---
title: "The Quietest Part of Startupland isn't so Quiet"
description: "Stablecoin issuers hold $165b in US Treasury bills, more than China, Norway, or Switzerland. Hyperliquid generates $610m annualized fees. Gold, oil, \u0026 stocks trade 24/7 on crypto perps."
categories: ["crypto","web3"]
keywords: ["stablecoins","US Treasury bills","Hyperliquid","HYPE","tokenized real world assets","perpetual futures","commodity trading 24/7","Allium","Theory Ventures","crypto market structure","bootstrapped crypto","Series B"]
ai_summary: "Stablecoins hold $165b in US T-bills, more than China or Switzerland. Hyperliquid generates $610m annualized fees. Gold, oil, \u0026 stocks trade 24/7 on crypto perpetual markets."
date: 2026-06-23
lastmod: 2026-07-23
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/crypto-is-the-quietest-part-of-the-vc-market/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---


Crypto is the quietest part of the venture capital market. Funding is at multi-year lows. The narrative says the space is moribund.

But beneath the surface, something structural is happening.

Crypto is now a top-10 holder of US government debt. Stablecoin issuers hold $165b in US Treasury bills. That is 2.5% of the total $6.1t T-bill market.

To put that in perspective, stablecoin issuers now hold more T-bills than China, Norway, or Switzerland. They rank behind only Japan among foreign holders.

{{< email_image src="l6ugedcq1whmz6wqtrfb" alt="US Treasury bill holders ranked by size. US money market funds lead at $2.7t. Stablecoin issuers at $165b rank ahead of China and Switzerland. RWA tokenized treasuries at $14.5b are 11x smaller." width="540" height="351" >}}

Then there is Hyperliquid. A new exchange founded four years ago. Its native token, HYPE, is worth $59b today.

Hyperliquid's monthly average for June 2026 is $1.67m per day in trading fees. Annualized, that is $610m in real fee revenue.

{{< email_image src="jlvcigzpllnwybczuk1d" alt="Hyperliquid monthly average daily trading fees from December 2024 through June 2026. Peak was $4.4m/day in August 2025. June 2026 average is $1.67m/day, annualizing to $610m." width="540" height="318" >}}

Real assets are trading on crypto. Gold, oil, & stocks trade 24/7, changing the way these markets work.

{{< email_image src="fy5mscc87rmxpk7rhjcj" alt="Tokenized real-world asset TVL grew from $2.1b to $26.9b over 30 months from January 2024 to June 2026." width="540" height="317" >}}

Every chart in this post comes from Allium, a Theory company. [Allium](https://allium.so) provides on-chain analytics across Hyperliquid, Ethereum, Solana, & other major chains through a single MCP connection.

Since our Series A investment, Allium has achieved:

- 10x revenue growth
- 150+ enterprise customers
- 30+ petabytes of blockchain data

The death of crypto is greatly exaggerated! Congratulations to the Allium team on their [Series B](https://x.com/AlliumLabs/status/2069399432643453161).[^1]

[^1]: Data sourced from Allium on-chain analytics, Tether Q1 2026 attestation, Circle transparency reports, & US Treasury Direct. All data as of June 23, 2026.