Stocks Out-Trade Crypto on Hyperliquid for the First Time, and ARK Is Taking Notes 🧱

Hyperliquid's weekly trading volume in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) exceeded that of all other asset categories combined for the first time, with RWAs generating $25.1 billion between July 13 and July 19, or 52% of the perpetual decentralized exchange's $48.2 billion in total weekly turnover, according to Blockworks data. Lorenzo Valente, ARK Invest's research director for digital assets, put the running figure at $26 billion and 54% in a Thursday X post, writing that "Hyperliquid's RWA market alone was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other DEX," and declaring, "We are entering a new era for DeFi." Total perpetual DEX volume across the industry was $79 billion last week, with Hyperliquid processing $50 billion of it.

The shift is being driven by HIP-3, a framework Hyperliquid launched in October 2025 that lets outside teams build their own perpetual markets using the platform's existing infrastructure. Builders stake 500,000 HYPE tokens, currently worth roughly $30 million, to access the system. Since June, single-stock perpetuals have overtaken indices and commodities inside HIP-3, with individual equities now making up 61% of all RWA trading. The most-traded stock is SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker that competes with Samsung in DRAM and high-bandwidth memory for AI systems. HIP-3 has hosted pre-IPO markets for SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.

RWA adoption on Hyperliquid has expanded alongside the trading milestone. Over the past month, RWA holders grew by 32% to 1.25 million users, while the total value of tokenized RWAs rose by 3.5% to $36.7 billion, according to data aggregator RWA.xyz. Hyperliquid generated $7.6 million in revenue over the past week, per DefiLlama, ranking third among crypto applications by weekly revenue behind stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, which generated $112 million and $45 million, respectively.

Industry executives framed the data point as a sign of increasing convergence between crypto markets and traditional finance. Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said the growing RWA trading on Hyperliquid marks a "major structural shift" in crypto markets, moving "away from speculating on endogenous digital commodities," in a Friday X post. In March, the NYSE partnered with tokenization platform Securitize to develop blockchain-based stock trading infrastructure with 24/7 trading and settlement. Earlier in July, Pantera Capital said perpetual futures could become a dominant trading instrument beyond crypto, citing structural advantages over traditional derivatives, including 24/7 trading, no contract expiries, simpler position management and continuous price discovery.

Hyperliquid's growth has drawn attention from Wall Street institutions, including NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), whose CEO, Jeffrey Sprecher, urged regulators to create a "level playing field" for launching 24/7 onchain perpetual futures contracts. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood told the Master Investor podcast in September 2025 that the platform "reminds me of Solana in the earlier days," calling Hyperliquid "the new kid on the block," and ARK has not confirmed any position since. Valente, meanwhile, wrote that he is "no longer convinced RWA trading will naturally aggregate on the same venue as crypto," predicting that dedicated category leaders may emerge within RWA.