Three Stocks Account for Over Half of August's $665 Billion CEX Perpetual Futures Volume

Centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) saw stock perpetual futures reach $665.42 billion in August, a 4.6 % increase from July’s $636.19 billion and more than 56 times the volume recorded in January.

Top three underlying assets

The market was heavily concentrated in three securities:

• SanDisk (SNDK) – $193.58 billion
• SK Hynix (SKHYNIX) – $75.89 billion
• SpaceX‑tracking contract (SPCX) – $65.93 billion

Together these assets represented 50.4 % of total perpetual futures volume for the month.

Equity‑linked perpetual dynamics

SanDisk’s perpetual volume equaled 62.4 % of its US spot turnover on August 19, the highest reading in WuBlockchain’s tokenized equities data, before easing to 38.0 % by August 26. Circle (CRCL) ranked second with 47.2 % of its spot turnover, while Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta each contributed less than 3 %.

Exchange activity and product expansion

Binance reported roughly $433.4 billion in traditional‑finance perpetual volume for August, with equity‑linked contracts accounting for about 79 % ($342.9 billion). The exchange is adding options on more than 1,000 US stocks and ETFs for eligible non‑US users.

Bybit announced plans to launch 24/7 options trading on September 17, initially using SpaceX and Nvidia perpetuals as underlyings.

Outlook

The concentration of volume in memory‑chip and SpaceX‑related contracts raises questions about whether September’s market will broaden beyond this narrow structure.