Reports published on 28 October 2026 by crypto.news and, citing Bloomberg, PANews describe findings from market-surveillance firm Solidus Labs: during the oil-price swings of 8 to 10 March 2026 a trader operating two Hyperliquid accounts placed more than $170 million of orders in oil-linked perpetuals, mostly Brent crude, with some activity in WTI and natural gas. The pattern, large orders on one side of the book cancelled quickly while trades executed on the other side, is the classic shape of spoofing. On 9 March about $17 million of sell orders were cancelled against roughly $425,000 of executed buys, and the Brent perp price moved noticeably around the cancellations. Cancelled value ran at roughly 30 times executed value; Solidus puts the trader's profit over the three days at about $119,000.
Solidus has not confirmed intent to manipulate, and the trader has not been identified. Hyperliquid Labs responded that every order, cancellation and trade is recorded publicly onchain and can be reviewed by participants and regulators. According to PANews, trade.xyz, the HIP-3 deployer that issues the commodity contracts, said its markets have order limits and continuous monitoring.
For traders in HIP-3 commodity markets the practical point is that thin, off-hours books can be moved by order-book games that would draw enforcement on a regulated exchange, so limit orders and conservative leverage matter more than in BTC or ETH perps. See the trade.xyz profile and the Hyperliquid profile on dexwatch.