Hotcoin Research | From the Cryptocurrency Circle to the Broader Financial Market: Exchanges No Longer Only Sell Coins — Will TradFi Become the Next Growth Curve?
Introduction
Over the past year, with the rise of RWAs and stock tokenization, leading cryptocurrency exchanges have increasingly integrated traditional financial assets into their in-app ecosystems. Gold, foreign exchange, stock indices, and commodities are gradually being introduced into crypto account systems. Against the dual backdrop of crypto cycle rotations and macro-market trends, TradFi products have become a key tool for exchanges to compete for trading volume, user retention, and capital inflows. This shift also reflects the inevitable transition of exchanges from single-asset crypto trading platforms to multi-asset trading hubs.
This article systematically analyzes the rise of TradFi, its definitions and operating mechanisms, the differences between TradFi and crypto perpetual futures, and two mainstream product routes: the MT5/CFD brokerage path, represented by Bybit, Bitget, and Gate, and the TradFi perpetual futures path, represented by Binance.
It further examines the opportunities and challenges facing TradFi — including regulatory fragmentation, closed-market pricing risks, and risk-control model complexity — and looks ahead to the evolution of exchanges toward a “financial supermarket” model.
Ultimately, the future direction of TradFi may involve not only expanding asset listings, but also restructuring stablecoin capital flows, enabling cross-market capital circulation, and developing multi-asset risk-management systems.
Background of the Rise of TradFi
The underlying logic of TradFi expansion is relatively straightforward: macroeconomic fluctuations have become more stable and tradable themes, while strong U.S. equity performance and large-scale precious metals markets provide continuous tradable narratives. Meanwhile, crypto cycle rotations amplify user demand for new trading opportunities. At the same time, stablecoin margin systems, unified accounts, and mature brokerage infrastructures provide the technical foundation for the “digital distribution” of traditional asset trading. TradFi is therefore viewed as a new growth category that not only meets macro trading needs but also supports capital inflow and user retention for platforms.
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Macro Themes and Market Catalysts
The popularity of crypto trading is highly cyclical and narrative-driven, and the validity period of new tokens and concepts is becoming shorter. In contrast, traditional asset markets are often driven by macroeconomic variables and offer more sustainable trading rationales, including interest-rate expectations, inflation trajectories, geopolitical risks, and shifts in risk appetite. These forces continuously create trading windows for gold, foreign exchange, and stock indices. When U.S. equities remain strong and precious-metal volatility rises, exchanges that introduce TradFi products essentially transform global macroeconomic fluctuations into tradable traffic flows on their platforms.
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User Demand Upgrade: Hedging and Multi-Asset Allocation
As traders mature, more users recognize that exposure solely to crypto assets ties portfolios to a single risk factor. When risk appetite reverses, correlations across positions can rise sharply. The appeal of TradFi lies in offering a basket of lower-correlation assets suitable for hedging: gold as a safe-haven indicator, foreign exchange reflecting U.S. dollar cycles, stock indices reflecting risk-asset sentiment, and commodities linked to inflation and supply-demand shocks. Users increasingly prefer to complete these allocations on a single platform rather than open multiple brokerage accounts, transfer margins, and navigate fragmented systems. The launch of TradFi is therefore not merely an “extra feature,” but a transformation of portfolio management into an in-app capability, improving retention and capital stickiness.
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Infrastructure Maturity Enables Replicability and Scale
Stablecoins have effectively become cross-market margin standards, addressing inconsistencies in funding mechanisms in traditional asset trading. Unified accounts shift TradFi from independent systems toward shared capital pools, improving fund efficiency. In addition, TradFi can rapidly scale across exchanges by following a replicable engineering path.
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MT5/CFD route: Reuses mature brokerage systems, including spreads, commissions, overnight fees, and margin ratios, enabling faster deployment.
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Perpetual futures route: Extends familiar crypto futures frameworks to traditional assets, combined with stablecoin margin and unified accounts to reduce migration costs for users.
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Exchange Competition Pressure
As spot crypto listings and single-asset derivative offerings become less effective growth drivers, exchanges must seek new sources of trading volume. TradFi delivers two core advantages:
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It introduces non-crypto volatility into the platform, allowing exchanges to maintain tradable themes even during crypto cooldown cycles.
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It increases capital efficiency, as users tend to retain USDT within the ecosystem for TradFi trading, forming a trading loop between TradFi and crypto markets.
From a business-model perspective, TradFi is not merely an incremental feature but a structural redesign of growth, enabling exchanges to evolve from single-asset platforms into multi-category financial marketplaces.
Definition and scope of TradFi
TradFi (Traditional Finance) products on crypto exchanges do not typically grant direct ownership of stocks or gold. Instead, they package price fluctuations of traditional assets into tradable derivatives, allowing users to participate in macro-asset trading under unified accounts and stablecoin margin systems. The core mechanism is price-difference trading, rather than asset ownership or equity acquisition.
It is important to clarify that TradFi on crypto exchanges is not equivalent to RWAs or stock tokenization. While all three involve traditional assets entering the crypto ecosystem, their core differences are clear: TradFi emphasizes derivative trading access to traditional asset prices; RWA focuses on on-chain ownership and cash-flow composability; stock tokens involve securities mapping, custody structures, and regulatory licensing, placing them in stricter compliance domains.
In product form, TradFi usually covers precious metals, foreign exchange, stock indices, commodities, and certain equity derivatives. These assets are not on-chain; instead, they enter trading systems via index price feeds. Users trade price movements rather than physical delivery.
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TradFi Mainstream Product Lines
Currently, the mainstream TradFi product routes on exchanges are primarily divided into two paths.
CFD / MT5 Route
CFDs typically involve price-difference settlement: users do not hold the underlying asset; instead, they go long or short based on price movements. Leverage is typically fixed and cannot be manually adjusted. The cost structure typically comprises spreads, commissions, and overnight interest. Trading is generally available 24/5 for foreign exchange, U.S. stock CFDs, indices, and commodities. Bybit, Bitget, and Gate fall into this category.
This approach transforms the exchange into a broker-style gateway: users open a TradFi (MT5) account and trade traditional asset CFDs within MT5.
TradFi Perpetual Futures Route
This route is more “crypto-native,” transforming traditional assets such as precious metals and equities into a trading experience similar to crypto perpetual futures. These instruments are typically settled in USDT, have no expiration date, and emphasize a more unified exchange experience.
Binance is closer to this model, defining TradFi perpetuals as futures settled in USDT that track traditional asset prices and use margin and settlement mechanisms similar to existing crypto perpetual futures.
Key selling points include 24/7 continuous trading, adjustable margin, and flexible leverage using stablecoins such as USDT.
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TradFi (MT5 / CFD Contracts) vs. Crypto Perpetual Futures
| Category | TradFi (MT5 / CFD Contracts) | Crypto Perpetual Futures |
| Underlying Asset | Tracks traditional assets (FX, gold, indices, commodities) via price feeds | Tracks crypto assets (BTC, ETH, altcoins) |
| Ownership | No ownership of the underlying asset; purely price-difference settlement | No ownership; derivative exposure to crypto price movements |
| Trading Hours | Limited market hours (typically 24/5); subject to market closures | 24/7 continuous trading |
| Funding / Cost Structure | Spreads + commissions + overnight swap fees | Funding-rate mechanism + trading fees |
| Leverage | Usually preset by asset class; less flexible | Adjustable leverage with exchange-defined caps |
| Liquidation Logic | Margin-level-based liquidation (e.g., 50% margin stop-out) | Mark-price-based liquidation with a defined liquidation price system |
| Gap Risk | High risk during market close/open due to price gaps | Reduced gap risk due to continuous trading, though extreme volatility remains |
| User Experience | Closer to traditional brokerage trading | Native crypto futures experience, aligned with existing crypto markets |
Comparative Analysis of TradFi Products Across Major Exchanges
With TradFi emerging as a new competitive landscape for exchanges, leading platforms are demonstrating clear differentiation in both product offerings and user experience. Bybit, Bitget, Gate, and others have adopted the MT5/CFD brokerage path, emphasizing rapid scalability and ecosystem strategy, while Binance promotes the perpetual futures model, highlighting unified access and 24/7 trading continuity. TradFi is gradually becoming a key variable in exchange differentiation.
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MT5 + CFD Route
Bybit: A Leading TradFi CFD Platform with the Broadest Asset Portfolio
Bybit upgraded its “Gold & FX” offering to Bybit TradFi on June 3, 2025, integrating it into the Bybit App. The web and desktop versions were launched in mid-October 2025, with continued expansion into stock CFDs, indices, foreign exchange, and commodities.
Bybit emphasizes that users can trade gold, forex, commodities, indices, and stock CFDs settled in USDT through a single application and a unified wallet, without the need for currency conversion or platform switching, while conducting 24/5 diversified investment across both cryptocurrency and traditional markets.
Within the MT5 ecosystem, Bybit has also introduced features tailored to crypto-native users, such as TradFi Copy Trading, which enables beginners to enter traditional financial markets through strategy replication.
Bitget: Clear Product Classification with a Strong Focus on User Experience
Bitget launched TradFi in December 2025, positioning it as traditional asset CFD trading settled in USDT through dedicated TradFi accounts, covering forex, precious metals, commodities, and stock indices.
The platform supports up to 500× leverage, although leverage levels are preset by product category and cannot be manually adjusted. TradFi accounts are denominated in USDT. If negative balance protection is enabled, the system automatically resets negative balances to zero, enhancing user safety and experience.
Bitget disclosed that non-crypto products accounted for approximately 11.75% of its total trading volume in January, with daily TradFi trading volume reaching $4 billion.
Gate: Multiple Leverage Options Combined with Perpetual Futures
Gate TradFi also follows a traditional CFD model built on the MT5 trading system. After funds are transferred from USDT, balances are displayed in USDx, the platform’s internal accounting unit, which is anchored to USDT at a 1:1 ratio.
A notable feature is its multi-tier precious-metal leverage structure. In addition to the mainstream leverage framework of up to 500×, gold trading is divided into multiple futures tiers (e.g., 20× / 100× / 200×), allowing users to match leverage levels with different risk preferences.
Gate officially announced that since the launch of TradFi, cumulative trading volume has exceeded $20 billion, with peak daily volume surpassing $5 billion.
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Perpetual Futures Route
Binance: Turning TradFi into an “Exchange-Native Perpetual” for Smoother 24/7 Trading
On January 8, 2026, Binance officially announced the launch of TradFi perpetual futures, supporting leverage up to 100x and emphasizing its pricing and risk-control model within a 24/7 trading framework. Binance’s key differentiation lies in “perpetualizing” traditional assets — combining USDT settlement, a unified futures entry, and continuous 24/7 trading to create a trading experience familiar to crypto users.
Special index-price and mark-price deviation constraints are imposed during periods when the underlying market is closed to maintain pricing continuity. During non-trading hours, mark prices are smoothed using EWMA mechanisms, and index-to-mark price deviations are capped to reduce the risk of price gaps and abnormal liquidations.
| Dimension | Binance | Bybit | Bitget | Gate |
| Contract Type | TradFi Perpetual Futures, settled in USDT | MT5 Contracts for Difference (CFD) | MT5 Contracts for Difference (CFD) | MT5 CFD + Perpetual Futures |
| Asset Coverage | Metals, Equities | Metals, Equities, Indices, FX, Commodities (broadest coverage) | Metals, Indices, FX, Commodities (equities listed separately outside TradFi) | Metals, Equities, Indices, FX, Commodities |
| Account Requirement | No separate account required; unified futures entry | Requires activation of a TradFi/MT5 sub-account | Requires activation of a TradFi/MT5 sub-account | Requires activation of a TradFi/MT5 sub-account |
| Settlement / Accounting Unit | USDT (TradFi exposure included in total asset statistics) | USDx (included in total asset statistics) | USDT (funds in TradFi account excluded from platform total assets) | USDx (funds in TradFi account excluded from platform total assets) |
| Matching & Execution | Exchange-native matching; shares the same margin and settlement framework as crypto perpetuals | MT5 STP (zero-commission, spread-based) / ECN (ultra-tight spreads + per-lot commission); dual account modes | MT5 execution under standard CFD market rules; liquidation and margin logic closer to traditional brokerage trading | MT5 execution under standard CFD market rules; liquidation and margin logic closer to traditional brokerage trading |
| Trading Hours | 24/7 trading with special pricing and risk controls during off-market hours | 24/5 trading framework aligned with traditional market hours | 24/5 trading framework aligned with traditional market hours | 24/5 trading framework aligned with traditional market hours |
| Fee Model | Futures-style trading fee model, settled directly in USDT | Commission per lot + overnight swap fees; differentiated STP/ECN structures | Commission per lot + overnight swap fees | Commission per lot + overnight swap fees |
| Leverage Adjustment | Up to 100×, manually adjustable | Up to 500×, preset per product and not manually adjustable | Up to 500×, preset per product and not manually adjustable | Up to 500× for FX/metals/indices; multi-tier leverage options for gold (e.g., 20× / 100× / 200×), adjustable via futures tier selection |
TradFi Challenges and Opportunities
Macro-asset volatility has introduced new trading themes and product narratives in TradFi while also creating an important window of opportunity for the crypto industry to mature and transition to multi-asset platformization. However, the expansion of TradFi within exchanges is not without resistance. Regulatory fragmentation, closed-market pricing risks, technical risk-control coupling, and user cognitive migration costs all make it difficult for TradFi to simply replicate the growth model of crypto derivatives.
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Macro Asset Volatility Becomes a “Trading Theme” for Crypto Users
The traditional growth model of the cryptocurrency market often relies on “new tokens, new narratives, and new cycles,” whereas markets such as gold, foreign exchange, stock indices, and commodities are typically driven by macroeconomic variables and global events — including interest-rate expectations, inflation data, geopolitical risks, and shifts in risk appetite. These drivers are generally more explainable and support more continuous trading rationales.
This creates an opportunity for TradFi to act as a stabilizing layer for exchanges. When crypto narrative cycles cool down, macro-driven themes can persist, allowing platforms to retain user engagement through traditional asset exposure rather than purely speculative token rotations.
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Web3 Integration Enables New Product Narratives
The core value of Web3 integration lies in the potential restructuring of TradFi’s funding and collateral frameworks. As RWAs and tokenized assets mature, TradFi no longer needs to remain confined to isolated MT5-style account systems. Instead, stronger composability with on-chain assets becomes possible:
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On-chain income-generating assets can serve as margin
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On-chain risk profiles can support leverage stratification
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On-chain clearing and settlement can reduce dependence on a single centralized system
This evolution moves TradFi closer to a hybrid financial infrastructure rather than remaining purely brokerage-style.
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From “Opportunity-Driven” to “Habit-Driven”
A major strength of TradFi — especially within MT5 ecosystems — is the maturity of its strategy infrastructure, which provides a predictable and calculable cost framework for professional traders. Once exchanges standardize strategy templates, copy-trading systems, risk-control prompts, and combined-margin “default capabilities,” TradFi can transition from temporary speculative spikes into habitual daily usage.
Trend-following, arbitrage, hedging, and event-driven strategies can then evolve into sustained trading volume rather than short-term bursts.
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Experience Certainty as a Driver of User Trust
One long-standing criticism of crypto derivatives is the rapid fluctuation of funding rates and risk parameters, which makes cost prediction difficult for traders. In contrast, the MT5/CFD cost framework more closely resembles traditional financial norms — spreads, commissions, and overnight fees — which are generally more transparent and predictable.
If exchanges can make TradFi costs, liquidation thresholds, and pre-trade risk disclosures clearly visible before order execution, this “experience certainty” may become a key differentiator, attracting more rational and strategy-oriented capital rather than purely speculative flows.
The Realistic Challenges of TradFi
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Regulatory Uncertainty and Regional Fragmentation
CFDs are a key focus of regulatory scrutiny in most jurisdictions worldwide. Taking the European Union’s ESMA intervention measures as an example, retail customers face leverage limits ranging from 30:1 to 2:1, 50% margin stop-out rules, negative balance protection, restrictions on inducive marketing, and mandatory risk warnings. As a result, the accessibility, available leverage, marketable narratives, and even risk-control parameters of the same product may be split into multiple regional versions. If an exchange pursues growth through a single set of “global products,” it will encounter friction in listing, conversion, and retention—either being forced to reduce leverage and attractiveness, or to narrow market coverage due to compliance constraints —ultimately becoming “capable but not scalable.”
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Pricing and Liquidity Gaps During Non-Trading Hours
The CFD/MT5 route follows traditional market trading hours and is exposed to market closures. Users must not only bear overnight swap fees but also execution risks caused by price gaps. Information accumulated during market closures is reflected at the open, and stop-loss orders may be executed at worse prices. The perpetual route (such as Binance’s TradFi Perpetual Futures) ostensibly provides 24/7 trading, but the risk does not disappear — it shifts to model risk. When the underlying market is closed, index pricing, mark-price mechanisms, capital costs, deviation constraints, and liquidation parameter design determine whether users may encounter abnormal liquidations, extreme slippage, or unreasonable holding costs.
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Technology and Risk-Control Coupling Risk
The liquidation logic of MT5/CFD products typically centers on margin levels. Users must focus on Margin Level and Margin Ratio rather than the familiar mark-price and liquidation-price concepts used in crypto perpetuals. This creates a significant cognitive switching cost for many crypto users: although both involve leveraged trading, the risk indicators are fundamentally different. When combined with unified accounts, multi-asset margin, cross-category hedging, and other advanced functions, risk exposure becomes harder to interpret and can easily trigger chain liquidations and user dissatisfaction during sharp market volatility.
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Entry Friction and Large-Scale Transformation Barriers
TradFi business models naturally rely on strong acquisition incentives such as macro hotspots, gold price volatility, and index trends. However, real-world conversion chains introduce friction: users often need to open additional accounts, review supplementary risk disclosures, and undergo regional compliance verification. Some platforms also require separate TradFi/MT5 accounts, separate from existing crypto accounts, creating additional entry barriers. This is why Binance integrates TradFi Perpetual Futures directly into its existing futures interface, delivering a unified experience without requiring additional accounts. A seamless entry path provides stronger growth advantages by reducing friction costs from intent to execution.
Outlook and Conclusion of TradFi Evolution
The future evolution of TradFi on exchanges will not be limited to “listing more assets,” but will also involve systematic competition across product structures, compliance stratification, and risk-control experience, promoting the consolidation of stablecoin liquidity and cross-market circulation to create a new competitive edge for exchanges.
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Product Forms Will Continue to Diverge — and Converge Through Learning
The MT5/CFD route will further strengthen low-threshold strategy development by standardizing copy trading, strategy templates, cost calculators, margin warnings, and pre-position risk alerts, thereby reducing the learning curve for traditional rules. At the same time, it will continue expanding asset categories (indices, commodities, stock CFDs), making macro themes a normalized entry point. The sustainable route will continue expanding asset coverage while optimizing market risk controls. Binance has already disclosed key pricing mechanisms — fixed indices, mark-price EWMA, and deviation constraints — and the next step is to “productize” these rules so users can clearly understand market-break behavior, cost changes, and dynamic liquidation thresholds before opening positions.
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Compliance Shifts from “Can It Be Done” to “How to Do It in Layers.”
Regulatory direction is becoming clearer: regionalized product distribution, stricter risk disclosures and suitability checks, limits on inducive incentives, and standardized risk warnings. For TradFi to become a long-term business, exchanges must adopt compliance zoning, risk stratification, and leverage grading. Tradable categories, leverage limits, and prompt methods will vary by region and user risk profile, and even marketing creatives will need to be compliance-generated. Compliance is no longer merely a legal cost but the underlying architecture of product growth.
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From Transaction-Volume Driven to Asset-Deposit Driven
The true value of TradFi is not simply adding another category, but enabling users to retain USDT on the platform and form a cross-market cycle: traditional asset volatility provides trading motivation, crypto assets offer high-frequency 24/7 scenarios, and stablecoins settle traditional asset transactions. In the long run, TradFi will become deeply integrated with unified accounts, risk-control models, market-making depth, and user-segmentation systems, thereby strengthening its competitive edge.
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From “Single-Product Trading” to “Combined Risk Control”
The next stage of the competition is unlikely to be about who lists more TradFi assets, but rather about who can turn TradFi into a portfolio tool—using gold or the U.S. dollar index to hedge crypto risk and using stock-index trend allocation to offset high-beta speculative products. This will require stronger portfolio-margin explanations, correlation prompts, stress testing, and positioning guidance.
Conclusion
The rise of TradFi on cryptocurrency exchanges symbolizes the industry’s transition from a single-asset narrative to a multi-asset financial “supermarket.” It enables exchanges to move beyond dependence on crypto cycles and address broader macro-trading needs. For investors, TradFi represents not only more leveraged instruments but also a new combination of tools and risk-management methods: using macro assets to hedge systemic crypto risk and replacing pure narrative speculation with more explainable market themes.
The ultimate winner of the next competitive cycle may not be the platform with the most listed assets, but the one that transforms TradFi into a sustainable, explainable, and trustworthy multi-asset risk-control system — because what endures is not the highest leverage, but the most stable experience and the clearest rules.
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