Hyperliquid takes aim at Kalshi, Polymarket targeting $24bn prediction markets

Hyperliquid is nibbling away at Kalshi and Polymarket.

The decentralised finance exchange processing $6 billion in daily derivatives volume launched its first outcome contracts over the weekend — and the early numbers turned heads, according to Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi.

Its first Bitcoin outcome market did roughly three times the volume of equivalent markets on Polymarket and Kalshi combined, Jung told DL News.

“This proves that having a shared liquidity layer is effective in converting users,” he said. "Binary markets is an obvious next step in building the full financial stack on Hyperliquid, which is meaningfully dominating crypto perpetuals and in the first half of 2026 has demonstrated the possibilities of 24/7 real-world asset trading.”
Hyperion DeFi is a US publicly-traded company that accumulates Hyperliquid's HYPE token.

The launch puts Hyperliquid in direct competiton with Polymarket and Kalshi — and, according to a note shared with DL News by Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and his colleagues on Monday, the timing could hardly be more significant.

Bernstein has just extended its digital assets research coverage to include prediction markets as one of three trends it is tracking alongside tokenisation and stablecoins, a signal of how seriously Wall Street is taking the sector.

Fund managers circling

The Bernstein memo frames Hyperliquid's launch against a broader shift that is just beginning to register on institutional radar screens.

Prediction market contracts, Bernstein argues, give macro-focused funds a cleaner way to hedge event risk than traditional instruments. A foreign exchange option or commodity exposure introduces basis risk — the asset price may partially move before the event resolves.

But a binary contract defined as "Will the US impose tariffs above 25% on EU goods in 2026?" settles solely on the outcome, with the premium, maximum loss, and payoff known in advance, the analysts said.

Kalshi moved first on the institutional front. Last week it executed its first bespoke block trade, brokered by Greenlight Commodities, between a Houston-based environmental hedge fund and Jump Trading Group, tied to the clearing price at California's May carbon allowance auction. Clear Street, an institutional broker, has also partnered with Kalshi to become the first institutional futures commission merchant providing regulated clearing access to prediction markets for hedge funds.

Meanwhile, HIP-4, Hyperliquid's prediction product, inherits the platform’s institutional credentials directly.

FalconX launched prime brokerage margin financing for Hyperliquid in February, with cross-venue margining across Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Deribit against a single collateral pool. Ripple Prime, which clears over $3 trillion annually, added Hyperliquid as its first DeFi venue in the same month. Anchorage Digital, the only federally chartered US crypto bank, supports HYPE custody and staking.

What to watch

Jung says the milestones to track are volume and open interest growth, and which markets get added next. HIP-4 launched with Bitcoin price outcomes but is expected to expand to HYPE and Ether contracts, and to move beyond its current 15-minute timeframes.

Combined monthly volumes across Polymarket and Kalshi hit nearly $24 billion in April, according to Bernstein data. Kalshi now commands a 62% market share, up from 55% in January, driven by its dominance in sports betting, which accounts for roughly 72% of its volume.

Full permissionless deployment for third-party teams is expected around mid-June — timed to coincide with the FIFA World Cup, historically one of the highest-volume events in prediction market history. The 2026 World Cup is already Polymarket's second-largest market by all-time volume at $884 million.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com