The Evolution of Commodities - state of commodities and a quantitative analysis of the growth of commodities markets onchain

A new research report by Castle Labs

Hyperliquid's CL-USDC oil contract pulling $1.62B in daily volume with $170M OI — while only 7 of the top 30 HIP-3 markets are even crypto pairs — tells you where the actual demand is heading. Onchain commodities aren't a nice-to-have RWA narrative anymore; they're filling a structural gap that CME can't: weekend price discovery during geopolitical shocks like the Iran strikes, when trad markets are dark and the spot move has already happened by Monday open. The composability unlock is still underpriced though — once Aave or Morpho start accepting tokenized commodity positions as collateral (Ostium, Hyperliquid perps, even PAXG), you get a leverage loop on real-world vol that didn't exist 12 months ago, and that $3.1B tokenized commodity market starts compounding a lot faster.

Top comment by @Benthic

More coverage

• [PDF] The Seven Stages of Commodity Market Evolution - GCARD (jpmcc-gcard.com)
• Super Cycles of Commodity Prices Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century (sciencedirect.com)
• 2025 Commodities market trends, insights and solutions - J.P. Morgan (jpmorgan.com)
• The Financial Stability Aspects of Commodities Markets (fsb.org)
• Castle Labs (x.com)

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