S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Wednesday that it is bringing the S&P 500 to the blockchain via the Hyperliquid platform, making it easier for investors to trade the most widely tracked equity index 24 hours a day.

The company said it licensed its flagship stock index to Trade[XYZ], which is launching the first officially approved S&P 500 perpetual contract on the Hyperliquid blockchain.

In simple terms, this means eligible non-U.S. investors can trade the S&P 500 onchain, around the clock, without using traditional stock exchanges.

Perpetual futures contracts, or “perps,” are derivative instruments without expiration dates that allow investors to place bets on an asset’s price without owning it, using funding rates, typically every few hours, to keep prices aligned with spot markets. Their infinite duration (perpetual futures contracts never expire, unlike traditional contracts), high-leverage options, and round-the-clock access have made them extremely popular in the crypto space and have generated billions in daily trading volume across exchanges.

For the S&P 500, it is the first time it has been turned into a perpetual product with official backing from S&P. It also uses the firm’s real-time index data, bringing a more traditional finance standard into crypto trading. This guarantees the accuracy of index trading while the traditional market remains closed.

S&P says the goal is to expand where and how its indexes can be used. “This collaboration expands access” to its benchmarks in digital markets, said S&P’s Chief Product Officer Cameron Drinkwater.

24//7 trading

The move opens the door for non-U.S. investors to get leveraged exposure to the S&P 500 through a blockchain-based platform.

For example, if big macro news hits on the weekend, when the market is closed, traders traditionally need to speculate on how the S&P 500 will move on Monday, when the market opens. However, with these new perpetual contracts, traders can place bets immediately and with accuracy as soon as news breaks. Recently, crypto traders were able to trade oil futures on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid on a weekend, when the first missile hit Iran, while traditional oil markets remained closed.

Trade[XYZ] runs on Hyperliquid, a decentralized network built for fast trading. The platform says its markets are always open, unlike stock exchanges that close after hours and on weekends. XYZ markets have exceeded $100 billion since October, with an annualized run rate of more than $600 billion.

The news seems to have helped HYPE, the native token of the Hyperliquid platform. The token is up 2.2% over the past 24 hours, 14.2% over the past 7 days, and 35.5% over the past month. Hyperliquid has recently become a crypto trader’s favorite platform for trading markets outside traditional finance.

Recently, Maelstrom CIO and BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes said traders are increasingly using Hyperliquid to access markets unavailable on traditional platforms, noting that the HYPE token could reach $150, citing the platform’s strong revenue, real trading activity, and disciplined token supply.

Trade[XYZ] said the S&P 500 is just the starting point as it looks to bring more traditional assets onchain. “The S&P 500 is a natural starting point. It represents the most widely tracked equity index on earth and has been the defining benchmark for global equities for decades,” said Collins Belton, chief operating officer and general counsel of Trade[XYZ]’s parent company.

The announcement builds on S&P DJI’s prior decentralized finance initiatives, including its recent launch of the S&P Digital Markets 50 index, the company said.

Read more: 2026 Marks the Inflection Point for 24/7 Capital Markets

The Ethereum Foundation has deposited another 3,400 ETH — worth roughly $7.5 million at today’s prices, near $2,220 — into DeFi lending protocol Morpho, with 1,000 ETH allocated specifically to Morpho Vaults V2, according to a X post from the EF today, March 18.

The move follows an initial deployment in October 2025, when the EF put 2,400 ETH (~$5.3 million) and approximately $6 million in stablecoins into the protocol — bringing the Foundation’s total Morpho commitment to just under $19 million to date.

According to the post, the DeFi deployments are a direct expression of the EF’s refreshed treasury policy, first unveiled in June 2025, which codified a new “Defipunk” framework to guide on-chain capital allocation.

As The Defiant reported at the time, the policy signaled that DeFi was no longer a sideshow for the Foundation — it was putting its ETH where its mouth is, prioritizing permissionless, immutable, audited protocols aligned with cypherpunk values over passive ETH sales to cover operations.

The EF also elaborated on why it chose to deploy in Morpho, and in particular praised Morpho Vaults V2, which launched in September. The Foundation cited the product’s GPL-2.0 open-source license — a deliberate choice, it noted, that makes the codebase permanently able to be audited and forked.

Crucially, Vaults V2’s core contracts are immutable: no admin keys, no upgrade mechanisms, no emergency switches. “The true cypherpunk infrastructure doesn’t ask you to trust its builders, and it removes the need entirely,” the Foundation wrote in its X announcement.

According to DefiLlama, Morpho is currently the second-largest DeFi lending protocol behind Aave, with a total total value locked (TVL) of over $6.9 billion. The protocol has attracted significant institutional interest in recent months, including a deal for Apollo Global Management — which manages nearly $940 billion in assets — to acquire up to 9% of Morpho’s 1 billion total token supply over four years.

The EF framed the Morpho allocation as a question of ecosystem direction:

“What kind of DeFi ecosystem is Ethereum aiming to support, and how should it weigh short-term performance against long-term resilience and openness? Choices like licensing and architecture may seem small, but they shape which of these paths remain viable over time.”

The treasury move comes amid a busy stretch for the Foundation. Just last week, the EF published its 38-page EF Mandate, which sparked debate in the community over whether the Foundation risks taking a backseat at a critical moment for institutional adoption.

In February the EF also pledged to deepen its support for privacy-first, permissionless DeFi, forming a dedicated internal unit to support builders adhering to those principles. The Morpho deposit suggests the commitment is more than rhetorical.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

SBI Holdings’ digital asset arm, SBI VC Trade, said it will launch a USDC lending service in Japan on Thursday, allowing retail users to lend stablecoins to the platform under fixed-term agreements in exchange for returns.

On Wednesday, the company said users will be able to lend Circle’s USDC (USDC) stablecoin to the platform and receive interest payments, with a maximum application of 5,000 USDC per offering. The product is structured as a loan to SBI VC Trade rather than a deposit, meaning users take direct counterparty risk. SBI said it may also re-lend the borrowed USDC as part of its operations.

The launch marks a further step in Japan’s stablecoin rollout, bringing a consumer-accessible USDC yield product to market through a licensed domestic platform.

SBI said the product is intended as an alternative to traditional US dollar deposits in Japan, though, unlike bank deposits, segregation protections do not cover user assets and may not be fully recoverable in the event of insolvency. Users are also unable to withdraw or transfer funds during the fixed lending term, limiting their ability to respond to market conditions.

SBI expands stablecoin footprint

The launch follows an initial announcement in November, when SBI VC Trade said it planned to launch a USDC lending product and was exploring exchange-traded fund (ETF) products, according to Reuters. 

The development comes as SBI has been expanding its stablecoin strategy. SBI VC Trade began a full-scale USDC launch in Japan on March 26, 2025, after receiving regulatory approval earlier that month. Circle said the approval made USDC the first approved global dollar stablecoin for use in Japan.

Related: SBI Holdings targets majority stake in Singapore crypto exchange Coinhako

On Aug. 22, SBI announced the establishment of a joint venture with Circle, aiming to promote the use of USDC in Japan and create new use cases for the stablecoin in digital finance. 

On Dec. 16, the company partnered with Startale to develop a regulated yen-denominated stablecoin aimed at tokenized assets and global settlement, with a planned launch in the second quarter of 2026.