Castle Labs published a research report on Sept. 10 comparing execution costs between Variational’s swaps product and traditional perpetual contracts.
The report said that for most trade sizes, Variational is currently the lowest-cost venue among listed assets. In the US100 market, a $1 million trade carries a cost of just $47.
RWA perpetuals market expands
According to the report, trading volume in RWA perpetuals grew from less than $1 billion in October 2025 to more than $120 billion in August 2026. The category now accounts for about 12% to 13% of on-chain perpetual trading volume, after reaching a peak of 20% in July.
At the time the report was released, total open interest in RWA perpetuals stood at $4.9 billion. TradeXYZ and Variational together represented nearly 90% of that figure.
How Variational swaps are structured
The report said Variational’s swaps use RFQ execution and its in-house liquidity provider Omni. Liquidity comes directly from traditional finance partners. Instead of relying on funding rates driven by market supply and demand, the product charges a holding cost once at the daily close.
The first batch of markets — US100, US500, XAU, XAG and USOIL — has generated $3.8 billion in cumulative trading volume since launching earlier this month. Peak open interest reached $245 million. The report added that swaps now account for more than 50% of Variational’s daily trading volume and more than $220 million in open interest.