HPC Report: Perpetual contracts complement, not replace, expiring futures to transfer risk at a lower cost

Comparatively, according to a recent research report by the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC), perpetual contracts expanded hedging options and improved prices, and found no evidence of statistically significant damage to the benchmark futures market. According to the report, perpetual contracts and traditional futures with an expiration date complement each other, not a zero-sum alternative.

The study compared 205 Bitcoin trading weekends and 19 on-chain crude oil perpetual (xyz:CL) sample weekends using the natural experiment of traditional market weekend closure and continuous perpetual market trading in the perpetual market. According to the report, due futures are forced to move positions according to the calendar. The rolling exposure cost of 10 million US dollars on Monday April 2026 is about 950,000 US dollars, and on Friday it is about 110,000 US dollars. There is no mandatory cost for perpetual positions; the median on-chain crude oil transaction during the non-trading period is about 1,300 US dollars, which is about 1% of the median benchmark WTI transaction.

HPC also gave an example. For the week of March 6, 2026, crude oil was repriced 15.8% over the weekend, and the benchmark market was completely closed; if on-chain crude oil was permanently hedged, the $10 million position loss could be reduced from about $1.58 million to about $62,000 (after full cost).