Author: Asher, Odaily Planet Daily
Over the past six months, the two hottest trading tracks—prediction markets and Perp DEXes—are infiltrating each other’s territory.
In April, Polymarket announced it would launch Perp, covering cryptocurrencies, US stocks, and commodities; by the end of May, Kalshi officially rolled out CFTC-regulated cryptocurrency perpetual swaps. On the other side, Hyperliquid, the leading Perp DEX, pivoted into prediction markets via HIP-4, aiming to extend its mature order book, account system, and liquidity advantages to real-world event trading.
Prediction markets have gathered users keen on trading sports, esports, politics, and trending events, while Hyperliquid has attracted crypto-native traders favoring high-frequency and leveraged trading. These crossovers, in essence, aim to leverage each platform’s strengths in core users and trading scenarios into the opponent’s original domain.
However, after several months, the results are less than ideal. The user habits and liquidity accumulated in the original tracks have not naturally migrated with the expansion of product boundaries.
Hyperliquid: Active Prediction Markets Dropped from 125 to Under 20
On May 2, Hyperliquid launched HIP-4 Outcome Markets on mainnet, integrating result markets into its on-chain trading system. The first offerings were BTC intraday binary outcome contracts, achieving a first-day trading volume of $6.15 million, far exceeding similar prediction events on Kalshi and Polymarket, with over 54,000 trades and more than 3,000 traders that day.
The World Cup further amplified this growth. In early June, the number of active HIP-4 markets was just a few dozen but quickly rose to over 100, peaking at more than 120; trading volume also climbed, reaching nearly $30 million in daily volume on June 27 and remaining above the tens of millions the next day. With the addition of sports events, macroeconomic data, and crypto price events, HIP-4 temporarily shed its early reliance on short-term BTC contracts and began expanding into a more complete event trading platform.
But the rapid increase in the number of markets did not translate into sustained trading demand. As the World Cup entered its latter stages, the number of active HIP-4 markets began to decline steadily, falling from a peak of 125 to about 50, then dropping to just over 20 by mid-July, and recently falling below 20—a decrease of over 85% from the peak. Trading volume also weakened, reverting to the millions for most days, and recently dipping below $1 million.
This reveals the fundamentally different liquidity structures between Perp and event contracts. Perpetual swaps trading revolves around core assets like BTC and ETH, allowing market makers, capital, and traders to accumulate in the same set of markets over the long term; event contracts, however, settle with each match conclusion, data release, or political event, requiring new markets to constantly rebuild liquidity and trading interest. Hyperliquid can reuse its matching engine, account, and capital infrastructure, but it cannot directly replicate the liquidity and trading frequency already established in Perp to HIP-4.
Polymarket: Perpetual Contract Daily Volume Below $20 Million
In April, Polymarket announced its foray into the perpetual contract market, and in July began opening its Perps product to more users, supporting leverage up to 20x. Access currently requires an invitation code or joining a waitlist. The product covers crypto assets like BTC, ETH, and SOL, and has also extended to some stocks and commodities.
In the early days of Polymarket Perps’ launch, 24-hour trading volume reached about $48 million, but this level was not sustained. By late July, daily volume had fallen to around $18.2 million, with Open Interest (OI) at about $26.4 million, and OI for core trading pairs like BTC and ETH in the single-digit millions. Compared to its launch period, trading activity on Polymarket Perps has significantly cooled down.
However, Polymarket Perps is still in an early stage requiring invitation codes for trading, making it somewhat unfair to directly compare it to mature Perp platforms. But even considering this, the volume gap is still stark. During the same period, Hyperliquid’s OI was about $7.7 billion, with 24-hour volume around $1.58 billion, while Polymarket Perps’ OI was only about $26.4 million—roughly 0.3% of the former; its daily volume was also only about 1% of Hyperliquid’s.
Currently, Polymarket’s Perps volume appears more like early user experimentation with a new product rather than forming stable trading habits or sustained discussion. At least based on current data, Polymarket’s user and brand advantages in the prediction market have not successfully replicated to the Perp track, making this crossover far from a success so far.
Kalshi Perps: $16.1 Billion in Six Weeks, But Cooling Recently
Compared to Polymarket, Kalshi’s Perps got off to a faster start. At the end of May, Kalshi officially launched CFTC-regulated crypto perpetual contracts, initially covering assets like BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. By July 9, roughly six weeks after launch, cumulative volume for Kalshi Perps had reached $16.1 billion.
In contrast to the rapid volume accumulation at launch, current trading activity on Kalshi Perps has noticeably cooled. Data from Loris Tools shows that while the Perps segment on Kalshi still saw a daily volume of $448 million on July 20, it has dropped to around $80 million in recent days—a decline of over 80% in just a few days.
Meanwhile, Hyperliquid’s Perp daily volume remains in the billion-dollar range. Even comparing with Kalshi’s recent peak of $448 million on July 20, its volume is still significantly behind Hyperliquid; after Kalshi’s volume fell to around $80 million in recent days, the gap widened further.
The Open Interest gap is even more pronounced. Kalshi’s Perps segment OI is currently only in the tens of millions of dollars, while Hyperliquid’s is about $7.5 billion. Kalshi’s cumulative $16.1 billion in six weeks indicates decent early traction, but the rapid decline in recent volume and persistently low OI suggest it is still far from competing with mainstream Perp platforms.
Kalshi’s “US compliance gateway” remains its clearest differentiated advantage, but this edge currently solves more of the “Can US users trade Perp?” problem than the “Why should professional Perp traders stay long-term with Kalshi?” question.
Crossover is Hard; Holding Your Ground May Matter More Than the “Everything Exchange” Slogan
The true challenge in Hyperliquid’s, Polymarket’s, and Kalshi’s crossover attempts is replicating the long-accumulated user habits and liquidity from their original tracks. Hyperliquid’s core users are more accustomed to high-frequency, leveraged, and on-chain derivatives trading, while Polymarket and Kalshi users primarily focus on speculating on sports, politics, and trending events. Platforms can quickly add new product categories, but they cannot easily change users’ existing trading methods.
For Hyperliquid, deepening its Perp and on-chain asset trading may be more important than proving it can trade everything; for Polymarket and Kalshi, what is truly scarce remains event supply, user mindshare, and prediction market liquidity. Crossover can offer new growth stories, but if new categories fail to generate independent demand, they may also dilute the resources that made the platform most advantageous.
So-called Everything Exchange ultimately competes not on who covers the most categories, but on who can continuously accumulate users, liquidity, and market depth in their core track. For platforms that already have clear advantages, mastering their home court deep enough may be more important than endlessly expanding boundaries.
