Hyperliquid has broken through the $10 billion mark in open interest: what's behind the surge
The open interest on the Hyperliquid platform has exceeded $10 billion, allowing the protocol to take third place among the largest venues for trading perpetual futures. This impressive growth is driven by the launch of markets for traditional assets — stocks, commodities, and indices. Approximately $4 billion of the open interest comes from decentralized exchanges created by third-party developers under the HIP-3 initiative.
Traders are actively using synthetic instruments. The daily trading volume for oil and the Nasdaq 100 index regularly exceeds $100 million. Pre-IPO markets have generated particular interest: before the SpaceX listing, open interest in the corresponding contract reached $250 million.
A key stage in the ecosystem's development was the transition to USDC. After integrating the stablecoin with the participation of Circle and Coinbase, it became the platform's primary settlement asset. Under the partnership terms, the issuers are required to stake HYPE tokens and share the yield from reserves with the protocol. Hyperliquid will receive about 90% of the profits from Treasury bonds and repo transactions backing USDC within the network. At current rates, this will bring the platform approximately $160 million per year.
The protocol will allocate additional revenues to buy back and burn native HYPE tokens. The total buyback amount is expected to be $450 million. According to the project's mechanics, the burn will reduce the asset's supply and support its market value.
As a reminder, in May, Hyperliquid's share of perpetual futures trading volume rose to a record 6.63% of the total turnover on centralized exchanges — $200 million out of $3 trillion.
My comment: Hyperliquid demonstrates how DeFi protocols can effectively compete with centralized giants through innovative financial instruments and partnerships with stablecoin issuers. The HYPE buyback and burn mechanism is a classic but effective way to support the token, which, given current revenues, could significantly impact its long-term dynamics. However, it is worth monitoring how sustainable interest in synthetic assets will be in the event of a correction in traditional markets.