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

The decentralized perpetuals exchange is quietly becoming the go-to venue for leveraged exposure to Tesla, Nvidia, and hundreds of other traditional assets.

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Add us on Google by Editorial Team May. 25, 2026

Something interesting is happening on Hyperliquid. The decentralized perpetuals exchange, once known primarily as a crypto-native trading venue, is watching its tokenized equities and commodities markets explode in size. Open interest in its HIP-3 permissionless markets hit a record $1.74 billion in March 2026, a 25% jump in just one week, with figures on track to approach or exceed $2.5 billion in subsequent months.

Trade.xyz dominates the order book

Trade.xyz, built by Hyperliquid’s tokenization arm Hyperunit/Unit, commands 91.3% of the total HIP-3 open interest.

The platform has been aggressively onboarding tokenized perpetual contracts for household-name equities. Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta all have live perpetual markets on Hyperliquid now. An S&P 500 contract was licensed for use in March 2026, giving traders synthetic exposure to the benchmark US equity index around the clock.

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As of mid-2026, 23 of Hyperliquid’s top 30 assets by open interest are commodities and equities, not crypto pairs.

Ondo Finance integration widens the funnel

In May 2026, Hyperliquid integrated Ondo Finance to facilitate the transfer of tokenized equities and ETFs onto its platform. Products like SPYon and NVDAon, Ondo’s tokenized versions of the S&P 500 ETF and Nvidia stock, can now be used as collateral or traded against perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid. This integration brought over 250 tokenized US equities and ETFs into Hyperliquid’s ecosystem in one move.

Certain evaluations have shown the platform capturing over 70% of all DeFi perpetual open interest. Potential SEC exemptions for tokenized stocks have been floated, which could lower the legal risk for platforms operating in this space.

What this means for investors

For HYPE token holders, the growth story has a direct financial hook. Trading activity on Hyperliquid generates fees, and the platform has buyback mechanisms tied to those fees. Recent HYPE price movements have been attributed to robust internal demand driven by platform usage rather than speculative momentum from broader crypto markets.

A platform where 91.3% of open interest flows through a single entity, Trade.xyz, carries concentration risk. If Trade.xyz experienced technical issues or a liquidity crunch, the ripple effects across HIP-3 markets could be severe.

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