Papertrade draws $3B in Bitcoin open interest as on-chain perps exchange launches

Papertrade, a fully on-chain perpetual futures exchange built on HyperEVM, went live on October 10, 2026. Bitcoin futures open interest on the platform climbed to $3 billion shortly after launch. A fast start, measured in notional dollars Trading opened at 10 a.m. ET, or 14:00 UTC. In under 10 minutes, the exchange had recorded $14.4 billion in notional trading volume. Ether futures open interest reached $2.66 billion, trailing Bitcoin’s $3 billion. Activity was concentrated almost entirely in those two markets. Open interest is the total value of positions still open at a given moment. Volume counts every trade, including positions opened and closed seconds later. Both figures are notional, meaning they reflect the full size of leveraged bets rather than the cash traders actually posted. That distinction matters a lot here. Papertrade offers leverage of up to 1,000x on its synthetic perpetual contracts. At 1,000x, a trader can control $1,000 of exposure with $1 of margin. So billions in notional activity can rest on a far smaller pool of real deposits. Before launch, the exchange collected pre-deposits estimated at approximately $85 million to $138 million. That money came from mo...