Hypercall, an options exchange built on Hyperliquid, said it has recorded $640 million in notional volume since June 1, and more than 80% of that total has come from S&P 500 options.
The platform told CoinDesk that open interest, or the value of contracts still outstanding, is about $49 million. Of that amount, $47 million is in S&P 500 options. Hypercall launched in June on Hyperliquid, which the report described as the eighth-largest blockchain by total value locked.
Those figures are still tiny next to the traditional S&P 500 options market, where notional trading runs into the trillions of dollars a day. They are also small compared with Deribit’s crypto options business. CoinDesk noted that Deribit began offering crypto options shortly after its 2016 debut and now regularly posts billions of dollars in daily volume and open interest.
Still, the activity on Hypercall points to a broader shift: traders want access to financial instruments when conventional markets are shut. Hypercall lists daily, weekly and monthly expiries, and trading continues through the weekend.
Volume is centered on next-day expiry
In an email interview, Hypercall founder Jake Sylvestre said, 「The volume is concentrated in options expiring the following day. Traders can take a view on the next day’s move or hold a position further out.」
CoinDesk said traders are increasingly turning to blockchains for exposure to traditional markets, including derivatives. Hyperliquid’s decentralized exchange, also called Hyperliquid, has become a venue for placing trades and managing risk through perpetual futures, especially on weekends when conventional markets are closed and geopolitical tensions have repeatedly escalated.
The appeal is 24/7 access
Hypercall extends Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures activity into options. An option is a contract that pays out if an asset ends up above or below a set price by a specified date, depending on the contract terms. A call option pays if the asset finishes above the strike at expiry. A put option pays if it finishes below. Traders use both to hedge price swings and to bet on direction, volatility and time.
Each Hypercall contract carries a $1 multiplier, meaning each index point is worth $1 at settlement. A call with a 7,000 strike would pay $100 if the index settles at 7,100. Contracts settle in USDC, the dollar-pegged stablecoin, against the average price over the final 30 minutes for Hyperliquid’s S&P 500 perpetual futures.
Sylvestre said, 「Hyperliquid has become the best venue for trading these markets outside exchange hours.」
He also said Hypercall’s market makers hedge on Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures, including on weekends when the cash equity market is closed. Earnings, economic data and company news can move an underlying asset while its home exchange is shut, so market makers have to price those events around the clock, he said.
Not trying to replace Deribit
Hypercall is not presenting itself as a replacement for Deribit. The report described Deribit as the largest crypto options venue and said it is owned by Coinbase Global. Deribit mainly lists bitcoin and ether options.
「Most of our traders aren’t leaving Deribit; they’re trading markets Deribit doesn’t list,」 Sylvestre said.
He added that two market makers are currently active on the platform and three more are being onboarded.
On their identities, Sylvestre said, 「We haven’t named them publicly yet and expect to over the next few weeks.」 He also said user collateral is held on-chain, while order matching is off-chain only. Parts of margining and liquidation also run off-chain.
Single-stock options are also drawing activity
Index options are not the only source of demand. According to the report, options on SpaceX, Nvidia, Micron Technology and SanDisk account for more than half of all trades. They are followed by Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Alibaba, ether and bitcoin.
「The breadth is in single names,」 Sylvestre said.
Other trading platforms are also adding stock options. Bybit began offering 24/7 trading on options on stock perpetuals on Sept. 17, starting with SpaceX and Nvidia. Binance, the largest crypto exchange by value traded, offers options on more than 1,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs to eligible users outside the U.S.