Hyperliquid Activates HIP-3, Opening Onchain Perpetual Markets for Equities and Beyond

Jamie Dimon’s 180 is now officially complete. At a roundtable this week alongside Larry Fink and David Solomon, the JPMorgan CEO finally said it out loud: “Crypto is real […] and it will be used by all of us to facilitate better transactions.”

To be honest, it always felt a bit odd to watch the head of one of the most forward-thinking TradFi institutions in digital assets publicly demonize crypto. But now, Dimon’s personal stance finally matches JPMorgan’s institutional strategy, which has quietly been advancing onchain for years.

Refreshing to see a public leader update his views. Over to you, Madam Lagarde.

Today, we’ll also talk about:

• Hyperliquid opens perpetual markets for equities and beyond
• ZAR raises $12.9 million to bring stablecoins to emerging markets
• Staked SOL ETFs start trading in the U.S.

HIGH SIGNAL NEWS

• Coinbase earnings beat estimates. In Q3, the firm reported $1.87 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.50 per share, exceeding Wall Street’s $1.05 estimate by 45%.📈
• Circle launches Arc public testnet. Since Tuesday, developers, enterprises, and institutions have been able to deploy smart contracts and test core features on the stablecoin-focused Layer 1. According to the announcement, the mainnet launch is planned for next year.💸
• Bitwise debuts BSOL ETF. The first-ever staked spot SOL ETF in the U.S. recorded $56 million in first-day trading volume, making it the highest-volume ETF launch of the year. For more insights into the ETF’s launch and structure, see our conversation with Bitwise President Teddy Fusaro down below.🟣
• More crypto IPOs on the way. On Tuesday, tokenization platform Securitize filed with federal regulators to go public through a SPAC merger, valuing the company at $1.25 billion. The following day, Axios reported that MetaMask creator Consensys had chosen JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as lead underwriters for its planned IPO.🏦

DECENTRALIZED FINANCE

Hyperliquid Activates HIP-3, Opening Onchain Perpetual Markets for Equities and Beyond

Anticipated launch: Two weeks ago, Hyperliquid, crypto’s leading decentralized trading platform, activated its long-awaited HIP-3 upgrade. The update made Hyperliquid the first protocol to let anyone permissionlessly deploy onchain perpetual markets, enabling futures contracts that trade without expiry for any asset, including crypto, equities, and commodities. This week, those markets were integrated into Hyperliquid’s official frontend, giving global users with smartphones direct price exposure to U.S. equities such as TSLA and NVDA.

• Why it matters: Hyperliquid’s expansion reflects a broader shift in modern finance as siloed trading environments begin to merge into unified platforms, allowing crypto and traditional assets to trade side by side. By expanding beyond crypto perpetuals, where Hyperliquid holds roughly 75% of open interest across decentralized exchanges, the platform reinforces its broader ambition to become a blockchain that “houses all of finance”.

Small beginnings: Since HIP-3 went live, six equity perps have been listed on the platform, featuring popular stocks such as TSLA, NVDA, and HOOD. Of those, only a market tracking the Nasdaq has begun trading, attracting roughly $65 million in open interest, representing about 0.8% of Hyperliquid’s total OI.

High entry bar: One reason for the rather slow start may be the significant financial commitment required to launch a new market. Deployers must stake 500,000 $HYPE (about $22 million at current prices) as security. This deposit discourages bad behavior, since market operators control key parameters such as oracles, margin, and liquidation rules. If they act maliciously or make harmful changes, the bond is slashed and the tokens are burned.

Lacking demand? According to Sam Ruskin, Research Analyst at Messari, the muted launch could also be attributed to limited demand for equity perps:

• “Equity perpetuals have been speculated as the inevitable next frontier for onchain markets, yet there is currently little data to support this in the near term. Ostium, a popular perp DEX for RWAs, does an average of $1.8 million daily perp volume for stocks compared to $44.3 million in crypto perpetuals volume, suggesting weak demand.”

Too early to tell? Despite these numbers, Dylan Bane, another Senior Research Analyst at Messari, suggests that equity perps may simply need more time: "Crypto native users don’t really see the appeal yet because they didn’t come here for equities. Non-crypto users either don’t understand [perpetuals], don’t know [they] exist, or see it as too high risk compared to broker services. Seems like it might just be the early innings and we just need a little patience."

What's next: In the coming weeks, more projects are expected to launch new markets leveraging HIP-3, including those for pre-IPO companies, various yield products, and prediction markets.

Michael Marcantonio is the Head of Decentralized Finance at Galaxy, overseeing the firm’s trading activity across leading decentralized exchanges and protocols.

HIP-3 is a breakthrough for decentralized perpetuals trading. By allowing anyone to create perpetual-futures markets on Hyperliquid’s high-performance onchain order books, the protocol turns its core infrastructure into an open marketplace for innovation.

This model rapidly expands market diversity, allowing third party-deployers to explore new and untested markets and push perpetuals beyond crypto—into real-world assets, FX, and prediction markets—for the first time. The most fascinating HIP3 market that might be tested is perpetual futures on equities.

That said, equity perps face what I call the ‘Holy Trinity’ of regulation: they fall under both CFTC and SEC oversight and clash with current rules on futures requiring expiry dates. For compliant U.S. access, HIP-3 equity perps markets would need registration as both a DCM (under the CEA) and a nationally regulated securities exchange (under the '34 Act).

Yet by delegating that responsibility to third-party deployers, Hyperliquid enables compliant experimentation worldwide without burdening its core protocol. It’s a smart way to scale faster without necessarily requiring Hyperliquid itself to undertake the burden of registering the entire protocol.

STABLECOINS

Stablecoin Startup ZAR Raises $12.9 Million to Bring Digital Dollars to Emerging Markets

Stablecoin fundraise: On Tuesday, stablecoin platform ZAR announced a $12.9 million raise led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, VanEck, and Coinbase Ventures. The company is building a network that lets people in cash-based, high-inflation economies easily access and use digital dollars through local merchants.

• "The opportunity to bring global USD and financial product access to emerging market cash and shadow economies is the largest in all of consumer fintech, and ZAR will be at the forefront of this revolution," commented Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly Capital.

Interview: In our conversation, ZAR’s co-founder and CEO Brandon Timinsky explained how his experience building a Pakistan-based fintech shaped his perspective on stablecoins, how the company plans to expand its network and geographic footprint, and how he views Western Union’s recent entry into the stablecoin space.

On why ZAR was created and how it works:

On building and scaling the money agent networks:

On the product vision and broader opportunity:

On current traction and future expansion:

On Western Union’s stablecoin plans:

Hercle | $10 million | Undisclosed : Institutional-grade stablecoin payments infrastructure provider.

Standard Economics | $9 million | Seed : Digital banking app focused on Latin America and Asia.

Accountable | $7.5 million | Undisclosed : Real-time financial verification provider, allowing institutions to prove assets and liabilities privately.

A conversation with Teddy Fusaro, President of Bitwise Asset Management, about the firm’s staked spot SOL ETF, $BSOL, which began trading on Tuesday.

Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.