The Weekend That Changed Finance

Sunday's attacks put the spotlight on markets that never close. Don't expect traders to forget it.

It’s always felt inevitable to me that finance would move onchain.

Blockchains allow assets to trade 24/7/365 and settle instantly, with lower costs than traditional systems. They make things like conventional stock exchanges and T+1 settlement look archaic.

But I often wondered: When would that shift happen? What would prompt systems to change?

After all, most people don’t notice the delays from the existing system. When my uncle buys stocks in his Schwab account, he doesn’t care that it takes one day to settle or that it kicks off a Rube Goldberg-inspired series of actions involving mysterious entities like the NSCC, DTCC, and Cede & Co. He buys the stock and it appears in his account. No muss, no fuss.

And so I thought that crypto-enabled markets would grow up along the edges—that, for the next 5-10 years, they would mostly serve crypto natives and others who don’t fit cleanly into the traditional financial system, like international retail investors who want to trade U.S. stocks. But eventually, I thought, these systems would get so good that they would quietly co-opt existing systems, and entities like NYSE would slowly transition to tokenized markets the same way they slowly transitioned from floor-based trading to digital trading.

It would be a classic technology story: Disrupt the edges and then co-opt the core. I imagined it would take 5-10 years.

This weekend proved me wrong. Now I’m convinced it’s going to happen much faster than that.

What Happened This Weekend

President Trump announced the attack on Iran at 2:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, February 28. This time of the week is a unique moment for global financial markets, because effectively nothing is open.

• U.S. stock markets are closed. 

• U.S. futures markets are closed. 

• Major foreign exchange markets are closed. 

• European markets are closed. 

• Asian markets are closed. 

Basically, the only markets that are open at that hour are Middle Eastern stock markets like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which generally trade Sunday-Thursday. But those markets are of limited size and scope. Few Western investors trade there, and they cover limited assets.

In years past, if a major geopolitical shock hit on a Sunday morning, investors would wait until the U.S. futures markets opened at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday to find out what the impact would be. But as this weekend showed, they now have an alternative: They can turn to crypto-based rails, which trade 24/7/365, globally.

And this weekend, they did.

For most of Sunday, onchain finance was the center of the financial world. In particular, the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid became a focus. Hyperliquid offers perpetual futures on both crypto and “real-world” assets like oil. Trading volume on Hyperliquid spiked so much that, when Bloomberg wanted to write about how crude oil responded to the bombing, it cited the Hyperliquid crude oil contract as the most relevant price. (Not coincidentally, Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, was up about 30% over the weekend. My read: That’s likely a down payment from investors on where Hyperliquid is going.)

But Hyperliquid was not alone. XAUT—a tokenized version of gold developed by Tether—saw its 24-hour trading volume spike to over $300 million. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket set new volume records. And crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum were in focus as well. It was the first time I remember crypto-enabled markets being “the market,” full stop.

Why It Matters

If you are a hedge fund, bank, or any other investor who wants to trade competitively, you no longer have a choice: You have to set up a stablecoin wallet and learn how to trade on Hyperliquid. You need to understand XAUT. You need to read about tokenized stocks. Because even if you don’t, everyone else will.

This starts the ball rolling downhill. The biggest challenge to engaging with onchain markets is getting onboarded—getting comfortable with wallets, stablecoins, and entities like Hyperliquid and Uniswap. Once you do, all the new capabilities of DeFi and onchain finance are just a click away. Access breeds exploration. And exploration breeds volume.

Of course, people will say: Traditional markets can do this too! Nasdaq is moving to 23/5! We don’t offer 24/7 trading because people don’t want it!

OK, whatever: That’s what Blockbuster said about Netflix, and what Microsoft said about the iPhone.

The shift to onchain finance is inevitable. After this weekend, I’m convinced that shift is coming sooner than any of us had imagined.

Risks and Important Information

No Advice on Investment; Risk of Loss: Prior to making any investment decision, each investor must undertake its own independent examination and investigation, including the merits and risks involved in an investment, and must base its investment decision—including a determination whether the investment would be a suitable investment for the investor—on such examination and investigation.

Crypto assets are digital representations of value that function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a store of value, but they do not have legal tender status. Crypto assets are sometimes exchanged for U.S. dollars or other currencies around the world, but they are not currently backed nor supported by any government or central bank. Their value is completely derived by market forces of supply and demand, and they are more volatile than traditional currencies, stocks, or bonds.

Trading in crypto assets comes with significant risks, including volatile market price swings or flash crashes, market manipulation, and cybersecurity risks and risk of losing principal or all of your investment. In addition, crypto asset markets and exchanges are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange investing.

Crypto asset trading requires knowledge of crypto asset markets. In attempting to profit through crypto asset trading, you must compete with traders worldwide. You should have appropriate knowledge and experience before engaging in substantial crypto asset trading. Crypto asset trading can lead to large and immediate financial losses. Under certain market conditions, you may find it difficult or impossible to liquidate a position quickly at a reasonable price.

The opinions expressed represent an assessment of the market environment at a specific time and are not intended to be a forecast of future events, or a guarantee of future results, and are subject to further discussion, completion and amendment. The information herein is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for, accounting, legal or tax advice, or investment recommendations. You should consult your accounting, legal, tax or other advisors about the matters discussed herein.