Hyperliquid (HYPE) share of perpetual DEX volume climbed from 36.4% to 44% since January, making it the only major perpetual exchange to gain market share in 2026.
HYPE, its native token, is holding near $38 after a roughly 70% rally from late February to a March 18 peak of $43.
Grayscale Investments filed an S-1 with the SEC on March 20 to list a spot HYPE ETF on Nasdaq under ticker GHYP - adding an institutional dimension to a token previously dominated by retail flow.
The market share shift is concrete. Every major competitor lost ground over the same period: Aster dropped from 30.3% to 20.9%, while edgeX held at 26.6%, trailing Hyperliquid by nearly 17 percentage points. Jupiter, dYdX, GMX, and Drift each remained below 3%.
Hyperliquid's weekly derivatives volume exceeded $50 billion as of mid-March, generating roughly $1.6 million in daily fees.
Geopolitical Volume
Part of the volume surge traces to the recent U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict. Hyperliquid functioned as a real-time price discovery venue for crude oil during weekend hours when traditional commodity exchanges were closed.
The platform's HIP-3 framework, which allows permissionless perpetual markets for real-world assets, let oil futures trade continuously - a structural advantage over centralized venues with fixed hours.
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Spot Accumulation and ETF Race
Exchange flow data from Coinglass shows three consecutive days of net HYPE outflows: $2.94 million on March 21, $2.31 million on March 22, and $2.22 million on March 23 - totaling $7.47 million.
Outflows from exchanges typically indicate tokens moving to self-custody, a pattern associated with holding rather than near-term selling.
The Grayscale S-1 joins earlier filings from Bitwise and 21Shares, which have also sought SEC approval for HYPE products. The Grayscale fund would use Coinbase Custody and CoinDesk pricing data, and could incorporate staking rewards under unspecified conditions. No management fee was disclosed.
Hyperliquid is currently inaccessible to U.S.-based traders directly. An approved ETF would open regulated exposure without requiring interaction with the protocol itself. No approval timeline has been set.
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