Hyperliquid: Real-World Assets Overtake Crypto in Weekly Volume
In brief
- Real-world assets hit 52% of Hyperliquid's $48.2B weekly volume during July 13–19, outpacing crypto for the first time
- Individual stocks dominate RWA trading on HIP-3, comprising 61% of volume since June
- ARK Invest predicts dedicated category leaders may emerge in RWA trading, decoupling platform dominance from Bitcoin and Ethereum flow
The Milestone
For the first time, traders on Hyperliquid moved more money through stocks and commodities than through crypto, according to Lorenzo Valente, director of digital assets research at ARK Invest. Real-world assets accounted for 52% of Hyperliquid's $48.2 billion in weekly volume during July 13–19, totaling $25.1 billion.
The shift underscores Hyperliquid's grip on the decentralized derivatives market. Hyperliquid processed $50 billion of the $79 billion in total perpetual DEX volume across the industry last week—a commanding 63% share.
How HIP-3 Changed the Game
The mechanism behind this surge is HIP-3, a framework Hyperliquid launched in October 2025 that lets outside teams build their own perpetual markets using Hyperliquid's infrastructure. Builders stake 500,000 HYPE tokens, currently worth roughly $30 million, to access the system.
The result: a proliferation of RWA markets. Since June, individual stocks have overtaken indices and commodities inside HIP-3, with single-stock perpetuals now making up 61% of all RWA trading. The HIP-3 platform has already hosted pre-IPO markets for SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The most-traded stock is SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker that competes with Samsung in supplying DRAM and high-bandwidth memory.
ARK's Take on What Comes Next
ARK Invest sees this moment as pivotal. In September 2025, CEO Cathie Wood told the Master Investor podcast that the platform "reminds me of Solana in the earlier days".
Valente is now rethinking the conventional wisdom about DEX consolidation. He predicted that dedicated category leaders may emerge within RWA—and that a platform's grip on Bitcoin and Ethereum flow may prove less important than many assume. More pointedly, Valente stated he is no longer convinced RWA trading will naturally aggregate on the same venue as crypto.
That's a significant reframing. For years, the crypto industry assumed all trading—whether digital assets or tokenized real-world instruments—would consolidate on a single dominant venue. ARK's analysis suggests the future may be more fragmented, with specialist platforms capturing different asset classes.
Frequently asked questions
What are real-world assets (RWAs) on Hyperliquid?
RWAs are tokenized versions of traditional financial instruments like company shares, crude oil, or market indices. They allow traders to take perpetual positions on real-world assets through a decentralized exchange.
How does HIP-3 work?
HIP-3 is a framework Hyperliquid launched in October 2025 that lets outside teams build their own perpetual markets using Hyperliquid's infrastructure. Builders stake 500,000 HYPE tokens (worth roughly $30 million) to access the system and launch new markets.
Why does ARK think this matters?
ARK predicts that dedicated category leaders may emerge within RWA trading, and that a platform's dominance in Bitcoin and Ethereum flow may no longer determine overall market success. This suggests the future of DeFi may be more specialized and fragmented than previously assumed.
