Hyperliquid Shatters Crypto Volume with $26 Billion in RWA Trading
A major shift has occurred in the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape. According to ARK Invest's director of digital assets research, Lorenzo Valente, Hyperliquid has surpassed the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other decentralized exchange on earth with its $26 billion in real-world assets (RWAs) trading last week.
RWAs accounted for 54% of Hyperliquid's weekly trading volume during July 13-19, surpassing non-crypto assets for the first time. This milestone marks a new era for DeFi, as Valente noted on X.
Hyperliquid's third-party market platform saw significant interest in SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker and direct rival to Samsung in AI memory production. The platform has already hosted pre-IPO markets for SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
ARK Invest's CEO Cathie Wood previously compared Hyperliquid to Solana in its early days, calling it 'the new kid on the block.' Valente now questions whether RWA trading will naturally aggregate on the same venue as crypto, predicting that dedicated category leaders may emerge within RWAs.