Hyperliquid Open Interest Hits $11B High While Revenue Falls 43% From Peak

Hyperliquid open interest surged to $11B in July, yet protocol revenue dropped 43% from its 2025 peak due to HIP-3 market expansion and rising costs.

Woofun AI data shows that Hyperliquid open interest reached a new 2026 high of over $11 billion on July 13, with 30-day perpetual contract volume nearing $178 billion. Despite this growth, total revenue fell 43% from its Q3 2025 peak of $357 million to $202 million in Q2 2026. This decline stems from the HIP-3 market expansion, allowing developers staking 500,000 HYPE tokens to retain up to 50% of transaction fees. Consequently, HIP-3 markets now account for roughly half of trading volume, while protocol costs rose from under 6% to 18% year-over-year. RWA perpetual contracts, including assets like crude oil and NVIDIA, saw record $3.6 billion open interest, surpassing Bitcoin as the largest market. Tokenized stock and commodity volume hit $25 billion in mid-July, comprising 52% of weekly volume.

However, Trade.xyz holds over 90% of HIP-3 open interest, indicating high concentration risk. With 97% of fees funding HYPE buybacks, the buyback scale dropped from nearly $290 million in Q3 2025 to $149 million in Q2 2026.

Meanwhile, nearly 10 million HYPE tokens worth $550 million were unlocked on August 6, with similar unlocks continuing until 2027. If current trends persist, Q3 revenue could reach $150 million, marking a fourth consecutive quarterly decline.