Hyperliquid Trades More Than Ever, But Earns Less — Here's Why

Hyperliquid, a popular crypto trading platform, is busier than ever — yet it's making less money. That surprising gap is now putting pressure on its token, HYPE.

First, some basics. Hyperliquid lets people trade perpetual futures ("perps") — bets on whether a price will go up or down, using borrowed money, with no expiry date. Open interest means the total value of all these bets held at once, and it just hit a record.

The good news — activity is soaring:

• Open interest passed $11 billion on July 13
• 30-day trading volume hit nearly $178 billion
• Hyperliquid now handles about 9% of all perp trading worldwide

The bad news — revenue keeps shrinking:

• Peaked at $357 million in Q3 2025
• Fell every quarter since, down to about $202 million — a 43% drop

Why is the platform earning less while trading more? A program called HIP-3 lets outside developers build their own trading markets on Hyperliquid — and keep up to half the fees. These builder markets grew from 2% of volume to roughly half of it in 2026.

Much of the boom comes from Real-World Asset (RWA) perps — bets on things like oil, gold, Nvidia, Tesla, and even pre-IPO companies like SpaceX. These now trade 24/7, even when the stock market is closed, and recently overtook bitcoin as the platform's biggest market.

But there are risks:

• One builder, Trade.xyz, controls over 90% of these markets
• A single bad trade recently crashed one contract 19%
• Less revenue means the platform buys back less HYPE — the buyback fund spent $290M in late 2025 but only $149M in Q2 2026

HYPE now trades near $55, down about 28% from its June record. Big investors have been moving tokens to exchanges (often a sign of selling), and new supply keeps unlocking.

Bottom line: Hyperliquid is thriving on activity but sharing more of its rewards away. That's great for growth — but it weakens the earnings that give HYPE its value.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/08/09/hyperliquid-s-rwa-perps-boom-is-eating-into-the-revenue-that-backs-hype