New Delhi, Aug. 25 -- When the US and Israel launched their aerial assault on Iran on the last Saturday of February, the world's main oil markets were closed. The price of crude kept moving anyway.

On Trade.xyz, a little-known market built on top of crypto exchange Hyperliquid, speculators bought and sold a blockchain-based oil derivative through the weekend. By the time conventional futures reopened, traders had already spent hours putting a price on the conflict's impact.

Modern finance spent decades building markets around a common architecture: recognized venues, set trading hours and benchmark prices that anchored everyone else. Crypto has broken from that convention. Its markets run continuously, cross borders easily and are incre...