Hyperliquid has become one of the fastest growing phenomena within the digital asset market.
Within 3 years, a decentralized exchange (with its own network) dedicated to perpetual futures was created has been able to establish itself as one of the largest platforms in the space, competing directly with giants such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX.
This groundbreaking discovery caught the attention of digital asset management company Grayscale. In their latest report published on May 27, 2026, Manager experts highlight that “Hyperliquid is an outstanding success story of the modern digital asset industry.”
“Imagine a startup that was able to break through in a highly competitive industry in less than three years,” says Grayscale.
For the company, one of the highlights about Hyperliquid is that it generated approximately $800 million in revenue in 2025 “even though it remains inaccessible to many potential customers in the U.S. and other large markets.” In saying this, Grayscale is referring to the fact that nationals of that country and people residing in the United States are prohibited from operating on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid (not the HYPE cryptocurrency or the ETF that tracks its price).
Strengths of futures trading Hyperliquid
The core of the Grayscale report is about perpetual futures. These instruments allow you to manipulate the price of an asset without an expiration date.As CriptoNoticias explains, they are different from traditional futures.
Grayscale claims that this market is already huge, claiming that “trading volume in the digital asset industry will average approximately $200 billion per day in 2025.”
The company emphasizes that the majority of its business continues to be dominated by centralized exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Bybit. However, he emphasizes that “Hyperliquid is the first decentralized project to capture a significant share of volume and open interest.”
The chart above compares the perpetual futures open interest of Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Hyperliquid. Open interest represents the value of contracts that are still active and not closed.
The orange line corresponds to Binance, the dark blue line corresponds to Bybit, the light purple line corresponds to OKX, and the green line corresponds to Hyperliquid. As you can see, Hyperliquid had very little relevant weight before 2024. However, growth has since accelerated and it has become one of the largest perpetual futures markets..
“Hyperliquid processes $2.9 trillion in perpetual futures trading volume in 2025 and currently maintains nearly $7 billion in open interest,” Grayscale details.
This growth is best understood by looking at the weight of perpetual futures within the Bitcoin (BTC) market. The following graph shows a comparison between spot market trading volume and perpetual futures trading volume.
The purple line shows spot volume, i.e. direct buying and selling of BTC. The orange line represents the volume of perpetual futures.
This chart smoothes out daily fluctuations by taking the average volume over the past 30 days, allowing you to see general market trends more clearly.
As you can see, from 2021 Perpetual futures move much more trading volume than the spot market. This explains why Hyperliquid has been able to grow rapidly by focusing on one of the most liquid and active segments in the market.
However, the operation of these contracts requires additional mechanisms to ensure that prices do not deviate too much from the actual value of the underlying asset. To explain how that balance occurs, Grayscale uses a BTC-based example.
In the chart below, the dark purple line represents the spot price of BTC, i.e. the price at which the asset is bought and sold directly. The light orange line represents the price of a perpetual contract.
Please note that the values shown do not correspond to the current price of BTC (which is trading below $75,000 at the time of writing). A technical example used to visualize how spot markets, perpetual contracts, and loan interest rates interact.
What the graph shows is that when the price of a perpetual contract exceeds the spot market, bullish positions prevail and traders who are betting on a price increase have to pay regular fees to traders who hold bearish positions. The opposite happens if a perpetual contract trades below the spot price.
This fee is just “loan interest.” Its function is to generate An economic incentive to ensure that the price of a perpetual contract does not deviate too much from the actual value of the asset.
According to Grayscale, this system “creates an economic incentive to shift perpetual future prices back into the underlying market.”
This dynamic is central to understanding the products that fueled Hyperliquid’s growth. For administrators, what makes this protocol different is that it not only offers perpetual futures, but also combines transparency and self-custody with the typical tools of a centralized exchange.
HYPE price increase
The report notes that Hyperliquid’s growth is also reflected in the ecosystem’s native token, HYPE. Asset reached With a market capitalization of over $15 billion, it is among the 10 most valuable companies on the market.
At the time of publishing this article, the token price is over $59.
In this regard, Grayscale points out that HYPE is “driving the Hyperliquid ecosystem forward.” Its functionality is tied to network usage. Staking, gas payments, reduced fees, and validator participation.
This activity is also reflected in the protocol’s cumulative fees, which have steadily increased since January 2025 to over $1 billion, as shown below.
In the case of grayscale, this point is important because it shows that Hyperliquid is not solely dependent on expectations regarding HYPE. However, it is a measurable operational activity within the market.
Still, executives warn of risks. For example, he points out that HYPE’s volatility is nearly 80% annually, one of the highest in the digital asset market.
This represents a risk, as a sharp decline in the token could affect the perception of the entire Hyperliquid ecosystem. If the value of HYPE is rapidly lost, Incentives for staking, operating within the network, and participating as a validator may be reducedin addition to reducing user and investor confidence in the growth of the protocol.
Additionally, they caution that Hyperliquid has a more concentrated set of validators than other networks. As of this publication, there are 24 active validators on the Hyperliquid network. Validators are participants responsible for processing operations, ordering transactions, and ensuring the system works.
If the group is small, Networks are more likely to rely on a small number of actors to maintain security and operational continuity.
However, some of Hyperliquid’s future expansion will depend on regulatory changes in the United States. In particular, to enable us to offer perpetual futures under a clearer framework and accessible to a wider user base.
Nevertheless, the report’s conclusions are clear. “Hyperliquid cannot be directly compared to another project, either in digital assets or in traditional finance. It breaks the mold.”
(Tag Translation) Altcoin
