A perpetual contract tied to SK Hynix on Hyperliquid suffered a flash crash ahead of the Asian trading session on July 28, falling 20% in one minute to $900 before quickly bouncing back. Hours later, the chipmaker’s spot shares dropped sharply after the South Korean market opened, raising questions about whether crypto derivatives can at times reflect sentiment in traditional finance before cash markets react.
The contract fell to $900 in a minute
According to Hyperliquid data, the perpetual contract tracking SK Hynix dropped 20% between 07:00 and 07:01, briefly hitting $900. In the next minute, it rebounded fast and reclaimed the $1,000 level.
Flash crashes like this are not unusual in crypto markets, especially during the handoff period after U.S. equities close and before stock markets in China and South Korea open. Liquidity is often thinner in that window, which can leave prices more exposed to sudden moves.
South Korean shares opened lower
About an hour after the flash crash in the perpetual contract, South Korea’s stock market opened sharply lower, with semiconductor names leading the decline. By the close, SK Hynix had fallen 15% to 1,550,000 won, or about $1,762.
Heavyweights including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor also declined, helping pull the KOSPI index down 11%. SK Hynix ADRs, where every 10 ADR units represent one common share, were also down 4.5% in U.S. premarket trading at $136.51.
Shares are down nearly 48% from the June 26 high
SK Hynix is a major supplier of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in NVIDIA AI processors. Even so, its recent share performance has been under heavy pressure. From the peak of 1.947 million won reached on June 26, the stock has now fallen nearly 48%.
Pressure is not limited to one stock
The decline is not confined to SK Hynix alone. Sentiment on Wall Street toward AI-related stocks has cooled. Earlier this week, NVIDIA shares fell 5% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company could provide as much as $250 billion in financial guarantees for an OpenAI data center project.
More traders are using Hyperliquid for contracts linked to traditional assets
Hyperliquid has become the world’s largest decentralized perpetual futures platform in recent years. Since geopolitical tensions in the Middle East intensified earlier this year, more traders have been using the venue to trade perpetual contracts linked to traditional financial assets, including stocks and indexes, rather than limiting activity to crypto alone.