In August, Trade.xyz perpetual contract market volume accounted for 55% of Hyperliquid’s total platform trading volume.
By: Cooper Duschang
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
Over the past 30 days, Hyperliquid futures had an average daily trading volume of about $8.5 billion, accounting for 4.6% of the global crypto futures total. Perpetual contracts allow traders to conveniently gain futures exposure without dealing with the underlying assets, and there is no expiration and settlement. Traders don’t need to trade options with expiration dates; they can maintain their positions by paying a small funding rate, keeping the futures price anchored to the spot price. Hyperliquid brings traditional financial capabilities such as order book matching and low-latency trading on-chain, combined with perpetual contract products.
Hyperliquid’s improvement proposal HIP‑3 was officially implemented in October 2025, enabling permissionless creation of perpetual contract markets. Developers can launch their own perpetual contract markets to earn revenue, expand the ecosystem, and reduce reliance on Hyperliquid’s verification nodes.
This article analyzes how the Hyperliquid HIP‑3 upgrade, Trade.xyz’s market share, and fee splits from non-crypto asset markets can empower the HYPE token.
What changes does HIP‑3 bring to Hyperliquid
HIP‑3 unlocks the ability for independent external developers to deploy perpetual contract markets. Before this, launching new perpetual contract markets required verification node voting approvals, which not only introduced process delays but also relied heavily on Hyperliquid’s centralized verification nodes.
After enabling HIP‑3, developers can stake 500,000 HYPE (about $27 million) to directly deploy three perpetual contract markets. After deployment, they can participate in auction bidding to launch more contract markets. HIP‑3 uses a 31-hour Dutch auction with a starting floor price of 500 HYPE (about $27,000). Developers obtain deployment rights for new markets by placing bids. After a developer wins an auction, the starting price for the next round doubles based on the previous deal price, and then declines linearly back to 500 HYPE until the next bidder wins. All auction proceeds are used to buy back and burn HYPE tokens.
The staking requirement for 500,000 HYPE (the staked assets can be forfeited) combined with auction costs creates a highly centralized situation in the HIP‑3 developer track—there are very few participants who can achieve profitability. Meanwhile, as Trade.xyz grows into the largest HIP‑3 perpetual contract service provider, its open interest exceeds $4 billion, and its share of trading volume and fees contributed to the Hyperliquid ecosystem continues to rise.
Hyperliquid native and Trade.xyz open interest trends
Trade.xyz: the dominant ecosystem developer
Trade.xyz holds a huge share of perpetual contract trading volume on Hyperliquid. Since January 2026, Trade.xyz has cumulatively facilitated trading volume of over $460 billion, accounting for about 30% of Hyperliquid’s total trading volume.
Distribution of Hyperliquid’s monthly trading volume by market
At present, the Hyperliquid platform has a total of 484 trading markets: 232 are native platform listings, 108 are deployed by Trade.xyz, and the remaining 144 come from other HIP‑3 developers. In the past month, a total of 23 new market auctions were deployed. Trade.xyz won deployment qualifications for 8 stock perpetual contract markets, and simultaneously launched chip enterprise targets GIGADEV and CXMT, as well as launched compute-power ETFs LYTE and NCLD.
Entering August, Trade.xyz’s monthly trading volume has already surpassed Hyperliquid’s native markets, accounting for 55% of total platform trading volume.
In non-native markets, Trade.xyz holds absolute dominance
Developers can create repeatable markets of the same type, customize maximum leverage limits, and set up oracles to provide traders with alternative trading pools. However, almost 100% of the trading volume in these duplicate markets flows to Trade.xyz. This forces other smaller developers to focus on niche perpetual contract tracks that Trade.xyz has not covered, in order to achieve differentiated competition.
In-depth analysis of niche segments
Trade.xyz focuses on stocking perpetual contracts for stocks and commodities, and it tapped into the hottest market narrative: AI / computing power trading. As traders began to trade derivatives related to computing costs, Trade.xyz launched many AI company perpetual contracts and industry proxy index perpetual contracts.
Trade.xyz’s AI / computing power market trading volume trend
In July, a basket of perpetual contracts from AI supercomputing enterprises and chip manufacturers surged, contributing 53% of Trade.xyz’s daily trading volume. Among the basket, SK Hynix and Micron each accounted for 20% of trading volume of the assets in the basket. Next came SanDisk (SanDisk), the DRAM index, and NVIDIA (NVDA), which were the most actively traded products in the AI computing power segment.
Apart from the AI sector, by looking at Trade.xyz’s popular products, you can see strong demand for perpetual contracts of traditional financial assets. From January 2026 to today, ranked by cumulative trading volume, the top five contracts on the platform are: crude oil, silver, Brent crude oil, the Nasdaq 100 proxy contract, and the S&P 500 contract.
Daily average trading volume trends for Trade.xyz’s markets: crude oil, silver, Brent crude oil, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500
Although recent trading volume has become more dispersed, the market remains operational 7×24, allowing traders to respond quickly to unexpected events. When geopolitical conflicts occur, even if U.S. stocks close and the weekend market is paused, products such as crude oil still experience price fluctuations. In August, commodities and index-type contracts account for about 30% of Trade.xyz’s total trading volume, a significant decline from the peak of 88%, reflecting capital starting to rotate into various newly launched assets on the platform.
Trade.xyz’s SPCX pre-listing contract trading volume trend
Pre-IPO company stock perpetual contracts also have huge potential. In the listing expectation phase for SPCX, market speculation heats up, and this asset’s trading volume on Trade.xyz surpasses $130 million. Trade.xyz can quickly launch new markets to capture short-term hot trends, generating substantial fees for itself and Hyperliquid.
How fee revenue affects the HYPE token
For perpetual contract markets not operated by verification nodes, Hyperliquid applies maker/taker fees to limit orders/matched orders. Trade.xyz is currently in a growth mode, with substantial fee reductions—over 90%—to drive user growth.
Over the past month, Trade.xyz generated $5 million in fees. The fees are split 50/50 between Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid will use its share primarily for buybacks in the secondary market and burning HYPE.
The relationship between HYPE price and Hyperliquid trading volume
Based on data from January 2026, the HYPE token price shows a weak positive correlation with Hyperliquid’s overall trading volume. HYPE’s value-capture channels are becoming more diversified: prediction markets, perpetual contracts on pre-IPO assets, and USDC reserve yield are all empowering HYPE and the entire Hyperliquid ecosystem.
Hyperliquid’s aligned-asset pricing mechanism also brings in another portion of revenue: for all USDC balances within the platform, Circle shares 90% of the underlying investment yield with Hyperliquid. As more perpetual contracts priced in USDC go live, Hyperliquid will receive more income, which will be used for HYPE buybacks.
Summary
Regardless of open interest or trading volume, Trade.xyz is the leading HIP‑3 ecosystem developer. In the past month, large amounts of perpetual contract trading volume have migrated from Hyperliquid’s native markets to markets launched by Trade.xyz. The driving forces behind this include a rich set of tradable assets, as well as market hotspots such as AI computing narratives, geopolitical event trading, and valuation battles for pre-IPO companies.
Once Trade.xyz exits its growth mode, the effective fee rate will rise, further expanding the fee volume and enabling more HYPE buybacks. A rebound in crypto perpetual contract market conditions will also bring additional incremental trading volume. As long as Hyperliquid and Trade.xyz continue to launch products and integration solutions that benefit the ecosystem, they can continuously create value for the HYPE token. Trade.xyz is attracting more and more users by trading traditional financial assets via on-chain markets 24/7, 7×24.