The reverse bridge: Crypto meets Wall Street using perps
Crypto exchanges are increasingly offering perpetual futures contracts tied to traditional financial assets like stocks, a trend dubbed the 'reverse bridge.' This shift allows users to gain exposure to Wall Street markets 24/7 without owning the underlying assets, marking a significant evolution in crypto platform business models.
Why it matters
The migration of traditional financial products into the crypto ecosystem highlights the blurring lines between decentralized finance and traditional market structures.
Crypto exchanges processed $1.32 trillion in perpetual futures tied to traditional assets during the first five months of 2026, compared with $104.21 billion in all of 2025, according to CoinGecko . Monthly volume rose from $230 million in January 2025 to $347.17 billion in May 2026.
Bitget said the growth has changed the makeup of its business.
“A year ago, we didn't even have a perpetual stock product; 100% of our volume came from crypto,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget in an interview with CoinDesk. “A year later, we now have about 28% of our total trading volume coming from the stock business, and those are mainly stock perpetuals.”
Shunyet Jan, an executive overseeing trading market structure at Binance, said traditional exchanges are now adopting products and trading hours first used by crypto platforms.
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