The weekend the blockchain became the oil market

When geopolitical tensions escalated last weekend, oil traders immediately started to fret about potential disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Such a major supply shock was clearly going to have a huge impact on global oil prices. The problem for these oil traders was that it was not possible to price in that risk as all the world’s major oil exchanges, CME, NYMEX and ICE are shut over the weekend.

Hyperliquid however, the onchain exchange we previously wrote about, was (and always is) open for business. Traders began actively trading crude oil contracts while the aforementioned traditional venues were offline. Within hours, oil became one of the most actively traded markets on the platform, with more than $1.2bn in 24-hour trading volume, briefly making crude the second most traded market behind Bitcoin.

This was not an anomaly. It was the most dramatic episode yet in a pattern that has been building quietly for months. When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on a Saturday in February, onchain markets already served as the real-time pricing mechanism. In January, silver's sharp run played out partly on onchain markets over a weekend. The difference from earlier episodes is precision: rather than Bitcoin acting as a blunt risk proxy, traders can now express specific views on crude, gold, and individual equity names, directly onchain, at any hour.

The episode illustrates something pretty simple: markets that never close require infrastructure that never closes.

As we have now seen, that infrastructure exists and works.

And it runs on blockchains.

Also this week

• Kalshi, Polymarket seeking $20 billion valuations in fundraising talks
• Crypto-friendly Revolut launches UK bank after regulator lifts license restrictions
• Wells Fargo files trademark for 'WFUSD,' signaling stablecoin ambitions
• Mastercard launches global crypto partner program
• European Central Bank unveils tokenized finance plan to bolster EU's financial autonomy
• Nasdaq and Kraken partner to build tokenized stock future

Relevant financial updates

• Eightco (Nasdaq: ORBS)*, a publicly listed digital asset treasury company, has secured $125mln in institutional commitments led by BitMine with investments from Ark Invest and KrakenKAST, a stablecoin-native neobank, has raised $80mln in a Series A funding round led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital with investments from Sequoia China (HongShan) and Peak XV Partners, at a $600mln valuation
• Cryptio*, an enterprise crypto accounting and tax compliance platform, has raised $45mln in a Series B funding round led by Sentinel Global and BlackFin Capital Partners with investments from 1kx, BlueYard Capital, and Cathay Innovation
• Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL)*, an independent organization building privacy-preserving wallet infrastructure on the Zcash protocol, has raised $25mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, a16z crypto, Paradigm, Winklevoss Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan
• Unitas, a decentralized protocol issuing crypto-backed stablecoins with integrated on-chain yield, has raised $13.3mln in a Seed funding round with investments from SevenX Ventures, Amber Group, Taisu Ventures, and Bixin Capital
• VeryAI*, a palm biometric identity platform establishing proof-of-humanity using zero-knowledge proofs, has raised $10mln in a Seed funding round led by Polychain Capital with investments from Anagram Crypto, Anatoly Yakovenko, and the Berggruen Institute
• Utexo*, a gateway to native USDT on Bitcoin, has raised $7.5mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Tether, Big Brain Holdings, Portal Ventures, and 12 others

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 13/03

Interesting things to read

• “Agentic commerce will use cards first, then stablecoins” by Simon Taylor
• “How Hyperliquid unlocks 24/7 markets” on the Empire podcast

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