Ventuals Shuts Hyperliquid's OpenAI, Anthropic Perp Markets

Ventuals, the project behind Hyperliquid's OpenAI and Anthropic perpetual futures markets, said Monday it is winding down and its team will join another project inside the exchange's ecosystem. Trading in the OPENAI and ANTHROPIC contracts has halted and all open positions have been settled automatically, with additional markets set to close in the coming days.

The team said it generated more than $650 million in cumulative trading volume and attracted over 500,000 HYPE in community support during its run. The closure narrows the field of independent operators running markets on Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework, the permissionless system that lets third-party teams launch and manage their own perpetual futures — a model that has been central to the exchange's push beyond crypto into stocks, commodities and private-company valuations.

Why it matters

Ventuals was the most visible HIP-3 builder to give traders exposure to two of the world's most closely watched private AI companies, neither of which is publicly listed. Its exit accelerates the consolidation of HIP-3 market operators around a single dominant player, TradeXYZ, which already accounts for nearly 97% of HIP-3 trading volume and lists contracts tied to names like SpaceX (SPCX) ahead of its IPO. The pattern suggests Hyperliquid's private-company perps lane is moving from a fragmented, experimental marketplace to a winner-take-most structure far faster than the underlying HIP-3 design intended.

Market impact

Hyperliquid processed roughly $234 billion in perpetual futures volume over the past month, according to DefiLlama, making it one of the largest venues for crypto-native derivatives. Even with that base, the broader derivatives market cooled in May — combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41 trillion, the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures bucked the trend, rising 10.4% to a new all-time high, which is exactly the lane Ventuals is now exiting. For traders, the immediate read is fewer venues for AI-valuation speculation on Hyperliquid and a thinner order book for the remaining HIP-3 names outside TradeXYZ.