S&P 500 contract comes to Hyperliquid as tokenisation race heats up

Trading the S&P 500 around the clock with leverage onchain will now be possible after the equity index gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on Hyperliquid.

The perpetual contract will track the S&P 500 and allow non-US investors to gain leveraged exposure to the top index, 24/7, according to a Wednesday statement.

“We believe digitally-native investors should demand the institutional-quality standards that define our indices, and we are thrilled to work with Trade[XYZ] to do so,” Cameron Drinkwater, chief product and operations officer at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.

Hyperliquid is a crypto-native decentralised derivatives exchange. It has seen a boom in trading with war in the Middle East as it also allows traders to bet on the price of other assets, onchain, like oil and gold.

Constant trades

When traditional markets are closed, Hyperliquid, as a crypto-native exchange, continues processing trades.

This has led to a surge in activity — especially on weekends when geopolitical tensions crescendo and Wall Street is shut.

Platforms like Trade[XYZ] have built the infrastructure to allow tokenized commodities to run on the decentralised exchange.

Unlike other trading platforms, anyone can start trading on Hyperliquid — as a DEX, it does not require know-your-customer (KYC) checks.

Wall Street push

Round-the-clock trading is a hot topic as Wall Street bigwigs push to bring real world assets onchain.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has for years spoken about tokenisation of assets; the boss of the world’s biggest asset manager has said blockchain rails will speed up finance and bring more transparency to the industry.

In February, BlackRock announced that it was working with decentralised exchange Uniswap to bring one of its funds onchain.

And in January, the New York Stock Exchange said it was building a platform allowing traders to buy and sell tokenised versions of US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds and settle those trades on the blockchain, 24/7.

Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, was trading nearly 6% higher over a 24-hour period on Wednesday, priced at nearly $43, according to CoinGecko.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].