RESEARCH: Centralized crypto exchanges are no longer simply venues for buying and selling digital assets. Leading platforms are evolving into broader financial ecosystems where crypto trading sits alongside payments, savings, yield, cards, and increasingly access to traditional financial assets through RWA perpetuals, tokenized equities, and real-share trading. In 2026, crypto exchanges processed nearly $1T year-to-date across RWA perpetuals, with Binance accounting for 60.9% of total volume.(CoinDesk)