Original ｜Odaily Planet Daily （@OdailyChina）

Author ｜Wenser（@wenser 2010）

Several years ago, when CZ faced media questions comparing Binance to other exchanges, he boldly proclaimed: “Binance’s only real competitor is Nasdaq.”

Today, closer to that goal is Hyperliquid, where trading volumes in US stocks, gold, silver, and commodities continue to surge.

With its token HYPE rising over 100%（recommended reading：“Why is HYPE still soaring? Has it peaked?”）, both the crypto market and traditional finance are redefining and re-evaluating this “once Perp DEX.”

After the pre-market battle with Cerebras (CBRS), Hyperliquid has begun to play the role of “the price discovery machine for US stocks,” and is becoming the new Nasdaq.

Please answer 2026: In one sentence, summarize Hyperliquid?

Last May, Trade.xyz founder Shoku（@sershokunin）mentioned in a tweet: “Interestingly, after so long, people still merely view Hyperliquid as/an on-chain contract exchange. If you spend some time researching, you will find that the team’s real ambitions go far beyond this. The next product Units will launch will make everyone see how great this opportunity really is.”

A year later, people realized the foresight of this tweet, and this heavyweight product has become today’s “prototype of on-chain Nasdaq” — Trade.xyz.

In October last year, HIP-3 was officially opened, and Trade.xyz, the largest third-party perpetual market application on HIP-3, went live. In less than six months, Trade.xyz achieved “cumulative trading volume exceeding $11 billion”, a milestone breakthrough. With the trading liquidity of US stocks, pre-market US stocks, and commodities introduced by HIP-3 and Trade.xyz, Hyperliquid has leaped to become the “new king of RWA trading.”

On May 18th, Hyperliquid officially released data showing that the platform’s RWA open contract volume has risen to $2.6 billion, a historical high, doubling from two months ago. Latest data shows that total trading volume of tokenized stocks has reached a historical high of $3.57 billion, with Hyperliquid being a leader in this arena.

On today’s Hyperliquid, crypto assets are no longer the “mainstream,” with tokenized stocks and commodities gradually becoming the focus of platform liquidity, including assets such as the Nasdaq Index, S&P 500, crude oil, gold, and silver.

According to recent weekly reports released by asset management firm Arca, among the top 30 markets on Hyperliquid, only 7 are cryptocurrency trading pairs, while most of the rest are commodity and stock trading pairs from Trade.xyz.

When the CME is closed on weekends, traders bet on crude oil fluctuations on Hyperliquid; before the Cerebras IPO, US stock traders and investment bank fund managers rely on Hyperliquid's pre-market prices for more accurate stock price references; as SpaceX's pre-market stock launched, the entire market subsequently pushed its market value above $2 trillion.

HIP-3 trading volume proportion, Trade.xyz approaching 90%

In terms of trading scale, the on-chain US stock contracts dominated by Trade.xyz are no longer a “joy bean-like existence,” but rather a substantive price discovery functional financial market infrastructure. Previously, this power was only held by a few investment banking giants, brokerages, market makers, and exchanges in the capital market.

Compared to traditional pre-market, the closeness of Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid to the final real price makes one have to admit: for the first time in history, the “price discovery rights” of US stocks have shifted from traditional trading hours to 7*24 hours on-chain.

How Hyperliquid Prices Stocks: An Endless Game of Capital

The realization of accurate pricing today for Trade.xyz is due to not just the advantage of continuous trading hours, but also a combination of product structure, global capital, and whale leverage.

First, the trading time advantage. Due to historical development trajectories, traditional financial markets have a fundamental flaw: for instance, in US stocks, the official trading hours of Nasdaq are only from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time, while significant events affecting the global financial market increasingly happen during "non-stock trading hours." This trend has become more obvious in recent months — conflicts between the US and Iran, tariff battles, policy advancements, and unexpected events often explode right after Friday's close, just when traditional financial markets are shutting down. Traders, needing to hedge risks at the most critical moments, flock to Hyperliquid. Now, Bloomberg quotes Hyperliquid platform's crude oil contract prices as “the most reference-worthy prices,” the authority of on-chain prices is being recognized by mainstream media.

Secondly, the product structure advantage. Unlike trading platforms such as PreStocks that use SPV shareholding structures, Trade.xyz’s pre-market contracts are purely perpetual synthetic assets — not involving any real equity, but rather cash-settled derivatives. In legal structural terms, this perpetual asset is completely different from traditional tokenized shares, thus having greater flexibility in compliance and regulatory aspects. Previously,S&P Dow Jones authorized the S&P 500 Index for trading in Hyperliquid perpetual contracts, which is a significant example.

Furthermore, the global capital flow advantage. After the close of the US stock trading market, global liquidity, including Asian capital, also needs a passage, and the largest, most efficient capital flow with the most participants is the US stock market, making it the “best target.” Hyperliquid's RWA trading platform offers a broad stage for them to perform.

Macroeconomic and stock analyst Citrini affirms Trade.xyz’s price discovery

Lastly, the whale leverage pricing advantage. Compared to exchanges with strict KYC or other pre-market trading platforms, Hyperliquid is undoubtedly friendlier to whales that require high-leverage trading. On-chain fast competition and 3-50x leverage greatly enhance convenience for whales.

Bidirectional Approach of Crypto and Traditional Finance

Have you noticed that the US stock market, once revered for “business performance and financial data,” is exhibiting an increasing “crypto market temperament”: it is strongly pulled by macro data, influenced by a tweet from Trump, driven by large institutional investors’ calls, amplified by narrative logic, and pushed to highs by retail FOMO — only to be suddenly smashed to the ground by a breaking news incident.

On the other side, after the approval of crypto ETFs, mainstream coins have been to some extent “incorporated” by traditional finance: volatility has decreased, falling into a stagnant horizontal market lacking narrative.

The style switching of these two asset classes has opened a truly upward space for Hyperliquid: as US stock assets and crypto assets become increasingly homogenized, using on-chain tools to undertake price discovery for US stocks is becoming gradually possible, and an active adaptation to the new market structure has quietly occurred. In the not-too-distant future, the transmission chain of “on-chain pricing first - pre-market following - confirmation at the opening of the underlying stock” will reconstruct the financial market. Hyperliquid, this infrastructure of the crypto world, is transforming into a “global Nasdaq” in a new way.

Institutions that understand this are beginning to seize high ground in the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

On May 19, Bitwise announced that 10% of the management fee income from its BHYP Hyperliquid ETF would be used to hold Hyperliquid's native token HYPE on the company’s balance sheet, and the related HYPE holdings would be staked; on May 20, renowned investment bank Goldman Sachs sold $152 million worth of XRP, $500 million worth of ETH, and $450 million worth of BTC, while simultaneously buying HYPE tokens.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated to the outside world that the value of HYPE is still being underestimated by the market; the true potential of Hyperliquid lies in becoming a global trading super app covering stocks, Pre-IPO assets, commodities, prediction markets, and crypto assets.

Moreover, according to recently released 13F disclosure documents, fund institutions including Paradigm, Pentera, Vanguard Group, Castle Group, Galaxy are racing to add the position of HYPE DAT treasury company PURR to their investment asset lists.

A Global Nasdaq Without Closure, Starting from On-Chain

CZ previously stated that the true ultimate competitor of the crypto market should be traditional securities exchanges like Nasdaq. This statement is now being reinterpreted by Hyperliquid.

The market has realized that this competition is not about “who can create a bigger crypto exchange,” but rather the reconstruction of global financial infrastructure. Hyperliquid not only partially relocates the Wall Street model on-chain but is also attempting to redefine the “market” itself.

US stock trading is constrained by fixed time zones, unlisted companies lack public pricing, and global users find it difficult to participate equitably in the primary and secondary markets. These long-accepted financial boundaries are being gradually penetrated by the on-chain trading system.

“Asset on-chain” has become too cliché; this is an experiment about the paradigm shift of “price discovery rights.”

On Hyperliquid, global users are beginning for the first time to approach a truly 24/7, borderless, multi-category asset freely flowing market prototype.

Traditional platforms, including Nasdaq, are also being forced to rethink the boundaries of future financial markets.

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