Hyperliquid sees $2.5B open interest as demand for tokenized equities surges

A decentralized exchange best known for crypto perpetuals is now processing billions in open interest on tokenized stocks and commodities. Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 permissionless markets have hit approximately $2.5B in open interest, a new all-time high, and the majority of that activity isn’t coming from Bitcoin or Ethereum trades.

It’s coming from Nvidia, Tesla, the S&P 500, oil, and gold.

Trade.xyz is running the show

Here’s the thing about Hyperliquid’s tokenized asset boom: one project is responsible for almost all of it. Trade.xyz, the tokenization arm developed by Unit/Hyperunit, accounts for roughly 91% to 93.7% of HIP-3’s total open interest.

The individual market breakdowns tell the story of what traders actually want. The S&P 500 perpetual contract alone carries approximately $479M in open interest. Oil sits at around $307M. Nvidia’s tokenized perp holds roughly $117M.

Other notable markets include Tesla, Apple, the Nasdaq (listed as XYZ100 on the platform), gold, and silver. Only a minority of the top HIP-3 markets by open interest are actually crypto pairs.

How HIP-3 changed the trajectory

HIP-3 introduced a permissionless framework that allowed third-party developers to spin up custom perpetual markets on top of Hyperliquid’s infrastructure. The framework went live around October 2025.

Trade.xyz was the first major project to capitalize on that framework. It launched tokenized equity perps and expanded rapidly, including rolling out licensed S&P 500 contracts in March 2026. Open interest climbed from the early days of HIP-3 to the current $2.46B to $2.5B range in roughly seven months.

What this means for investors

The most direct beneficiary beyond traders themselves is HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token. Every trade on the platform generates fees, and that fee revenue flows back into the protocol.

But the concentration risk is worth watching closely. When one project, Trade.xyz, controls north of 90% of a framework’s open interest, the health of the entire ecosystem effectively depends on that single project’s execution and reliability.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.