate in this market.

Core Conclusions

• Cryptocurrency exchanges are rapidly entering traditional assets such as stocks and commodities through perpetual contracts.
• Perpetual contracts linked to Korean stocks have a trading volume of about 307 trillion Korean won in a few months, with the significance of the offshore market clearly increasing.
• Korea needs to allow companies to access local crypto exchanges, establish a formal derivatives framework, and complete the infrastructure for Korean won stablecoins.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges Are Entering Traditional Markets

Cryptocurrency exchanges are no longer limited to digital assets. While Bitcoin and Ethereum once dominated the trading volumes on these platforms, products linked to traditional assets such as stocks and commodities are rapidly increasing.

The decentralized exchange Hyperliquid shows that in its trading structure for 2026, products linked to traditional assets are increasingly prevalent, with more users trading these products. The infrastructure originally built for crypto trading is transforming into a new venue for the traditional financial market.

This change is driven by perpetual contracts. These derivatives allow investors to gain price exposure without holding the underlying asset. Unlike traditional futures, they do not have an expiration date and do not require physical delivery.

As a result, exchanges can relatively easily launch products linked to stocks and commodities, and crypto exchanges have found a viable path: extending beyond digital assets to enter traditional markets.

Korea Is No Exception: Trading of Korean Stocks Is Shifting Offshore

Korea is at the center of this change. Offshore crypto exchanges are actively trading perpetual contracts linked to core Korean stocks like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. These products can be traded at night and on weekends, with high leverage, thus providing Korean investors and global funds with a new exposure to Korean stocks. An offshore market that can trade Korean stock price fluctuations without being limited by Korea’s trading hours is rapidly taking shape.

The scale of growth is rapid. From February to August 2026, perpetual contracts linked to Korean stocks have accumulated a trading volume of about 307 trillion Korean won. In August alone, the volume reached 166 trillion Korean won, almost four times the trading volume of 42 trillion Korean won from the five major Korean crypto exchanges during the same period. In just a few months, the offshore perpetual contracts linked to Korean stocks have surpassed the scale of the major crypto markets in Korea.

In some products, the trading volume of perpetual contracts has far surpassed that of corresponding ETFs. In August 2026, perpetual contracts linked to the US-listed 3x leveraged Korean ETF (KORU) traded approximately 24.1 billion USD, while KORU ETF itself traded 8.9 billion USD, making the former about 2.7 times that of the latter. This means that the trading volume of derivatives has exceeded that of the ETFs themselves. Once the trading volume of derivatives surpasses that of the underlying market, offshore venues may play a larger role in price discovery.

More critically, the offshore derivatives market can also inversely affect the spot market. Liquidity providers for perpetual contracts will hedge exposure by buying and selling related stocks or ETFs. Higher trading volumes in derivatives lead to more hedge trades; this effect is magnified during periods of price volatility. These flows of capital will ultimately transmit to spot prices.

This structure may lead to a “tail wagging the dog” scenario: it's not the spot that drives derivatives, but derivatives that drive the spot. For large-cap stocks like SK Hynix, spot trading remains significantly larger, and the impact is temporarily limited. However, the gap between derivatives and spot trading volumes is rapidly narrowing, and this trend warrants continued attention.

Global Markets Are Changing, Liquidity Is Shifting Offshore

The offshore trading of Korean stocks is not an isolated phenomenon in Korea. Perpetual contracts are rapidly spreading across stocks and indices in Korea, Japan, China, and beyond, extending beyond listed companies. Offshore venues have already launched perpetual contracts linked to unlisted companies like Anthropic and have introduced products linked to unlisted Chinese memory chip company Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT). Assets that have traditionally been hard to trade in securities markets are now entering the perpetual contracts market. What investors can trade is rapidly blurring the lines of traditional boundaries.

Participants are also changing. In accounts with over 10 million USD in assets on Hyperliquid, the proportion of trading traditional assets like stocks and commodities is rapidly increasing. The Wall Street Journal also reported that professional traders on Wall Street are using perpetual contracts outside of regular trading hours and on weekends. This market, which was once dominated by crypto investors, is now beginning to attract professional traders and institutional investors managing large funds.

The liquidity itself is worth noting. Based on the average over the last 15 days, executing 1 million USD on SK Hynix perpetual contracts had a slippage in the single-digit basis points. Even outside of regular trading hours, the slippage remains relatively low. This means that even when the Korean stock market is closed, there is enough depth in this market to accommodate large orders. Perpetual contracts are no longer just “extending trading hours” but are developing their liquidity.

The capital used in trading is also changing. Some global exchanges have begun accepting tokenized US Treasury securities as collateral, including BlackRock's BUIDL and Hashnote's USYC. In the past year, the cumulative scale of USYC entering exchanges has been around 2.75 billion USD. Not all of this is used as collateral for derivatives, but institutions can hold familiar US Treasury-like assets and use them as collateral for trading when needed. Traditional financial assets are beginning to serve as collateral in these new markets, creating a new funding channel between traditional finance and new trading markets.

What is seen now is not just the expansion of the crypto market into traditional assets. An offshore market capable of trading Korean stock prices without going through the Korean won, local brokers, and Korean exchanges is rapidly growing. Tokenized US Treasury securities are serving as collateral here, and professional traders and large fund management institutions have also entered the market. The changes are not limited to trading objects, as the participants and forms of capital are being rewritten.

The trading volume of perpetual contracts linked to Korean stocks has reached 307 trillion Korean won within months. This figure indicates that changes are happening quickly. However, 307 trillion Korean won does not represent the size of a mature market; it is merely the current scale of a market that is still taking shape. If more assets become tradable and institutional funds flow in on a large scale, offshore liquidity may continue to expand. The market structure, traditionally segmented by national borders and trading hours, as well as the flow of capital across markets, may be rewritten.

Offshore Markets Are Growing, What Role Can the Korean Financial Sector Play?

Korea can restrict its domestic investors from trading such products, but it is difficult to block the growth of the offshore market itself. Some global exchanges, including Binance, will restrict perpetual contract trading for accounts identified as Korean users through KYC. However, the market linked to Korean stocks can continue to expand through overseas investors and global funds. The reality is that Korean regulations primarily restrict participation from domestic investors and financial institutions rather than the offshore market itself. Even if domestic demand is suppressed, trading and liquidity may still grow overseas.

Therefore, Korea cannot simply think of blocking this trend; it should turn the growth of the new market into an opportunity for its financial sector. Korea does have a starting point: local crypto exchanges. While they may not be able to directly launch perpetual contracts linked to stocks in the short term, they already have experience operating a 24-hour digital asset market and a substantial user base. These conditions can support an extension into the new market. Global crypto exchanges are rapidly entering traditional assets, and Korea should also examine the rules and market structure needed to support this shift.

However, it is not just about trading infrastructure. Korea also needs companies to access the market, require a derivatives regulatory framework, and establish payment and settlement infrastructure denominated in Korean won. Corporate accounts can bring in specialized capital needed for market-making, hedging, and arbitrage, and can also supplement liquidity. A formal framework for derivatives like perpetual contracts will support products linked to a broader range of assets. Payment and settlement tools like Korean won stablecoins can lower the entry barriers for overseas investors and facilitate capital inflow and outflow. These are not separate regulatory issues but are necessary complementary conditions for the market to operate smoothly.

Korea needs a framework that allows these elements to work together rather than addressing them item by item. In this way, Korean crypto exchanges will have the opportunity to move beyond pure crypto trading to connect a broader range of assets with global liquidity. Trading linked to Korean assets is already rapidly growing offshore. The real question is not how to block the growth but how much of a position the Korean financial sector can occupy in this market.