Real-world asset markets made up more than half of Hyperliquid’s trading volume for two consecutive weeks in July, the first time perpetual contracts tied to stocks, commodities, and indexes have out-traded crypto perps on the platform.
RWA share crossed 50% in mid-July
According to Blockworks data, RWA perps generated $25.1 billion in volume during the week of July 13–19, accounting for 52% of Hyperliquid’s $48.2 billion total. The share remained above 50% in the following week.
In a July 23 post on X, ARK Invest director of digital asset research Lorenzo Valente wrote, “We are entering a new era for DeFi.” He added, “For the first time ever, @HyperliquidX generated more volume from RWAs than crypto in a single week.”
Single-stock contracts led RWA activity
Valente said single stocks represented 61% of RWA volume, ahead of indexes and commodities. He also said Hyperliquid’s RWA market by itself was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other decentralized exchange.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described the change as a “major structural shift” in crypto markets, with activity moving “away from speculating on endogenous digital commodities.”
Traditional assets are driving growth
Nine months after Hyperliquid opened permissionless market deployment, the platform’s growth is coming from traditional assets rather than crypto pairs. The report said that expansion is also masking a shrinking crypto perps business.
HIP-3 rose from about 2% to around 50%
The RWA markets run on HIP-3, Hyperliquid’s framework for builder-deployed perps. It went live in October 2025 and requires deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE. HIP-3’s share of Hyperliquid perp volume rose from roughly 2% at the start of the year to around 50% by mid-July.
Trade.xyz, the dominant deployer with more than 90% of HIP-3 volume, lists single stocks including Nvidia and Tesla, the XYZ100 Nasdaq tracker, and commodities such as gold. Ventuals runs pre-IPO perps tied to OpenAI and SpaceX.
Quarterly volume has fallen from the 2025 peak
Token Terminal data shows Hyperliquid’s quarterly volume dropped from its roughly $1 trillion peak in Q3 2025 to about $550 billion in Q2 2026, a decline of around half. Growth in RWA markets has offset the decline in crypto pairs.