Tokenized Nasdaq Futures Enter Top 10 by Volume on Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 upgrade, which enables permissionless perpetuals markets, launched two weeks ago, and TradeXYZ’s XYZ100 market is gaining traction as it breaks into the exchange’s top 10 assets by daily volume while competitors debate its efficiency.

TradeXYZ is the perpetuals arm of Unit, the Hyperliquid tokenization layer. The protocol’s XYZ100 market was the first HIP-3 deployment, tracking Nasdaq futures, one of traditional finance’s largest equity indices.

Following a short sign-up and referral campaign, TradeXYZ began gradually rolling out platform access to waitlisted users, and was launched to the public on Hyperliquid’s front end this weekend, resulting in a huge surge of volume and open interest. Over the last 24 hours, XYZ100 has generated $72 million in volume with $55 million in open interest.

Top Perps by Volume – Hyperliquid

To keep up with demand, the platform has had to repeatedly raise its open interest cap, from just $25 million on Oct. 22 to $60 million today.

It’s worth noting, however, that despite the platform’s success within the niche tokenized equity futures market, its volumes are still just a drop in the bucket when compared to traditional markets. The E-mini Nasdaq-100 (NQ) futures contracts that XYZ100 tracks traded more than $225 billion in volume on October 2.

Crypto investor Flood, who has been an avid supporter of Hyperliquid since pre-TGE, called it a “true 0 to 1 moment for Global Finance.”

“There is no other venue in the world where you can trade equities onchain, on a CLOB, permissionlessly, 24/7. This is the only relevant equity market in the world open through the weekend. There are hundreds of millions of households around the world that would like access to equities but cannot, and this will be the only way they can get exposure,” he added.

The launch has made a lot of noise across both DeFi and traditional finance circles, with Citrini, a notable research and trading firm, publicly using Hyperliquid to trade XYZ100 over the weekend.

However, there has been pushback from some crypto natives, particularly those working on the tokenized equity platform Ostium, regarding the volatility of funding rates on Hyperliquid.

Kaledora Kiernan-Linn, the co-founder of Ostium Labs, caused a stir on X when she questioned the feasibility of funding rates. While Hyperliquid maxis were quick to pounce, Kiernan-Linn clarified her stance later on, saying, “I’ve been quite vocal about this for a long time, but think it bears repeating that HL is a great product. It works great for crypto. I just don’t think it’s the right architecture to bring TradFi assets onchain.”

“I believe the right model is to quote directly from the underlying market, more akin to a decentralized broker, than try to natively recreate limited orderbook liquidity from scratch onchain at the exchange layer. I am confident the market will eventually prove this thesis correct,” she concluded.

Ostium remains one of the largest venues for trading tokenized equities onchain, and maintains $246 million in open interest across all of its assets.