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In today’s newsletter, Michael Zhao from Grayscale Research on how Hyperliquid moved exchange-level trading onchain, and why its prices are starting to matter beyond it.
Then, in “Ask an Expert,” Kim Klemballa answers questions about the HYPE token: staking, fees, governance and the ETFs now tracking it.
Hyperliquid is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform showing the world what is possible with blockchain technology. Purpose-built for financial infrastructure, it is best known for trading of perpetual futures, which are non-expiring derivatives that trade 24/7. An enormous success since their introduction, so-called perps aren't just revolutionizing onchain finance; they are creating new markets that are unavailable through traditional financial infrastructure.
Unlike most decentralized exchanges, Hyperliquid runs an onchain orderbook that looks like a more traditional exchange, supporting up to 200,000 orders per second. Every order, trade and liquidation settles transparently onchain. This results in a unique combination of exchange-level performance and blockchain-based settlement. During a crypto bear market, Hyperliquid processed $1.28 trillion in perp volume in the first half of 2026. This places it among the top five crypto derivatives venues, including centralized exchanges which have existed for much longer.
Hyperliquid matters because it shows that financial markets can move onchain at scale without giving up performance. In 2025, the platform generated roughly $1 billion in revenue primarily from trading fees. Cumulatively, all-in volume on the platform was about $5.3 trillion as of August 2026. And consider this startling statistic: the project reached this scale without outside investors or paid market makers, and a team of just 11 people.
Hyperliquid’s orderbook depth, a measure of liquidity, consistently ranks higher for bitcoin than even the large exchanges like Binance, Bybit, OKX and Coinbase.[2] That depth means that it has been cheaper to trade bitcoin on Hyperliquid than other venues at times due to less slippage.
Market watchers should keep an eye on Hyperliquid’s increasingly important role in price discovery in traditional finance. Traditional markets close each night and over weekends. Hyperliquid does not. When geopolitical tensions were heightened in March 2026, traders were able to trade oil futures like CL-USDC on Hyperliquid while traditional energy futures markets were closed. When traditional futures markets reopened, their out-of-date prices converged toward Hyperliquid’s real-time oil price.[3] The same model has expanded to equities, indexes, commodities and private market and pre-IPO assets. S&P Global licensed its S&P 500 Index for the first-ever perpetual contract that trades 24/7 on Hyperliquid.
Pre-IPO price discovery has been equally groundbreaking: Traders used pre-IPO perpetuals on SpaceX stock to express views on its expected public market valuation before the actual IPO. They have done so with other pre-IPO companies, including Cerebras, CXMT and Unitree. The pre-IPO price for Cerebras, for example, was $185, but it traded near $350 on Hyperliquid. It ultimately opened on Nasdaq at $350. In other words, Hyperliquid served as a more reliable indicator of Cerebras's opening price than the underwriter's estimated pricing. While perpetual contracts do not give traders ownership of the underlying assets, they can create a continuously traded reference price when traditional markets are not open. In doing so, this crypto-based project has become a meaningful reference point for global financial markets.
This matters for institutions even if they don't trade directly on Hyperliquid. A continuous market can provide information about prices overnight, on weekends and during market shocks. It can also create new tools for hedging, market making and arbitrage. The innovations should keep coming, as well. Hyperliquid lets third party developers create new spot and perpetual markets. Regulatory clarity isn't quite where it needs to be, but the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) did permit the first regulated futures contract in the United States this year. And the door may be opening further: President Trump recently said CFTC Chair Michael Selig is working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States “in a fully compliant and legal fashion.”
Investors can get exposure to the growth of this revolutionary platform through HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token. HYPE helps secure the network through staking, allows builders to create new markets and provides trading-related benefits. Hyperliquid also buys back the token using trading fees, allowing the token to directly accrue value. Investors can buy HYPE directly through Hyperliquid itself, or on centralized exchanges. U.S. investors can also get exposure to HYPE through products such as the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF (HYPG).
HYPE is the native ecosystem token of the Hyperliquid L1 network. It has various uses within the Hyperliquid ecosystem:
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