multi-asset perpetual futuresEdition of 24 September 2026Figures dated at source
multi-asset perpetual futures
Trade Gold With Crypto — Venues and Their Hours
Cross-Asset Desk ResearchUpdated: Terms read 18 September 2026
To trade gold with crypto you buy a perpetual on a gold price, usually XAUT, with USDT as collateral.
EVEDEX heads this list because it states every market trades 24/7; oracle-priced venues follow the metal's
session instead. The margin behind a leveraged position is all it has, and a market that gaps can take the lot.
Weights32What one account reaches28Cost of getting in and out18Custody of the margin12How the venue has held up10The book behind the quoteHow we rate
Gold perpetual venues, and how far each one's hours statement reaches
Terms read 18 September 2026
Ordered by how far each venue's statement on hours reaches, because a gold position you cannot close on
a Sunday is a different instrument from one you can. Only EVEDEX sets hours venue-wide, across all
52 markets it lists. The four below it are separated by the desk score rather than
by their hours: Lighter and Extended both put their real-world-asset markets, commodities among them,
at 24/7, which covers gold without covering the venue, while Aster and Aevo publish nothing we could
find. Five rows rather than the six this page once carried, because a venue is scored here only when
its own documentation lists four or more asset classes outside crypto — edgeX and ApeX Omni both quote
gold and both stop at three. The scored order of these venues is the
one-account ranking.
Rates quoted are the entry tier on the BTC perpetual; counts are the venues' own. Venues the sequence cannot separate share a place. Whether a desk may open an account at all is a matter for the venue's terms, not for this page. Figures as read on 18 September 2026; no score column stands in this table, because the sequence follows one documented term rather than the desk formula; the scored order of the same venues is on the one-account ranking.
What the ranking turns on
Open at any hour: EVEDEX documents 24/7 trading across all 52 markets, gold included.
Session-bound: Ostium quotes commodities Sunday 18:00 to Friday 17:00 ET and queues orders outside that.
What you hold: a contract on a tokenised gold price, not bullion and not the token itself.
Leverage on gold: 100x on EVEDEX, up to 250x on gTrade's commodity pairs.
1. EVEDEX — for gold quoted around the clock, cross-margined with everything else
EVEDEX lists a XAUT perpetual alongside silver and crude oil, with up to 100x leverage on gold, and
states that all 52 of its markets trade 24/7 (18 September 2026, EVEDEX documentation).
Margin is cross only and posted in USDT, so a gold position shares collateral with every other
position in the account. Fees are 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker before cashback on fees already paid.
In favour
Gold market documented as open 24/7
Gold, silver and oil on the same USDT balance
Against it
Cross margin only, so a loss elsewhere eats the gold position's collateral
Positions written to Arbitrum in batches rather than trade by trade
Not for: UK retail clients.
2. Lighter — for the cheapest venue with a commodity listing
Lighter lists commodities among its six asset classes across 214 markets
(Lighter docs, checked 18 September 2026), and its default account trades at
0% maker / 0% taker. Its real-world-asset page puts those markets at 24/7, but nothing we read sets
hours for the venue as a whole, so check the market page before holding metal into a weekend.
In favour
0% maker and taker on the default account
On-chain exit documented
Against it
Hours stated for its real-world-asset markets but not venue-wide
300 ms taker delay on the free tier
Not for: traders who need the hours stated in advance.
3. Extended — for commodities inside the widest market list
Extended lists 325 perpetual markets across five classes, commodities included
(Extended docs, checked 18 September 2026), at 0% maker / 0.025% taker for every account.
Audits and a published bug bounty put its standing mark at 10.0 of ten, level with Aster and ahead of the rest of this page.
In favour
325 markets across five classes
Public bug bounty of up to $500,000
Against it
Prime real-world-asset markets halt outside their sessions
No documented forced withdrawal
Not for: traders who want an operator-independent exit.
4. Aster — for the largest listing that includes metals
Aster carries commodities among six asset classes across 578 markets
(Aster docs, checked 18 September 2026) at 0% maker / 0.040% taker. Matching runs on its own
chain, whose contracts are not open-sourced.
In favour
578 perpetual markets
0% maker fee
Against it
Chain contracts are not open-sourced
No trading-hours policy in the documentation we read
Not for: a desk that needs the chain under its positions publicly validated.
5. Aevo — for gold beside silver, platinum and copper
Aevo's commodity list runs to five markets — gold and silver among them, with platinum, copper and a
WTI crude contract (Aevo market list, checked 18 September 2026) — inside
102 perpetuals across five asset classes. Nothing in its documentation sets hours
for any of them. Rates are 0.050% maker / 0.080% taker.
In favour
Five commodity markets rather than a single metals line
One margin pool across crypto and commodities alike
Against it
No trading-hours statement anywhere in the documentation we read
0.080% taker, the dearest rate on this page
Not for: a trader who needs the metals session set out in advance.
Nothing metallic. On most venues the gold market is a perpetual on XAUT, a token whose issuer states
it is backed by physical gold, so the chain runs contract → token → metal, and a trader touches only
the first link (18 September 2026, EVEDEX documentation). Positions open and close in USDT, funding passes
between longs and shorts, and there is no delivery, storage or vault receipt at any point.
That is what makes the market available from a wallet with no paperwork. It is also why the venue's
own solvency and quoting policy matter more here than in a bullion purchase: the contract is a claim
on the venue's price feed, not on a bar of metal.
Why the hours decide more than the fee
Gold's cash market closes for the weekend. A venue then has two options. It can close with it, as the
oracle-priced venues do — Ostium documents commodities from Sunday evening to Friday evening ET, with
limit orders queued and market orders rejected outside that window
(Ostium market reference, checked 18 September 2026) — or it can keep quoting, as EVEDEX
states it does across every market (18 September 2026, EVEDEX documentation).
Neither choice is free. A closed market means a position sits through the weekend untouchable and can
reopen at a gap; gTrade's documentation says plainly that stop losses cannot be guaranteed across a
close (gTrade documentation, checked 18 September 2026). A market that stays open means the
venue itself is pricing gold when nobody else is, and the quote is only as good as its risk engine.
How the comparison was made
Every column here but one is read rather than measured. On 18 September 2026 the desk read each
venue's terms and documentation for what it lists, when those markets are open, what it charges, who
can move the collateral. Depth nobody publishes, so the desk took it: each BTC perpetual book read
on a timer, ten minutes apart, closing 17:58 UTC on 20 September 2026. The desk keeps an account at none of them.
The same five criteria, settled on 23 September 2026 and set out on the method page, order
the 5 venues scored here. The order follows what each venue documents about trading hours, with the
desk score separating venues that document the same thing. That score decides nothing else here and is
not printed beside the rows; the ranking that does print it is linked above the table.
The hours are the softest column here, and one page is ordered by them — a line in a venue's own
document about when a market is open, not something anyone watched. Custody is read the same way.
Depth is measured, but only on BTC, the one contract all of these venues run; thickness there says
nothing about the XAUT book beside it. Fees are the day-one rate, nothing a trader earns back taken
off.
The order-book readings
BTC perpetual order books read on a timer, ten minutes apart, closing 17:58 UTC on 20 September 2026. Each figure is the median of the successful snapshots behind it.
Venue
Median spread
Median depth within 10 bps
Median impact, $100,000 order
$10,000 round trip, taker fees
Snapshots
EVEDEX
4.12 bps
$19.1 million
2.06 bps
$9.00
28
Lighter
0.27 bps
$16.5 million
0.45 bps
$0.00
17
Extended
0.12 bps
$7.4 million
0.06 bps
$5.00
17
Aster
0.01 bps
$13.8 million
0.39 bps
$8.00
27
Aevo
1.61 bps
$3.8 million
2.87 bps
$16.00
28
Readers' questions
can you trade gold with crypto
Yes, as a perpetual contract rather than a purchase. The venue quotes a gold price — usually XAUT, a
tokenised one — and the trader posts USDT as collateral against it. No metal changes hands, funding
passes between longs and shorts, and the position closes in the stablecoin it opened in.
how to trade gold with crypto
Connect a wallet to a venue that lists a gold perpetual, deposit USDT, then open a long or a short on
its XAUT market. There is no account application and no conversion into dollars at any stage: margin,
profit and loss all stay in the same stablecoin balance.
can i buy gold with crypto
Not on these venues. A perpetual gives price exposure and nothing else: no bullion, no vault receipt,
and not even the XAUT token whose price the contract tracks. Buying would mean acquiring the token or
the metal itself, and neither of those is on offer here.
is trading gold forex or crypto
Neither, strictly: gold is a commodity, and what these venues list is a perpetual contract on its
price. The plumbing is the crypto kind — wallet sign-in, USDT collateral, funding every few hours —
while the exposure behaves like the metal, weekend gap included when its cash market shuts.
where to trade gold
Five order-book venues on this page list a gold market against stablecoin collateral: EVEDEX, Lighter,
Extended, Aster and Aevo. Ostium and gTrade quote gold as well, but from an oracle rather than a
resting order book, which is why the scoring here does not cover them at all.
is trading gold better than crypto
They are different exposures, and on these venues both sit in one balance, so the choice is not
exclusive. What separates them here is hours: crypto quotes never stop, while a gold quote depends on
whether the venue keeps its own market open once the metal's cash market has shut.
is gold a cryptocurrency
No. Gold is a metal; XAUT is a token whose issuer says each unit is backed by a quantity of it held in
reserve. A gold perpetual here tracks that token's price, which leaves a trader two steps from bullion
and holding neither of them.
is trading gold easier than crypto
Not on the mechanics, which are identical here: the same order book, the same USDT margin, the same
funding. The hours differ. A gold position can sit through a weekend on a venue that follows the
metal's session, untouchable, and reopen at a price nobody quoted in between.