Silver is now a top asset on Hyperliquid, highlighting a subtle shift in how crypto derivatives venues are used as bitcoin struggles to find direction.
The SILVER-USDC contract has become one of Hyperliquid’s most active markets, trading around $110 during Asian hours and recording approximately $994 million in 24-hour volume.
Open interest sits near $154.5 million, while funding remains slightly negative, pointing to heavy rotation and two-way positioning rather than a one-way leveraged bet. For a crypto-native venue built around perpetual securities, that combination seems closer to a volatility and hedging oriented market than a speculative long.
What stands out is not just the price of silver, but its prominence: silver is just behind the BTC and ETH peers in volume, according to data from CoinGecko, and ahead of SOL and XRP.
When a commodity contract rivals major crypto assets for volume on a decentralized exchange, it suggests that traders are using crypto infrastructure to express opinions that bitcoin and ether no longer capture efficiently. In other words, crypto plumbing is being repurposed for macro operations.
That backdrop helps explain why bitcoin itself remains stagnant. Data from Glassnode shows BTC stuck in what it describes as a defensive equilibrium. The cumulative spot volume delta has turned sharply negative, indicating that sellers are bidding on rallies.
ETF flows have cooled, eliminating a key source of incremental demand. In derivatives, open interest has decreased, funding is uneven, and options skew has increased, indicating growing demand for downside protection rather than conviction on upside.
The result is a market where Bitcoin absorbs pressure without collapsing, but also fails to trend. Price stability near $88,000 masks a lack of aggressive buyers and a reluctance to deploy leverage. ETH’s relative underperformance reinforces the message. The appetite for risk is not advancing along the curve.
Bitcoin is not being abandoned. He is simply marginalized. And the surge in silver trading on Hyperliquid is one of the clearest signs yet of where uncertainty is being priced in.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin is hovering around $88,000 and trading sideways as persistent selling pressure and cautious positioning cap rise despite the absence of panic selling.
ETH: Ether is trading around $2,300, down weekly and lagging Bitcoin as leverage and risk appetite remain subdued.
Gold: Gold is extending its advance, up about 15% in the last 30 days and more than 50% in six months, reinforcing the same macroeconomic stress seen in silver as capital gravitates toward hard assets rather than beta cryptocurrencies.
Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 was nearly flat in Asian trading even as South Korean auto stocks swung sharply on renewed U.S. tariff threats, with regional markets mixed and chip-led gains in Seoul and Australia offsetting weakness in China.
