Binance Emerges as 24/7 Price-Setting Venue for Gold and Silver — DL Research

Binance becomes a round-the-clock commodity trading hub

Crypto exchange Binance has established itself as one of the primary platforms for 24/7 gold and silver trading. That's the key finding from a new DL Research report examining the convergence of traditional finance and crypto markets.

Historically, traditional finance and crypto have operated as two isolated systems. Now both sectors are moving toward each other: stock exchanges are extending trading hours, while crypto platforms are adding TradFi functionality.

According to the report, commodities provide one of the clearest examples of this shift. The broader commodity market carries a notional value exceeding $135 trillion, spanning energy, precious and industrial metals, and agricultural products. In practice, most participants don't seek physical delivery — they gain exposure through instruments like ETFs, futures, options, and perpetual contracts.

Why this matters

The disconnect between traditional and crypto markets creates a structural vulnerability: macroeconomic events occur around the clock, yet conventional exchanges remain closed for several hours each day. DL Research highlights a telling data point from 2020–2025: the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) generated +47% returns during off-hours versus +29% during regular sessions. For the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ), the split was +53% versus +30%.

Binance's ability to provide continuous price discovery without the gaps typical of fixed-schedule venues positions the platform as a significant player in commodity derivatives.

Tokenized commodities surge in growth

Data from DeFiLlama shows the tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market expanding from $4.3 billion to $22 billion in market cap over the past year. Tokenized commodities alone grew from $1.1 billion to $6.4 billion during the same period, making them one of the largest RWA categories after tokenized U.S. Treasuries.

Gold dominates the tokenized commodity space at roughly 95% of the market. Two tokens lead:

• XAUT — $3.7 billion market cap, holders growing from 3,000 to 30,000 over one year
• PAXG — $2.4 billion market cap, holders rising from 48,000 to 98,000

Cumulative DEX trading volume for tokenized gold climbed from $1.4 billion to $8.4 billion. The share of PAXG transactions routed through decentralized exchanges jumped from 5% to 20%.

Perpetual contracts drive price discovery

Perpetual contracts on commodities have become the primary instrument for 24/7 price formation on Binance. Unlike traditional futures, perpetuals trade without an expiration date, offer leverage, and feature continuous funding rate recalculation.

CryptoQuant data shows that on March 6, the cumulative trading volume of perpetual contracts on traditional assets at Binance surpassed $130 billion across 90 million trades — just two months after the product launched in early January.

Gold accounts for between 25% and 65% of total TradFi futures volume on Binance, while silver captures the remaining share and on some days exceeds 70%. Other metals (palladium, platinum) and equities (AMZN, COIN, CIRCL, HOOD, INTC, MSTR, PLTR, TSLA) generate considerably lower volume — $45 million and $16 million respectively.

Traditional exchanges join the convergence

The convergence trend extends beyond crypto-native platforms. In March, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced a partnership with RWA platform Securitize to jointly develop infrastructure for round-the-clock trading of tokenized assets. The SEC also approved Nasdaq's proposal to trade tokenized equities.

DL Research concludes that the high density of trading activity and continuous global participation on Binance create conditions for real-time price formation — free of the price gaps that characterize venues with fixed trading schedules.