Crypto exchanges seek to expand roles to full-service brokers

Crypto exchanges have a problem. Their core product, spot and derivatives trading, is generating less revenue than it used to. Platforms including OKX, Kraken, Binance, and Bitget are pushing aggressively into tokenized equities, commodities, and index products. The pitch is straightforward: why let your traders leave the app to buy Apple stock or gold when you could sell it to them yourself, around the clock, with no settlement delays? The numbers behind the pivot Centralized exchange spot and derivatives volumes dropped more than 11% to $4.61 trillion recently, the lowest figure since late 2024. OKX launched 13 new “X-Perp” markets in June 2026 for European traders, covering assets like Magnificent 7 stocks, gold, and crude oil. These are perpetual futures contracts tied to the price of traditional assets, letting traders get exposure to Tesla or Nvidia without ever touching a brokerage account. Kraken introduced 24-hour perpetual futures on tokenized U.S. stocks in February 2026, and has since been expanding its xStocks platform to cover U.K. and Asian equities. Binance is following a similar path, weaving equity-linked perpetuals into a broader “super-app” ambition that positio...