Hyperliquid Outperformed Bitcoin By 71% In The Worst Crypto Quarter Since 2018 — Report Reveals Why

Decentralized alternate Hyperliquid delivered $215 million in gross income throughout Q1 2026 — crypto’s worst quarter because the 2018 ICO crash — outperformed Bitcoin by 71.5 share factors, and on one February evening, grew to become the de facto world value discovery venue for crude oil whereas each legacy commodity alternate was closed.

The findings come from a complete 48-page quarterly report published by the Hyperliquid Research Collective (HRC), a joint initiative of Four Pillars and GLC Research, drawing on on-chain knowledge from ASXN, DeFiLlama, and 0xArchive.

The quarter unfolded as Bitcoin fell 26.7% and complete crypto market capitalization shed roughly $900 billion. Hyperliquid’s headline metrics declined with the market — holder income dropped 33.6% quarter-over-quarter to $149.90 million and perpetual derivatives quantity fell 15.6%. Those numbers, the report argues, will not be the story.

The Night Hyperliquid Became The Oil Market

On February 28, following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, conventional commodity exchanges went darkish. Hyperliquid’s 24/7 oil perpetual derivatives markets stayed open. The protocol grew to become what the report describes because the de facto value discovery venue for crude oil whereas legacy infrastructure sat offline — an occasion that drew protection from Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and Fortune inside a five-day window, in line with the report.

That single session, the HRC notes, stated extra about Hyperliquid’s institutional trajectory than any quarterly metric.

The Number That Matters: HIP-3

Beneath the headline income decline, a structural transformation was underway. Native crypto perpetual derivatives quantity fell 32.5% as danger urge for food contracted. HIP-3 deployer quantity — a protocol function enabling third events to deploy real-world asset (RWA) perpetual derivatives on Hyperliquid’s infrastructure — moved in the wrong way completely, rising from $24.9 billion in January to $68.5 billion in March, a 175% intra-quarter growth, per ASXN knowledge cited within the report.

By March, HIP-3 represented 33.6% of complete day by day perpetual derivatives quantity and 28.7% of complete platform open curiosity. Daily distinctive HIP-3 merchants tripled inside the quarter, reaching 40,768 on the ultimate day. Silver was the only most traded asset at $40.7 billion in Q1 quantity, exceeding crude oil by roughly 2.4x.

The quarter’s institutional landmark arrived on March 18, when S&P Dow Jones Indices formally licensed its S&P 500 benchmark to Trade[XYZ] for perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid — the primary formally sanctioned fairness index perpetual derivatives product on a decentralized alternate. The contract reached $2 billion in quantity inside its first two weeks, in line with the report.

The Supply Side Signal

On the token aspect, Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund bought roughly 4.94 million HYPE at a median value of $29.90 throughout Q1 — 18.8% under the quarter-end value of $36.85 — deploying $147.72 million into buybacks. HYPE itself returned +44.8% for the quarter, per CoinGecko knowledge cited within the report.

The report flags a further sign that it describes as a personality disclosure moderately than a monetary metric. The protocol’s core crew claimed simply 1.51 million HYPE towards a scheduled entitlement of roughly 29.8 million — a 5.1% declare price, declining every month all through the quarter. At common Q1 costs, the crew voluntarily left roughly $849 million unclaimed.

Four separate ETF filings for HYPE — from Grayscale, VanEck, 21Shares, and Bitwise — had been submitted throughout the quarter, per the report.

The Worst Crypto Quarter Since 2018

The report doesn’t sidestep the first constraint: US individuals can not entry Hyperliquid’s frontend. Every income determine, each quantity quantity, and each consumer depend within the report displays a protocol producing these outcomes with out US market participation. The HRC frames each ahead valuation of HYPE as, partly, a thesis on whether or not that regulatory wall ultimately comes down.

The Q1 2026 report marks a vital juncture for Hyperliquid’s positioning inside the nascent sector. A decentralized alternate that processed reside commodity trades whereas legacy markets had been closed, licensed the S&P 500 for on-chain derivatives, and outperformed Bitcoin by 71 share factors within the worst crypto quarter in eight years is now not a DeFi story. It is more and more a monetary infrastructure story — and the establishments are starting to take discover.

On the above, David Schamis, CEO at Hyperliquid Strategies acknowledged the next:

For a 12 months I’ve been saying Hyperliquid is rising as essentially the most thrilling buying and selling venue, interval. Q1 settled the argument. One of the worst crypto quarters since 2018 and the protocol nonetheless generated greater than $200M in income, purchased again >5M HYPE, introduced the S&P 500 onto a decentralized alternate and have become the value of oil when legacy markets had been closed for the Iran battle. This isn’ t a future story anymore — it’s all taking place now.

Cover picture from Grok, BTCUSD chart on Tradingview