Written by: Tanay Ved

Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News

TL;DR

• Against the backdrop of escalating geopolitical tensions, Bitcoin remains resilient, rising approximately 7% since the sudden shock on February 28.
• The use of tokenized gold products like PAXG and XAUT has significantly increased, with investors seeking gold exposure through on-chain and exchange channels.
• Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 perpetual futures have become a 24/7 macro risk barometer, with precious metals, energy, and stock perpetual contracts occupying a significant share of total trading volume and open interest.
• Crude oil futures on Hyperliquid quickly reassessed prices in response to supply shocks, demonstrating how on-chain channels can lead price discovery during traditional market closures.

On February 28, news of a joint US-Israel attack on Iran spread worldwide. That day happened to be a Saturday, with all traditional stock and commodity markets closed, preventing investors from responding to this significant geopolitical shock, which has now entered its second week.

However, traditional macro assets and digital assets continue to trade in real time on the blockchain from tokenized gold to oil perpetual futures. At a moment when macro assets are in focus, the on-chain market is the only trading venue open around the clock.

In this article, we will analyze on-chain activities related to tokenized gold products like PAXG and XAUT, as well as the commodity and stock perpetual futures contracts based on HIP-3 on Hyperliquid, to understand how a 24/7 market absorbs and reflects geopolitical pressures.

Market Reaction Under Geopolitical Pressure

Following the news of the US-Iran conflict, gold prices quickly approached historical highs, while Bitcoin experienced a downturn. This is a typical initial shock response: gold as a safe-haven asset, and Bitcoin as a risk asset.

As the conflict evolved from an unexpected incident to a known risk, gold slightly retreated, while Bitcoin stabilized and rebounded, re-establishing itself above $70,000 in a high-volatility environment, showing relative strength.

Performance of Bitcoin and gold since the US-Iran conflict, data source: Coin Metrics

From March 2 to 4, Bitcoin spot ETF sustained net inflows, which also supported Bitcoin prices. This indicates that the market is not merely reacting to safe-haven sentiments, but rather a more complex dynamic: Bitcoin's strength may reflect a recovery from oversold conditions, technical positioning, and the willingness of investors to hold high Beta assets even amidst high geopolitical risks.

Tokenized Gold

During the closure of spot and futures gold markets, PAXG and XAUT traded continuously throughout the weekend, becoming channels for investors to gain real-time gold exposure on-chain.

Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) are tokenized gold products, with each token corresponding to one ounce of gold, issued and settled on Ethereum as ERC-20 tokens. Both occupy a significant share of the tokenized gold market ($6.1 billion), allowing investors to enter and exit gold exposure without waiting for traditional markets to open.

Trading volume of tokenized gold since the US-Iran conflict, data source: Coin Metrics

In 2026, geopolitical and macro risks continue to escalate: the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro, tariff uncertainties, and the escalation of conflicts in the Middle East, driving a surge in gold demand.

In early February, the total trading volume of tokenized gold on major centralized exchanges broke $1.8 billion; when tensions between Iran, Israel, and the US escalated, the trading volume surpassed $1 billion again. Ethereum's on-chain trading volume also exceeded $1.4 billion on two occasions, with Tether's issued XAUT accounting for the majority of activity.

Active addresses and transaction numbers grew in tandem, indicating rising demand for on-chain gold, with use cases spanning hedging, wealth preservation, DeFi collateral, and DEX liquidity trading pairs.

HIP-3 Perpetual Futures on Hyperliquid

Similarly, on-chain perpetual futures on Hyperliquid have become a key trading channel. This is thanks to the HIP-3 market: the protocol allows anyone to create perpetual futures for any asset without permission (just pledge 500,000 HYPE) and provides reliable pricing feeds, including crude oil, gold, silver, stock indices, etc., available 24/7 with no expiration date.

The largest deployers include Trade [XYZ] (offering perpetuals for US stocks and commodities) and Ventuals (providing unlisted equity and alternative assets, such as Anthropic, SpaceX).

Trading volume of Hyperliquid HIP-3 perpetual contracts this year, data source: Coin Metrics

The total trading volume of the HIP-3 market has surpassed $95 billion, with open interest recently hitting a historical high of $1.2 billion, accounting for about 20% of Hyperliquid's total open interest. Non-crypto assets such as crude oil, gold, silver, and stocks occupy a significant share, and precious metals and energy perpetual contracts recently contributed billions in daily trading volume, with open interest steadily increasing.

This growth marks the platform's evolution from a niche DeFi venue into a 24/7 exchange for traditional markets, garnering an increasing share of protocol fee revenue from non-crypto markets.

The Rise of Commodity Frenzy

In HIP-3, looking at cumulative trading volume in 2026, the largest markets are gradually concentrating on commodities. Gold and silver perpetual contracts lead all real-world asset (RWA) contracts, followed by crude oil (CL-USDC). With the Middle East conflict causing supply disruption concerns, crude oil contracts continue to rise in ranking.

Top 10 trading volume markets on Hyperliquid HIP-3 in 2026, data source: Coin Metrics

The average trade size in these markets is still relatively small compared to institutional futures, but it is considerable for a mainly retail-focused on-chain platform:

• Gold perpetual approximately $2,700
• Silver perpetual approximately $3,400
• Crude oil CL approximately $2,800
• XYZ100 (Nasdaq 100) approximately $1,100

How to Price Crude Oil When Traditional Markets Are Closed?

Hyperliquid has launched several perpetual futures linked to crude oil, including WTI crude oil (CL), Brent crude oil (BRENTOIL), and the US crude oil composite index (USOIL), each tracking different benchmark oil prices. These contracts trade on the on-chain order book 24/7, using stablecoins (USDC/USDH) as collateral and settlement assets.

Each crude oil variety operates as a separate market, with independent liquidity, funding rates, and index sources, thus small price differences can occur even if they all benchmark crude oil.

Crude oil futures prices, data source: Coin Metrics

When the US and Israel attacked Iranian facilities, disrupting supply routes and raising concerns over the Strait of Hormuz, traditional futures markets closed, while on-chain crude oil perpetual contracts completed price reassessments within minutes.

From the 1-minute candlestick chart, it can be seen that during the weekend, Hyperliquid's CL-USDC contracts reflected real-time crude oil prices, peaking at $109 until traditional markets reopened. During the same period, the market's open interest and trading volume surged to approximately $175 million and $1.9 billion, respectively, becoming the second-largest market by trading volume on the platform, surpassing Ethereum perpetual contracts. Traders used it to express their judgment on supply shocks.

WTI crude oil futures trading volume and open interest on Hyperliquid, data source: Coin Metrics

Stock Exposure

Although funds mainly flowed into commodities during this period, HIP-3 also offers perpetual contracts linked to stock indices and individual stocks, allowing traders to engage in long and short operations on stocks around the clock.

The trading volume in these markets is still below that of crude oil and precious metals, but it enhances HIP-3's positioning:

• Gold and crude oil for direct macro hedging
• Stock contracts for risk preference allocation independent of crypto price fluctuations

Several exchanges, including Kraken, are also launching similar directions, providing tokenized stocks and perpetual futures based on these tokens to achieve 24-hour stock exposure.

Conclusion

Recent geopolitical conflicts have allowed us to glimpse the practical application of 24/7 on-chain finance, and although the perspective is limited, it is highly enlightening. During periods when traditional markets close, crypto infrastructure supports the trading of tokenized gold and perpetual futures, proving that blockchain, even at its early stage with relatively small scale and limited by liquidity and regulatory uncertainties, can serve as a round-the-clock market infrastructure.

Platforms like Hyperliquid and various tokenized asset products indicate that this infrastructure is expanding from pure crypto exposure into areas like precious metals, energy, and stocks, pointing to a future where one of the core characteristics of global markets will be on-chain trading of macro assets around the clock.