Catenaa, Wednesday, September 09, 2026- Hyperliquid’s open interest rose to $14.3 billion early this week, nearing its pre-crash peak as renewed crypto perpetual trading helped push HYPE to a record $88.
The decentralized derivatives platform is now within about 3% of the $14.7 billion open-interest level recorded before the Oct. 10, 2025, market selloff.
Open interest fell about 56% during that episode, dropping to roughly $6.5 billion in a single day as leveraged positions were unwound.
The latest recovery has taken place in two stages, with the composition of trading activity changing sharply in recent months.
HIP-3 markets powered much of the first phase.
HIP-3 allows third-party builders to launch perpetual futures markets using Hyperliquid’s trading infrastructure.
Its share of Hyperliquid’s total open interest increased from about 18% in March 2026 to more than 34% by August.
Open interest in HIP-3 markets reached a record of more than $4.44 billion during August.
Of the $8.47 billion increase in Hyperliquid’s total open interest over the past six months, HIP-3 accounted for about 30%.
That pattern has now begun to reverse.
Hyperliquid’s overall open interest increased by $3.57 billion during the past month, while HIP-3 open interest fell by about $119 million.
HIP-3’s share of total open interest has dropped from about 34% a month ago to roughly 25%.
That means a larger portion of the latest growth is coming from Hyperliquid’s core cryptocurrency perpetual markets.
The shift matters because those markets send a much larger share of trading fees toward HYPE purchases.
According to The Block’s Data & Insights analysis, close to 97% of fees generated by Hyperliquid’s core crypto perpetual markets are directed toward HYPE buybacks.
HIP-3 builders, by comparison, can retain up to half of trading fees generated by markets they deploy.
That makes each dollar of activity returning to Hyperliquid’s core perpetual markets more valuable to HYPE than equivalent activity in builder-run markets.
The change comes as HYPE has risen more than 50% this month.
The token reached an all-time high of $88, giving it a market capitalization of nearly $20 billion at the time of The Block’s report.
The price move has coincided with renewed activity across Hyperliquid’s main trading markets.
Two recent developments may have helped drive that growth.
Coinbase began routing Base App users toward Hyperliquid in mid-August, creating a new retail channel into the platform.
That arrangement potentially exposes Hyperliquid to a broader group of users entering through Coinbase’s onchain interface.
A separate boost came from U.S. regulatory developments.
President Donald Trump recently said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was working on a compliant path for Hyperliquid-related activity to reach the U.S. market.
That possibility has drawn attention because Hyperliquid’s current platform is not directly open to U.S. traders.
Any future route would likely require regulated intermediaries or products operating under U.S. rules.
Even without direct U.S. access, the prospect of a compliant pathway may be adding to investor interest in Hyperliquid.
The economic impact of the changing open-interest mix can also be seen in Hyperliquid’s revenue data.
Gross revenue peaked at $457 million in the third quarter of 2025 before falling to $202 million in the second quarter of 2026.
Assistance Fund purchases declined during the same period.
Those purchases fell from $290 million in the third quarter of 2025 to $149 million in the second quarter of 2026.
The decline occurred even as HIP-3 captured a larger share of total open interest.
The latest move back toward core perpetual markets could strengthen the flow of trading fees into HYPE purchases if that trend continues.
Hyperliquid has now recovered most of the open interest lost during its October 2025 decline.
A move above the previous $14.7 billion level would mark a full recovery in headline open interest.
For HYPE holders, however, the source of that growth may matter more than the total alone.
Continued expansion in core crypto perpetual markets would tie more trading activity directly to the protocol’s token-purchase mechanism.
Further gains could depend on whether retail inflows through Base continue and whether U.S. regulators establish a compliant route for Hyperliquid-linked trading.
Hyperliquid is a decentralized derivatives platform built around its HyperCore trading system and Hyperliquid Layer 1 blockchain.
The platform is best known for perpetual futures, which allow traders to maintain leveraged positions without fixed contract expiration dates.
HIP-3 expanded the system by allowing independent builders to launch perpetual markets using Hyperliquid’s infrastructure.
Builders can set market parameters while relying on Hyperliquid’s order book, margin system and settlement layer.
The model helped broaden the platform’s range of markets and became a major source of open-interest growth during 2026.
HYPE is the network’s native token and is used across staking and other protocol functions.
Hyperliquid also operates an Assistance Fund that uses portions of trading fees to purchase HYPE, linking core trading activity directly to token demand.
