HyperLiquid Achieves $500 Billion in Perpetual Trading Volume This Year

HyperLiquid, a prominent on-chain perpetuals trading protocol, has surpassed $500 billion in cumulative perpetuals trading volume, reflecting a 15-fold increase this year, according to DefiLlama.

Ether's dominance over Bitcoin is notable during this growth phase. HyperLiquid reported an average daily trading volume of over $5 billion last week, accounting for more than 45% of the total on-chain perpetuals market. Ether perpetuals achieved a trading volume of $7 billion, surpassing Bitcoin's $5.94 billion for the same period, based on data from HyperLiquid’s analytics page.

In terms of cumulative notional open interest, Ether leads with $857.5 million in active ETH perpetuals, representing nearly 25% of HyperLiquid’s total open interest of $3.49 billion. This indicates sustained investor confidence in Ethereum as it trades just below the $4,000 resistance level.

HyperLiquid (HYPE) Token Gains Traction

HyperLiquid's success is attributed to its efficiency-focused design and user-centric approach. The platform launched its native token, HYPE, on November 29. Within two weeks, HYPE's value increased by over 450%, reaching a market cap of $4.87 billion and positioning it among the top 200 cryptocurrencies.

As of now, HYPE trades at approximately $17.96, with a slight increase of about 0.3% in the past 24 hours. A significant factor in this success is a strategic airdrop where 31% of HYPE's near-billion supply was distributed to users based on trading activity points. Valued at $1.9 billion, this airdrop exceeded Arbitrum’s valuation of $1.5 billion. Additionally, around 388 million HYPE tokens are reserved for future rewards and emissions, contributing to the token's traction in December.

The introduction of HYPE is anticipated to further establish HyperLiquid as a leader in decentralized platforms.

Perpetual Trading Growth

Perpetual trading has experienced significant growth, with the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi derivatives rising from under $65 million in early 2021 to over $7.3 billion today. Daily on-chain volumes reach millions of dollars, driven by enhanced liquidity pools and scalable solutions like Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks.

These advancements have increased accessibility to perpetual contracts, which offer leveraged positions and capital efficiency, particularly for large-scale traders. Although DeFi still trails centralized exchanges in volume, innovation in the sector is rapidly narrowing this gap.