Hyperliquid HIP-3 drives nearly 50% of perpetual volume

Hyperliquid's permissionless HIP-3 framework accounts for about 50% of the exchange's daily perpetual contract volume, up from roughly 2% at the start of 2026. The rise in share has coincided with increased retail trading of onchain equity exposure through builder-deployed markets.

HIP-3 allows third-party developers to launch perpetual markets on Hyperliquid without prior approval. A large portion of new listings comes from a single market operator offering products such as XYZ100, a contract that tracks the Nasdaq-100, and single-stock perpetuals tied to companies including Nvidia and Tesla. Those contracts settle in stablecoin rather than in the underlying shares.

Perpetual contracts have no expiration date. They use periodic funding payments between long and short holders to keep contract prices aligned with the underlying market. Because perps do not expire, traders do not face the time decay that affects options positions. Perpetuals can also be traded with leverage, allowing traders to increase exposure relative to their capital.

Perps on HIP-3 trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while the underlying stocks trade only during regular market hours. Prices for the perpetuals outside stock market hours rely on oracle feeds and funding-rate mechanics rather than spot share transactions. Those off-hour pricing mechanisms have been in use for less time than continuous markets for native crypto assets.

Operational differences affect market behavior. Perpetuals do not follow standard stock-market circuit breakers, and weekend or overnight gaps in underlying prices can lead to rapid funding or price adjustments. Permissionless listing has broadened the set of available equity-linked perpetuals on the exchange.

Market activity on HIP-3 increased since the start of 2026, and the product category remains recent and built on equities that were originally traded during fixed market hours.