According to data from RootData’s ranking of stock perpetual contract exchanges, nearly 30 venues that have listed stock perpetuals are still trading in a pattern closely tied to the schedule of traditional equity markets. Weekend activity cooled sharply, and trading picked up again on Monday morning as the reopening of traditional markets approached, though it had not yet returned to the intensity seen during a full trading day.
Volume dropped about 87.5% on stock market non-trading days
Comparing stock market trading days with non-trading days, 24-hour volume in stock perpetual contracts fell from about $39.078 billion to $4.896 billion, a decline of roughly 87.5%.
Open interest moved the other way. It edged up from $10.139 billion to $10.262 billion over the same period, indicating that positions were not unwound on a large scale. The sharper decline was in active trading and turnover.
A snapshot taken before noon on Monday, July 27, showed 24-hour volume rebounding to $10.617 billion, up about 116.8% from Sunday. That points to recovering market activity, but not a full return to trading-day strength.
Depth held up better than traded volume
On liquidity, weighted market depth within ±2% declined from about $58.92 million to about $47.83 million, a drop of roughly 18.8%. By before noon on Monday, that figure had recovered to about $55.68 million, close to trading-day levels.
The data suggests order-book liquidity recovered faster than actual trading. Market depth did not fall off in the same way that volume did.
Top exchanges kept tighter spreads and stronger depth
Among individual venues, Binance, OKX and Bitget were still showing relatively tight spreads and stronger depth before noon on Monday. Hyperliquid ranked well, but its trading volume remained below trading-day levels. Some smaller exchanges still showed overly wide spreads, making their real liquidity difficult to assess for now.
RootData Research sees a pre-open price discovery layer
RootData Research said the most prominent value of these stock perpetual exchanges is that they allow stock risk to remain tradable, priceable and hedgeable during periods when traditional equity markets are closed. When stock markets shut over the weekend, official prices remain fixed at the previous session’s close. Stock perpetual exchanges, by contrast, still show Sunday trading, open interest, order books and spreads, which indicates that crypto venues have pushed past the time limits of stock market trading hours.
Still, the current data shows these markets are participating in expectation-based pricing rather than official price formation, making them better suited to expressing event risk, sentiment, macro developments and shifts in risk appetite during non-trading days. With weekend volume dropping, spreads widening and some platforms showing abnormal data standards, RootData Research said these venues currently look more like a pre-open price discovery layer for stocks. They have entered the pricing process, but they have not taken the main pricing power away from traditional equity markets, nor have they surpassed traditional markets in liquidity.