After Elon Musk unveiled a flying Roadster prototype, the hourly trading volume of a futures contract tracking Tesla’s price on Hyperliquid surged nearly 17-fold while U.S. stock markets were closed.
According to CoinDesk, Musk unveiled the prototype, which uses SpaceX propulsion technology, on October 15, after Tesla shares closed at $362.44. Following the unveiling, the TSLA perpetual futures contract on Hyperliquid rose about 5% to around $378.
The most striking move came in trading volume. The contract’s hourly volume climbed from $2.8 million to $47 million. At the time of the data cited in the report, only nine hours of the trading day had passed, yet the product had reached its second-busiest trading day since it was listed about a year earlier.
Trading Tesla’s price while Nasdaq was closed
Listed through Trade.xyz, the product represents not Tesla shares themselves or a tokenized stock, but a perpetual futures contract that tracks the share price. Settled in USDC, the contract trades around the clock and offers up to 20x leverage.
This structure allows traders to take positions based on expectations for Tesla’s price even while Nasdaq is closed. The reaction to Musk’s unveiling was also priced in on crypto trading platforms without waiting for traditional markets to open. Tesla shares rose about 4.5% in premarket trading ahead of the subsequent market open.
Binance leads in volume, Hyperliquid in open interest
In Tesla-related trading data from RootData cited in the report, Binance had 24-hour volume of $279 million, while Hyperliquid’s volume was $159 million. Hyperliquid led in open interest, at $99 million.
Tesla’s next major calendar event will be its third-quarter financial results. The company is expected to report its earnings on October 21.
Not investment advice.