September RWA Perp Report: trading less, holding more

September was quieter on volume, but not on the amount of exposure the market continued to carry.

Volume came in 15% below August's $750B. Over the same month, open interest climbed to a new high. Through an oil shock, two central-bank rate hikes in 48 hours and a new exchange climbing the venue ranking, the market carried more open exposure while trading it less often.

Positions stayed open while volume cooled

The tracked market generated $637.85 billion in September, down from $753.7 billion in August.

Average daily open interest rose 12%, from $10.45 billion in August to $11.71 billion in September, and reached a record $12.61 billion on September 30. Volume dropped; exposure grew.

While volume counts every trade made during the month, open interest counts the positions still open at a given moment: every contract someone has opened and not yet closed. A market can trade less while holding more, and in September it did.

Holding times show what that looks like at the asset level. Among the five most traded assets, positions were held on average for over 10 hours.

Oil activity followed the shock

Brent crude moved above $100 a barrel after attacks around the Strait of Hormuz disrupted an already tense oil market. Reports described the attacks and the immediate reaction in Brent.

The RWA response appeared in the next daily cut. OIL volume rose from $1.78 billion on September 9 to $3.72 billion the next day. Brent volume rose from $875.7 million to $1.73 billion over the same two days.

The first twelve days of September carried $20 billion of OIL volume, or 40% of its full-month total. OIL finished September third overall at $49.19 billion, five places higher than in August.

Gold volume jumped around the Fed decision

Gold took first place from SanDisk, averaging $3.3 billion in daily volume, up 24% from August.

The biggest daily move came around the September 16 FOMC decision. GOLD volume rose from $2.94 billion on September 15 to $5.95 billion on September 16, a 102% increase, as the Fed raised its target range to 3.75%–4.00% in a unanimous vote.

Across September 15–19, GOLD generated $17.55 billion, close to 18% of its monthly volume in five daily cuts.

Execution quality concentrated where the volume went. Binance and Aster each recorded close to $1 million in depth and spreads just above 0.02 basis points on gold through September, clearing more than $55 billion and $10 billion respectively.

Variational moved up the venue ranking

Variational rose from seventh to fourth among venues.

The move followed the September 1 introduction of Swaps to Variational's Omni private beta, starting with gold and Nasdaq-100. The product uses an RFQ structure and dealer-linked liquidity in place of a public order book, with a predictable carry rate.

It found demand quickly. Swaps made up 88% of Variational's RWA volume in September. The US100 swap alone accounted for 61% of swap volume, consistently traded above $1 billion a day, and held the largest RWA open interest on the venue. Positions of $5 million or more cost under 1 basis point all in.

The 24/7 question moved closer to the exchanges

September 17 brought two SEC milestones on the same day.

The SEC held its roundtable on preparations for 24-hour trading in US equities, covering market infrastructure, resiliency and the operational demands of extended hours.

It also issued the Innovation Exemption: five-year conditional relief for permissioned trading of tokenized NMS stock through automated market makers and liquidity pools. The exemption draws a clear line between tokenized ownership and synthetic price exposure; tokens that only replicate a stock's price fall outside it. The order came two days after the Senate declined to advance the CLARITY Act.

September in numbers

September closed at $631 billion in tracked volume across 22 venues.

Equities led with 49.2% of volume, down from 64.8% in August. Commodities rose to 31.4% from 20.3%. Indices reached 17.1% and FX 2.3%.

Binance, OKX and Hyperliquid remained the top three venues. Variational moved to fourth and Aster entered the top ten. The top five venues accounted for 86.9% of volume, down from 95.2% in August.

Pyth priced 90.29% of September volume, down from 96.27% in August. Counting perpetuals alone, excluding swaps, Pyth's share was 94.7%. By class, Pyth priced 97.8% of equities, 91.5% of commodities and 77.1% of indices.

Methodology and sources

Volume, open interest, and provider figures are drawn from Refraction Research and the RWA Markets dashboard, built by @zinnresearch.

Volume is notional traded volume across tracked perpetual venues.

Volume priced per market data provider attributes each venue-symbol pair to its stated pricing source, weighted by volume. Pairs without a confirmed source are recorded as unverified.

Open interest in the main analysis uses the dashboard’s daily Combined OI series.