Hyperliquid Hits $4.5T in Perp Volume as Grayscale Launches HYPE Staking ETF

TLDR:

• Hyperliquid has reached $4.5T in cumulative perp volume with $10.1B in open interest.
• Grayscale launched the HYPG staking ETF at a 0.29% gross management fee for investors. 
• HIP-3 makes perp market creation permissionless, with 187 active builder codes so far.
• Hyperliquid has returned $1.12B in revenue to holders across the protocol’s lifetime.

Hyperliquid has reached $4.5 trillion in cumulative perpetual volume, marking a shift in how onchain finance operates.

The platform now holds $10.1 billion in open interest and $6.4 billion in total value locked. Grayscale has since launched a staking ETF tied to HYPE, the protocol’s native token.

Together, these milestones place Hyperliquid at the center of a growing conversation about the future of decentralized financial infrastructure.

Hyperliquid’s Technical Stack Redefines Onchain Trading

Hyperliquid processes 200,000 operations per second through fully onchain order books. The system delivers one-block finality and gasless trading with a sub-second user experience.

Trades, liquidations, funding, and settlement all run within the same architecture, matching the performance of centralized exchanges.

The protocol separates its execution layer, HyperCore, from its application layer, HyperEVM. This design lets developers build on top of existing liquidity instead of bootstrapping from scratch. Most ecosystems launch applications first and wait for liquidity to follow. Hyperliquid reversed that order.

Analyst Karamata2_2 described the model as a full financial stack where the exchange, clearinghouse, liquidity engine, collateral layer, market creation layer, and app layer all exist within one system. That integration is what separates Hyperliquid from a conventional perpetuals exchange.

HIP-3 and HIP-4 Open Markets Beyond Crypto

HIP-3 allows anyone to launch perpetual markets on Hyperliquid, covering crypto, equities, commodities, and indices.

The protocol has drawn comparisons to Uniswap’s role in making spot markets permissionless. HIP-3 attempts to do the same for perpetuals across any asset class with sufficient demand.

The builder ecosystem reflects early traction. There are currently 187 active builder codes, with $40 million already earned by builders.

Around 40 percent of daily traders access the platform through third-party interfaces. Wallets, bots, trading terminals, and AI agents can route flow through Hyperliquid and earn from it.

HIP-4 extends this further by bringing outcome and prediction markets natively into HyperCore. Rather than hosting these in separate applications, Hyperliquid integrates them directly, allowing traders to use existing collateral. Each new market type adds volume, fees, and demand for HYPE, reinforcing the broader flywheel.

Grayscale Launches Hyperliquid Staking ETF

Grayscale introduced the Hyperliquid Staking ETF, trading under the ticker HYPG, with a gross management fee of 0.29 percent.

The fund stakes HYPE to generate rewards, which accrue to the fund rather than directly to investors. Grayscale cited Artemis data from April 2026 in supporting the launch.

The firm cautioned that HYPG carries a high degree of risk and is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Staked HYPE is subject to lock-up periods, making it illiquid during staking. Smart contract vulnerabilities and validator failures also present potential risks of total loss.

The ETF gives traditional investors regulated exposure to HYPE staking without direct token custody. Hyperliquid has now generated $1.12 billion in revenue returned to holders, a figure that likely contributed to institutional interest in the asset.

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