Ventuals shuts down AI markets after $650 million volume

Ventuals, a prominent platform for trading synthetic perpetual contracts tied to private technology companies, is shutting down its operations on the Hyperliquid blockchain. The company announced the wind-down over the weekend, halting its popular markets for firms like OpenAI and Anthropic after processing more than $650 million in total trading volume.

The platform will settle all open positions automatically, using 24-hour average prices. The settlement froze the OPENAI contract at a mark of 1,341.80 and the ANTHROPIC contract at 1,618.90, implying valuations of approximately $1.34 trillion and $1.62 trillion, respectively. The structured settlement process for all markets began Monday, June 15, with the unlisted stock futures markets closing first. Index and commodity markets will follow later this week.

Users who staked vHYPE tokens through the platform will be able to withdraw their underlying HYPE tokens on a one-to-one basis, plus any accrued staking yield, starting June 19. The team confirmed there will be no separate Ventuals token issuance. The core team behind the project is joining another development group within the broader Hyperliquid ecosystem.