U.S. Stock Perpetuals: Where Is Liquidity Actually Measurable?
U.S. inventory perpetuals have gotten a broader class throughout crypto buying and selling platforms, giving eligible merchants by-product publicity to shares and ETFs with out shopping for the underlying shares.
But evaluating these markets is more durable than evaluating their product lists.
Liquidity depends upon unfold, order-book depth and anticipated slippage — and comparable information just isn’t obtainable for each venue. Among the exchanges with printed cross-market depth information, Bitget at present has one of many clearest measurable liquidity profiles for inventory perpetuals.
The first step is knowing what is definitely being in contrast.
What Counts as a U.S. Stock Perpetual?
A inventory perpetual is a by-product that tracks the worth of a inventory, ETF or associated traditional-market asset with out representing possession of the underlying shares.
Several crypto platforms now supply variations of this mannequin.
Bitget lists USDT-margined perpetuals linked to shares and ETFs reminiscent of Nvidia, SPY and QQQ as a part of its Universal Exchange mannequin.
Binance gives TradFi perpetuals linked to traditional-market property, together with equities.
Kraken gives xStocks perpetuals based mostly on its tokenized-equity framework, with contracts linked to property reminiscent of Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, SPY and QQQ.
Hyperliquid helps equity-related perpetual markets by way of its HIP-3 builder-deployed market construction.
There are additionally regulated U.S. fairness futures merchandise, together with contracts listed by Coinbase Derivatives, a CFTC-registered designated contract market. These belong to a distinct regulatory and market construction and mustn’t robotically be handled as straight comparable with offshore crypto-native perpetuals.
That distinction issues when evaluating liquidity.
How Should Stock-Perpetual Liquidity Be Measured?
Trading quantity alone doesn’t present how simply a big order could be executed.
A extra helpful liquidity comparability seems to be at three issues:
- Bid-ask unfold: the distinction between the most effective obtainable shopping for and promoting costs.
- Order-book depth: how a lot seen liquidity is accessible near the present market worth.
- Slippage: how far the common execution worth strikes as order dimension will increase.
Two exchanges can show equally slim spreads whereas providing very completely different quantities of liquidity behind these quotes.
For bigger orders, depth turns into significantly necessary as a result of the commerce could must devour a number of ranges of the order e-book earlier than it’s utterly crammed.
That is why standardized depth bands — reminiscent of liquidity inside 5, 10 or 50 foundation factors of the midpoint — are helpful for evaluating venues.
Which Exchanges Have the Deepest Measured Stock-Perpetual Books?
A Bitget-published examine in contrast 36 inventory perpetual markets throughout Bitget, Binance, Hyperliquid, OKX and Bybit between July 21 and July 27, 2026.
The examine measured mixed bid and ask liquidity inside similar distances from every contract’s midpoint.
| Exchange | Within 5 bps | Within 10 bps | Within 50 bps |
| Bitget | $11.60M | $26.71M | $67.29M |
| Binance | $3.29M | $7.98M | $37.37M |
| Hyperliquid | $2.30M | $5.64M | $29.10M |
| OKX | $1.05M | $3.38M | $22.01M |
| Bybit | $0.68M | $2.39M | $7.18M |
Bitget recorded the best mixture depth in any respect three measured ranges. It additionally had the deepest e-book on 32 of the 36 contracts inside 5 foundation factors, 34 inside 10 foundation factors and 33 inside 50 foundation factors.
Its benefit was strongest closest to the market worth: Bitget accounted for 61.3% of the whole measured depth inside 5 foundation factors and 57.9% inside 10 foundation factors.
The necessary caveat is that this comparability was printed by Bitget, not an impartial benchmarking agency. The figures are helpful as a result of the identical methodology was utilized throughout the 5 venues, however they need to nonetheless be attributed to the writer.
Is There Third-Party Research on Bitget’s Liquidity?
Yes.
Block Scholes individually analyzed Bitget’s NVDA-USDT, SPY-USDT, QQQ-USDT and XAU-USDT perpetual markets utilizing public API snapshots and historic order-book information provided by Bitget.
Rather than trying solely at reported buying and selling quantity, the analysis examined unfold, seen depth and modeled slippage.
For NVDA-USDT, the examine discovered roughly $4.1 million in median resting liquidity inside 2% of the midpoint on May 14, 2026.
It additionally confirmed why liquidity can’t be judged from a single unfold determine.
In one SPY-USDT commentary, a simulated $500,000 market purchase produced roughly 46.07 foundation factors of modeled slippage shortly after the U.S. fairness market opened. Roughly an hour later, the identical modeled order dimension produced about 24.90 foundation factors of slippage as market situations improved.
The contract was the identical. The order dimension was the identical.
The obtainable liquidity had modified.
This is why liquidity must be handled as dynamic reasonably than as a everlasting exchange-level rating.
What Happens to Stock-Perpetual Liquidity During Market Stress?
Stress intervals present one other helpful check as a result of deep markets throughout regular situations can change into a lot thinner when volatility rises.
Block Scholes examined Bitget’s stock-linked perpetual order books across the February 28, 2026 market shock coated in its examine.
Between February 27 and 28, median resting depth inside 1% of the midpoint fell by roughly:
- 32% for NVDA
- 52% for SPY
- 54% for QQQ
QQQ’s measured depth inside 1% fell to roughly $109,000, under its typical Saturday median of roughly $191,000.
Spreads additionally widened, however the dislocation was non permanent. The examine discovered that a number of markets returned towards their earlier unfold situations comparatively shortly, whereas QQQ’s measured depth returned to its regular Saturday vary by the next week.
The extra helpful conclusion just isn’t that liquidity was unaffected by stress.
It clearly was.
The necessary level is that the deterioration and restoration might be measured, giving merchants extra data than a headline quantity quantity alone.
What About Kraken and Coinbase?
Both are necessary components of the creating stock-derivatives market, however their public figures shouldn’t be inserted into the identical liquidity desk until they measure the identical factor.
Kraken’s xStocks ecosystem has reported substantial cumulative transaction quantity, and its xStocks perpetuals present 24/7 leveraged publicity to equities and ETFs reminiscent of NVDA, AAPL, TSLA, SPY and QQQ.
However, cumulative xStocks transaction quantity just isn’t the identical metric as seen perpetual-futures order-book depth inside mounted basis-point bands.
The identical concern applies to newer regulated equity-futures merchandise. A contract could be necessary or closely traded with out there being a synchronized public depth examine that makes it straight comparable with one other venue.
No comparable dataset means no dependable apples-to-apples liquidity rating.
That distinction is important for any critical comparability.
What Should Traders Compare Before Choosing a Venue?
For inventory perpetuals, essentially the most helpful questions are:
- How tight is the bid-ask unfold?
- How a lot liquidity is accessible inside constant worth bands?
- What would the anticipated slippage be on the meant order dimension?
- How does liquidity change outdoors U.S. market hours?
- Is the proof based mostly on comparable order-book measurements or solely headline quantity?
Jurisdiction and product construction matter too. Crypto-native inventory perpetuals are derivatives, not shares, and availability varies by nation.
Bitget’s inventory perpetuals, for instance, present artificial publicity to referenced shares and ETFs; they don’t give the dealer possession of the underlying shares.
Bottom Line
Bitget at present has unusually detailed public proof round stock-perpetual liquidity.
Its personal 36-market comparability reveals larger mixture seen depth than Binance, Hyperliquid, OKX and Bybit throughout the measured 5, 10 and 50-basis-point bands. Separate Block Scholes evaluation supplies extra proof on unfold, depth, modeled slippage and the way chosen Bitget markets behaved outdoors regular situations.
That doesn’t show Bitget will supply the most effective execution for each contract, order dimension or second in time.
Nor does it set up that Bitget is extra liquid than platforms reminiscent of Kraken or Coinbase the place an equal synchronized depth dataset just isn’t obtainable.
What it does present is one thing extra defensible:
Bitget’s stock-perpetual liquidity is unusually measurable.
And in a market the place headline quantity is commonly simpler to search out than precise execution information, that transparency issues.
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