Tokenized Real-World Assets Claim Top Spot in Hyperliquid Trading Activity
For the first time, trading of tokenized real-world assets has emerged as the dominant category on Hyperliquid, representing over half of the decentralized exchange's total weekly transaction volume.
For the first time in its history, the perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid witnessed its weekly trading volume for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) surpass the combined volume of every other asset category available on the platform.
Between July 13 and July 19, RWAs produced $25.1 billion in trading activity, representing 52% of Hyperliquid's aggregate weekly volume of $48.2 billion, based on data from Blockworks.
"Hyperliquid's RWA market alone was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other DEX," wrote Lorenzo Valente, ARK Invest's research director for digital assets, in a Thursday X post.
This achievement demonstrates increasing appetite for tokenized assets within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Throughout the previous month, the number of RWA holders expanded by 32% to reach 1.25 million users, while the aggregate value of tokenized RWAs increased by 3.5% to $36.7 billion, based on information from data aggregator RWA.xyz.
During the past week, Hyperliquid produced $7.6 million in revenue, based on DefiLlama data. The perpetual DEX secured third position among cryptocurrency applications by weekly revenue, trailing stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, which produced $112 million and $45 million, respectively.
Major "structural shift" for crypto markets: Circle co-founder
Both crypto-native companies and traditional financial institutions have broadened their tokenized asset product offerings as they transition more financial assets onto blockchain networks. In March, the NYSE formed a partnership with tokenization platform Securitize to create blockchain-based stock trading infrastructure featuring 24/7 trading and settlement capabilities.
Jeremy Allaire, Circle co-founder and CEO, stated that increasing RWA trading activity on Hyperliquid represents a "major structural shift" in cryptocurrency markets, transitioning "away from speculating on endogenous digital commodities," in a Friday X post.
In early July, Pantera Capital indicated that perpetual futures have the potential to become a predominant trading instrument beyond the crypto sector, as perps provide structural benefits over traditional derivatives, including round-the-clock trading, the absence of contract expiries, more streamlined position management and ongoing price discovery.
The expansion of Hyperliquid has captured the interest of Wall Street institutions, including Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of NYSE, whose CEO, Jeffrey Sprecher, called on regulators to establish a "level playing field" for launching 24/7 onchain perpetual futures contracts.