Midweek Hyperliquid Report // 20Aug26

Nine of the twelve most-churned instruments on Hyperliquid by turnover are @tradexyz HIP-3 perps, and the leading cluster is a memory-chip complex: SNDK at 377% daily turnover on $0.16B OI, DRAM at 249%, SMSN at 229%, SKHY at 213% and SKHX at 180% on $0.43B. At those rates, SK Hynix by implied daily notional out-trades $SOL at 120% on $0.40B.

(i) Forced flow (ii) Funding and the algo tape (iii) HIP-3 builder markets

Forced flow

Hyperliquid’s forced-flow picture this week was a near-total short flush: $1,092MM of shorts were liquidated against just $61MM of longs over the 7d window (18:1 ratio). The pressure concentrated almost entirely on 19 Aug, where $907MM of short liquidations hit in a single session; the 20 Aug bar remains partial at run time.

$BTC absorbed the bulk of that squeeze: $739MM of BTC shorts were liquidated over the 7d window, the clear lead instrument by a large margin. $ETH followed well behind, with $HYPE and $SOL further back still. Six of the top 12 instruments by short-liquidation notional were @tradexyz HIP-3 builder perps - the squeeze ran beyond native HL into the builder book.

Funding

Native HL and HIP-3 (HyENA) same-asset funding on $BTC and $ETH are converged to within rounding error: both pairs read +0.0pp on this snapshot, both venues running at the same annualised rate. The majors absorbed the 19 Aug squeeze without producing a venue-level funding gap; the week’s notable funding dislocation sat elsewhere in the HL ecosystem and is visible in the liquidation data.

The algo tape

The week’s largest completed TWAP was a $38.22MM $ETH sell executed over 2h30m (100% filled), with a second $37.12MM $ETH sell at the same completion rate directly behind it - both flows invisible to a standard book feed. A $26.61MM $BTC buy ran to 100% completion in 2h30m; three @tradexyz XYZ100 sell programs of ~$15MM each also cleared.

HIP-3 markets

The @tradexyz HIP-3 OI table reads as a cross-section of TradFi risk: SP500 leads at $487MM, SKHX at $430MM, GOLD at $367MM, with crude in two contracts (CL $171MM, BRENTOIL $162MM), GOOGL at $164MM and NVDA at $155MM. The top 12 carry $2,784MM of combined OI; no native crypto asset appears in the ranking.

Sign-off

Hyperliquid compressed $1,092MM of short liquidations into a single session on 19 Aug, built a global memory-chip complex into the @tradexyz builder-book OI rankings, and ran the week’s largest algo flow in $ETH sells of $38MM per program. The venue continues to expand the on-chain risk surface well beyond its crypto origins.

@scopicview, Head of Markets

Midweek Hyperliquid | 2026-08-20 | Derivatives via Laevitas