Where does crypto derivatives liquidity live?
A daily measurement of how much crypto derivatives trading is migrating from offshore venues to CFTC-regulated US exchanges — and what fragmented liquidity still costs US market participants. Perpetuals and futures on BTC, ETH and SOL. Onshore comprises the CFTC-regulated markets: CME, Coinbase Derivatives, Kalshi and Kraken’s US exchange (Bitnomial). Offshore comprises the major venues outside US regulation: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Hyperliquid and Kraken Futures (non-US).
CFTC-regulated venues now carry 14.4% of BTC, ETH and SOL derivatives volume, up from 11.4% on Aug 4, 2026. That is genuine migration, not a shrinking denominator: onshore volume grew 65% while offshore moved +26%. Perps from the 2026 entrants, Kalshi and Kraken US, account for 15% of onshore volume over the past 30 days (chart 1.3). Access still costs more onshore: a $1M BTC market order costs about $124 on the best US book versus under $1 offshore, and holding a perp long costs 1.9 pp a year more in funding.
1Onshore vs offshore market share
The share of daily traded volume and open interest sitting on the CFTC-regulated markets versus the offshore aggregate. Venue composition of each group is defined above and on the methodology page.
Onshore history covers CME (front-month, via the public delayed feed), Coinbase Derivatives (all currently-listed contracts) and Kalshi from its June 2026 launch; dated CDE contracts that have since expired and CME SOL history are unavailable from free feeds, both small. Hover for the onshore share on any date.
The offshore side is a fixed set — Binance, Bybit and OKX, the three largest — so the series stays comparable across dates. Verified retention: Bybit serves a year+ of OI history, OKX 180 days, Binance only 30 days (the binding constraint on this window); Deribit and Hyperliquid offer no free OI history at all. The window extends daily as snapshots accumulate. Hover for the onshore share.
The onshore band of chart 1.1 split by venue. Kalshi (BTCPERP, from June 2026) and Kraken US (Bitnomial perps, from June 2026) are the new US perpetuals; CME and Coinbase Derivatives are the incumbents. Growth in the top two bands is new perp demand; growth in CME is institutions adding futures exposure. Hover for each venue’s volume.
2The onshore premium
What fragmented liquidity costs a US trader: the gap between offshore and onshore funding rates, the carry embedded in CME's futures basis, and the real cost of executing size. These are contract-level measures — averaging funding or depth across hundreds of thin alt contracts would be noise — so this section shows the majors (or the single asset selected above).
How to read this: funding is the recurring fee perp longs pay shorts (negative = shorts pay longs), expressed as a yearly cost of holding the position. Each line is one group's average; the shaded band between them is the onshore premium — when the gray offshore line sits above the blue onshore line, the same long position costs more to hold offshore. The onshore composite runs from Coinbase Derivatives' July 2025 perp launch: its pre-July-2026 funding is reconstructed from the perp–spot premium using Coinbase's published funding formula (rows labeled in the dataset, method on the methodology page); Kalshi and Kraken US join at their 2026 launches with venue-published rates. The late-May bump is a real launch-week dislocation on Kraken US, verified against the exchange's raw feed.
The onshore line is CME's front-month basis — the regulated market's implied cost of carry; offshore perp funding is the same quantity paid continuously. Convergence of these lines is capital-market integration in one picture. Expiry is approximated as the last Friday of the month, rolling ten days out.
| Group | Best spread (bps) | $100K fill cost (bps) | $1M fill cost (bps) | Total depth ±50 bps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OnshoreUS / CFTC | 0.38 | 0.64 | 1.24 | $89.5M |
| OffshoreOffshore | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | $280.8M |
Assumes a trader routes to the best book on their side of the fence. Onshore books observed: Coinbase Derivatives and Kalshi (CME and Kraken US publish no free depth feed). Offshore books: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Hyperliquid and Kraken Futures. Kalshi and Coinbase Derivatives books are converted to implied coin prices via contract size.
3The listing gap
Inferred programmatically from every venue's live contract catalog: 984 underlyings trade as perps or futures on the offshore venues, and only 32 of them have any US-regulated listing. Contracts with no onshore venue carried 29.2% of offshore volume over the past day — $5.8B of it in equity perps, $2.3B of it in commodity perps that simply do not exist on a CFTC-regulated exchange.
| Underlying | Category | Offshore venues | 24h offshore volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| SKHYNIX | Equity | Binance, Bybit, OKX | $1.1B |
| XAU | Commodity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Kraken Futures | $1.0B |
| SOXL | Equity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Kraken Futures | $996.5M |
| ESPORTS | Crypto | Binance, Bybit | $924.7M |
| SNDK | Equity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Kraken Futures | $714.0M |
| KORU | Equity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit | $516.8M |
| TRUMP | Crypto | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Hyperliquid, Kraken Futures | $509.0M |
| XAG | Commodity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Kraken Futures | $482.8M |
| CL | Commodity | Binance, Bybit, OKX | $482.4M |
| SKHY | Equity | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Kraken Futures | $360.8M |
| APR | Crypto | Binance, Bybit, OKX | $298.0M |
| LIT | Crypto | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Hyperliquid | $281.5M |
| BZ | Commodity | Binance, Bybit, OKX | $247.2M |
| IDOL | Crypto | Binance | $218.5M |
Underlyings are normalized across venues (1000PEPE/kPEPE→PEPE, XBT→BTC) and classified with Binance's own listing metadata (equity, pre-IPO, commodity, index) plus documented curated sets for what Binance doesn't list. Full inventory in the CSV and /data/listing_gap.json.
The gap runs the other way too: CDEGLD ($25.1M), USTECH100 ($14.3M), CDESIL ($12.9M), CDETEK ($7.3M), CDEOIL ($3.6M), CDEUS5 ($1.8M) trade only on US-regulated venues — Coinbase Derivatives’ commodity and sector-index futures have no offshore twin.
4Regulatory timeline
The dated approvals, launches and rule changes that move the charts above. Numbers match the flags on chart 1.1.
- 1Mar 17, 2025CME lists Solana futureslaunch
CME Group launches SOL and Micro SOL futures, its first new crypto asset since Ether. source
- 2May 19, 2025CME lists XRP futureslaunch
CME Group adds XRP and Micro XRP futures to its crypto suite. source
- 3Jun 26, 2025Coinbase self-certifies US perpetual-style futuresrulemaking
Coinbase Derivatives files CFTC self-certifications for nano BTC and ETH perpetual-style futures — 5-year contracts with a funding-rate mechanism, the first US answer to offshore perps. source
- 4Jul 21, 2025Coinbase Derivatives perp-style futures go livelaunch
Nano BTC and ETH perpetual-style futures begin trading 24/7 on the CFTC-regulated Coinbase Derivatives Exchange. source
- 5Oct 13, 2025CME lists options on SOL and XRP futureslaunch
Options on SOL, Micro SOL, XRP and Micro XRP futures begin trading. source
- 6Dec 15, 2025CME lists spot-quoted XRP and SOL futureslaunch
CME expands crypto derivatives with spot-quoted contracts aimed at retail-sized participants. source
- 7Feb 19, 2026CME announces 24/7 crypto tradingrulemaking
CME Group sets May 29 launch for around-the-clock cryptocurrency futures and options trading, pending regulatory review. source
- 8May 29, 2026CFTC approves Kalshi BTCPERPapproval
The CFTC issues an Order of Approval for KalshiEX's BTCPERP — the first true perpetual contract approved on a US-regulated exchange (press release 9240-26). source
- 9May 29, 2026CME 24/7 crypto trading goes livelaunch
CME cryptocurrency futures and options begin trading around the clock, matching offshore market hours for the first time. source
- 10Jun 1, 2026Kraken launches US perpetual futureslaunch
Kraken brings CFTC-regulated perpetual futures to US traders on Kraken Pro, listed on Bitnomial — the triple-licensed DCM/DCO/FCM its parent acquired for $550M in April 2026. source
- 11Jun 3, 2026Kalshi BTCPERP begins tradinglaunch
Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual goes live with zero launch-period fees; notional volume tops $1B in the first week and $5.5B within two. source