Market Watch
Things to Watch This Week (June 1 - June 5)
Oil Prices Back in Focus
Markets remained attentive to developments in the Middle East this week, as heightened geopolitical uncertainty supported higher oil prices. While inflation has continued to moderate overall, investors are monitoring whether sustained strength in energy markets could influence the broader inflation outlook.
Random Musing This Week
How Did Hyperliquid Achieve Explosive Growth?
Over the past few years, Hyperliquid has emerged as one of the most remarkable success stories in the digital asset industry. Launched in 2023, the platform has rapidly become the leading decentralized perpetual futures exchange, processing billions of dollars in daily trading volume and accumulating nearly $10 billion in open interest. More importantly, Hyperliquid is increasingly viewed not as just another decentralized exchange (DEX), but as the first on-chain trading venue capable of competing with centralized exchanges such as Binance.
At its core, Hyperliquid specializes in perpetual futures trading. While Binance offers similar products, the two platforms operate under fundamentally different models. Binance follows the traditional centralized exchange model, requiring users to deposit assets into the exchange’s custody. Hyperliquid, by contrast, operates entirely on-chain, where transactions, liquidations, and market activities are publicly verifiable. In other words, while Binance prioritizes convenience and liquidity through centralized infrastructure, Hyperliquid aims to deliver comparable trading performance while preserving transparency and self-custody.
The question, however, is why Hyperliquid succeeded where so many other decentralized exchanges failed. The answer largely comes down to product quality. Historically, many DEXs focused heavily on decentralization but struggled to attract professional traders due to slow execution speeds, poor liquidity, and an inferior user experience. Hyperliquid took a different approach. Instead of building another application on an existing blockchain, it developed its own purpose-built infrastructure optimized for trading. By implementing a high-performance order book and offering execution speeds comparable to centralized exchanges, Hyperliquid successfully bridged the gap between decentralized finance and professional trading.
1) Hyperliquid’s Trading Volume and Fee Growth
The platform’s growth is clearly reflected in its trading activity and fee generation. As shown above, both perpetual futures volume and protocol fee revenue accelerated significantly throughout 2025. Unlike many DeFi protocols that generated temporary activity through token incentives, Hyperliquid translated growing user adoption into sustainable fee revenue. Annualized fee generation has reached levels comparable to those of established financial platforms, demonstrating that Hyperliquid is evolving into a genuine business rather than a purely speculative crypto project.
Another key differentiator is its community-driven growth strategy. Unlike many crypto projects that rely heavily on venture capital funding, Hyperliquid distributed approximately 30% of its token supply directly to users through an airdrop. As a result, ownership was concentrated among traders and community participants rather than institutional investors. This approach strengthened user alignment and helped establish a powerful network effect. As trading volume increased, liquidity improved; improved liquidity attracted more traders, which further increased activity on the platform.
Looking ahead, the most important question is whether Hyperliquid can eventually compete with, or even replace, platforms such as Binance and Robinhood. In terms of scale, Binance remains significantly larger, and Hyperliquid still faces regulatory limitations, particularly in the United States. However, the market narrative is gradually shifting. Rather than asking whether Hyperliquid can simply take market share from Binance, investors are increasingly asking whether Hyperliquid can become a new form of financial infrastructure.
This shift is already visible in the platform’s evolution. Beyond cryptocurrency perpetual futures, Hyperliquid has expanded into markets linked to traditional assets such as gold, silver, crude oil, and the S&P 500. The platform has also introduced prediction-market functionality, moving beyond its original role as a crypto trading venue. These developments suggest that Hyperliquid is attempting to build a 24/7 global financial marketplace rather than a niche crypto exchange.
Ultimately, Hyperliquid’s success has not been driven solely by decentralization. Instead, it has succeeded by delivering a product that many traders consider superior to existing alternatives. Whether it can fully replace Binance or Robinhood remains uncertain. Nevertheless, Hyperliquid is already reshaping how market participants think about exchanges, demonstrating that blockchain-based infrastructure can support large-scale financial activity. In that sense, Hyperliquid may represent not only the future of decentralized exchanges, but also the future of financial markets themselves.
Recap of Top Stories (May 18 - May 29)
Top Story of the Week
DTCC Plans to Bring Tokenized Stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries by H1 2027
[Tokenization] [Infrastructure] [Institutional] [RWA]
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Wall Street’s clearinghouse, said Wednesday it plans to connect its tokenized securities platform to the Stellar (XLM) network. Tokenized assets custodied by DTCC’s Depository Trust Company could become available on Stellar during the first half of 2027.
This is the first time DTC-custodied securities will live on a public blockchain. The initial scope covers Russell 1000 stocks, major ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, with the integration supporting issuance, settlement, and full lifecycle management of digital securities.
Also, In Focus
SoFi Launches SoFiUSD — First Stablecoin Issued by a U.S. National Bank
[Stablecoin] [TradFi] [Banking] [Retail Access]
SoFi has launched SoFiUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin on Ethereum and Solana. Nearly 15 million SoFi members can now buy, sell, hold and convert SoFiUSD in the app, with each token redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars through SoFi Bank.
“At SoFi, we believe we can combine the speed and versatility of the blockchain with the trust of a bank to improve how money moves around the world,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said. The company plans to add tokenized deposits, FDIC-insured accounts, and 24/7 cross-border transfers in the coming weeks.
Block Rolls Out USDC Stablecoin Payments to Cash App’s 60 Million Users
[Stablecoin] [TradFi] [Retail Access]
Block’s Cash App has begun rolling out USDC stablecoin payments to about a quarter of its nearly 60 million users, with plans to reach all users by the end of the week. Cash App will support USDC as a payments rail across Solana, Ethereum, Polygon and Arbitrum.
The move marks a major shift for CEO Jack Dorsey, a longtime bitcoin-only advocate. “I don’t like that we’re going to support stablecoins but our customers want to use them,” Dorsey said. The total stablecoin market reached a record $322 billion at the time of launch.
Tether and the Government of Georgia to Launch GEL₮, the Official Stablecoin of Georgia
[Stablecoin] [Regulation]
Tether announced plans to launch GEL₮, a stablecoin representing the Georgian Lari, with the support of the Government of Georgia. This marks one of the first joint efforts to place a national currency directly onto digital asset rails.
“Georgia has moved early to create serious regulatory architecture for digital assets and stablecoins, and that clarity creates the foundation for real innovation and adoption,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
Upcoming Market Events
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