Hyperliquid generated $190.9 million in protocol revenue during the third quarter, according to a report from the Hyperliquid Research Collective (HRC). The figure represents a 21.7% increase from the previous quarter, although it remains 36.5% below the level recorded a year earlier. It is nonetheless the platform's highest quarterly total of 2026.

USDC reserve yield — income generated on the USDC held by the protocol — began accruing on August 27 and contributed $17.3 million to the result, accounting for nearly half of the quarter-over-quarter revenue increase. Because the stream only came online in late August, its contribution covered roughly the final five weeks of the quarter. Priority fees, paid by traders for transaction prioritization, also climbed, reaching $9.6 million for the period.

Revenue Growth and HYPE Buybacks

The report was produced by HRC, an independent research initiative founded by Four Pillars and GLC Research. Trading and network revenue rose 10.7% to $173.6 million, while the remaining $17.3 million came from USDC reserve income. Together, the two components make up the full Hyperliquid protocol revenue figure for the quarter. Since reserve yield did not exist before late August, the new stream adds a revenue component that is independent of trading activity.

The Assistance Fund spent approximately $148.7 million on HYPE during the period, putting received revenue into token purchases. That outlay was 5.7% higher than in Q2, but the fund purchased 26.4% fewer tokens, as its average purchase price rose to $72.93. The Assistance Fund received its first USDC reserve payment in early October, making those funds available for buybacks in the fourth quarter — the first time reserve income will feed into the fund's purchases.

User activity also expanded. Hyperliquid recorded a quarterly high of 65,161 daily active traders, a 20% increase from Q2, while builder-code fees earned by third-party applications rose 50% to $25 million. Taken together, growth was evident across traders, applications, and buybacks during the quarter.

HIP-3 Equity Markets and US Access Plans

Equity perpetuals — derivatives that track stock prices without an expiry date — overtook commodities on HIP-3 during the quarter. HIP-3 is Hyperliquid's framework for letting third parties deploy their own perpetual markets, and the equity segment traded $153.8 billion in volume, up 161% quarter over quarter, capturing 58.8% of HIP-3's total of $262 billion. Korean stocks helped drive the increase.

The quarter was not without friction. A July reference-price incident in the SK hynix perpetual triggered $57.4 million in liquidations. According to the report, the episode exposed a weakness in how these markets price risk outside local trading hours — a structural challenge for equity perps, since the stock markets they track close while crypto derivatives trade around the clock. Separately, trade[XYZ] handled 97.5% of HIP-3 volume in September.

Native crypto markets recovered over the same period. Native perpetuals volume rose 72% from July to September, and as a result HIP-3's share of perpetuals volume fell from 51% to 25% — even as its quarterly volume set a record. Hyperliquid's revenue growth therefore coincided with expansion in both equity and native crypto markets. Coinbase also routed Base App perpetuals to Hyperliquid during the quarter, placing the protocol's infrastructure behind perpetual trading in a major consumer app.

US access to Hyperliquid infrastructure also advanced. On August 19, President Trump said the CFTC was working to bring Hyperliquid to the United States. Then, on September 16, Payward, Kraken's parent company, announced plans for Bitnomial, a US-regulated derivatives exchange, to operate a HIP-3 venue — an arrangement under which Payward would use a potential competitor's infrastructure to serve its own clients. Regulatory approval was still pending at quarter-end, meaning US clients could not yet trade on the venue. Whether that approval is granted, and how the first reserve-funded buybacks unfold, are among the developments to watch in the fourth quarter.