Traders take to Hyperliquid for 24/7 edge in global chaos leaving Bitcoin price sidelined, analysts say

Hyperliquid is winning the weekend war trade, analysts say.

As US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggered a surge in oil and gold prices, traders did not wait for Wall Street’s opening bell. They turned to the decentralised derivatives exchange to price geopolitical risk in real time — and sent its HYPE token 13% higher.

This weekend’s chaos “offered another data point in an emerging pattern worth watching,” Gabe Selby, head of research at CF Benchmarks, told DL News. “The ability to price risk continuously, without waiting for Monday’s open, is central to crypto’s value proposition.”

Selby’s call comes as traders have been rushing to take positions in traditional assets like gold and oil during major geopolitical shocks while leaving cryptocurrencies sidelined.

Kenny Chan, Coinbase’s head of Stablecoin Ecosystem, also flagged the changing paradigm. For years, he said, traders routed geopolitical views through Bitcoin because it was the only liquid 24/7 instrument available to speculate on.

“This weekend was different,” Chan said. “Traders didn’t need to route through Bitcoin anymore. They went straight to the source on Hyperliquid.”

Bitwise’s Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan offered a similar view in a March 3 blog, saying that the conflict has shown that traders can no longer afford to be shut out of the markets for days as world events spin out of control around them.

“I imagined it would take [five to ten] years,” Hougan wrote. “This weekend proved me wrong. Now I’m convinced it’s going to happen much faster than that.”

Paradigm shift

Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures tied to crude oil surged nearly 20% after Iranian retaliation against its Gulf neighbours cast fresh uncertainty on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime artery for more than $500 billion in annual oil and gas flows.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s price has been tightly rangebound between $60,000 to $70,000 for the past month. The top crypto is still down nearly 50% from its $126,000 October peak and has severely lagged behind gold and stocks despite favourable macroeconomic conditions.

Another key beneficiary is Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token, which rose 13% to rank as the best performer among the top 25 assets by market cap, Selby added.

“Commodity volatility is driving meaningful volume on platforms listing tokenised forms of these assets, and the market is pricing that access accordingly,” Selby said. “The structural logic is worth taking seriously independent of the current cycle.”

He flagged that a similar pattern emerged in late January when silver crossed $100 and gold topped $5,000, coinciding with a 55% rally in HYPE over three days on $1.2bn in silver-linked volume. Volatility in underlying commodities is translating directly into demand for onchain exposure, he stressed.

“Wars are hard to predict,” cautioned Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “The fog of war can be very disorienting.”

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 6.1% over the past 24 hours, trading at $71,135.
• Ethereum is up 5.2% past 24 hours at $2,069.

What we’re reading

• Iran war will move traditional market onchain faster than expected, says Bitwise — DL News
• Bitcoin price rescued by ‘boomer’ ETF investors, says analyst — DL News
• Nasdaq Eyes Prediction Markets With SEC Filing — Unchained
• Crypto isn’t ready for AI’ - Stripe — Milk Road
• Aave governance firm exits $27bn DeFi giant as protracted power struggle deepens — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].