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Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid generated $215 million in gross revenue in Q1 2026, a quarter described in a new report as crypto’s worst since the 2018 ICO crash. Despite a broad market downturn, Hyperliquid outperformed Bitcoin by 71.5 percentage points and, during a February session, became a de facto global price discovery venue for crude oil while legacy commodity exchanges were closed.
The findings come from a comprehensive 48-page quarterly report published by the Hyperliquid Research Collective (HRC), a joint initiative of Four Pillars and GLC Research. The report draws on on-chain data from ASXN, DeFiLlama, and 0xArchive.
Q1 unfolded as Bitcoin fell 26.7% and total crypto market capitalization shed roughly $900 billion. Hyperliquid’s headline metrics declined alongside the market: holder revenue fell 33.6% quarter-over-quarter to $149.90 million, and perpetual derivatives volume dropped 15.6%.
The report argues that these top-line declines do not capture the quarter’s most important developments.
On February 28, after US-Israeli strikes on Iran, traditional commodity exchanges went dark. Hyperliquid’s 24/7 oil perpetual derivatives markets remained open. The report says the protocol became the de facto price discovery venue for crude oil during that period, while legacy infrastructure was offline. It also notes that the event drew coverage from Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and Fortune within five days.
The HRC characterizes that single session as more indicative of Hyperliquid’s institutional trajectory than any quarterly metric.
Under the headline figures, the report describes a structural shift. Native crypto perpetual derivatives volume fell 32.5% as risk appetite contracted. In contrast, HIP-3 deployer volume increased sharply, rising from $24.9 billion in January to $68.5 billion in March—an intra-quarter expansion of 175%, according to ASXN data cited in the report.
By March, HIP-3 accounted for 33.6% of total daily perpetual derivatives volume and 28.7% of total platform open interest. Daily unique HIP-3 traders tripled over the quarter, reaching 40,768 on the final day. Silver was the most traded asset in Q1, with $40.7 billion in volume, exceeding crude oil by approximately 2.4 times.
The report highlights an institutional milestone on March 18, when S&P Dow Jones Indices officially licensed its S&P 500 benchmark to Trade[XYZ] for perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid. The report describes this as the first officially sanctioned equity index perpetual derivatives product on a decentralized exchange. It states that the contract reached $2 billion in volume within its first two weeks.
On the token side, Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund purchased approximately 4.94 million HYPE at an average price of $29.90 during Q1. That represented 18.8% below the quarter-end price of $36.85 and deployed $147.72 million into buybacks. The report says HYPE returned +44.8% for the quarter, citing CoinGecko data.
The report also includes what it frames as a “character disclosure” rather than a financial metric. It states that the protocol’s core team claimed 1.51 million HYPE against a scheduled entitlement of approximately 29.8 million, for a 5.1% claim rate that declined each month throughout the quarter. At average Q1 prices, the report says the team voluntarily left approximately $849 million unclaimed.
It further notes that four separate ETF filings for HYPE—by Grayscale, VanEck, 21Shares, and Bitwise—were submitted during the quarter.
The report does not avoid its primary constraint: US persons cannot access Hyperliquid’s frontend. It says every revenue figure, volume number, and user count in the report reflects protocol activity without US market participation. The HRC frames forward valuation of HYPE, in part, as a thesis on whether that regulatory wall eventually comes down.
Overall, the Q1 2026 report positions Hyperliquid as moving beyond a pure DeFi narrative. It cites a combination of factors: processing live commodity trades while legacy markets were closed, licensing the S&P 500 for on-chain derivatives, and outperforming Bitcoin by 71 percentage points during the worst crypto quarter in eight years. The report concludes that the story increasingly resembles financial infrastructure—and that institutions are starting to take notice.
David Schamis, CEO at Hyperliquid Strategies, said:
For a year I’ve been saying Hyperliquid is emerging as the most exciting trading venue, period. Q1 settled the argument. One of the worst crypto quarters since 2018 and the protocol still generated more than $200M in revenue, bought back >5M HYPE, brought the S&P 500 onto a decentralized exchange and became the price of oil when legacy markets were closed for the Iran conflict. This isn’t a future story anymore — it’s all happening now.
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