The Hype Around HYPE
WHAT IS HYPERLIQUID? While traditional markets have limitations in operation hours, geographical restraints, and intermediaries that slow down the process, Hyperliquid gets rid of all of that. It is a global financial market that is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At its core, it’s an example of how the rules of traditional finance are constantly being rewritten. WHAT MAKES HYPERLIQUID SPECIAL? But what separates Hyperliquid from all other crypto trading platforms is its focus on perpetual futures. Many traditional investors imagine cryptocurrency trading as simple as buying bitcoin and holding it, but a significant portion of the overall crypto trading volume actually comes from speculative traders using leverage. These traders want to bet on prices of movements without necessarily owning the underlying asset itself. This is why perpetual futures are so useful because you can do that at a much cheaper price. Perpetual futures, often called “perps,” allow traders to go long or short an asset while using leverage to amplify their positions. Unlike traditional future contracts, perps have no expiration date, making them one of the most flexible and popular trading resources in crypto. According to GSR Research, perpetual futures are so popular that they account for around 68% of total cryptocurrency trading volume. Because of this volume, perpetual future venues generate substantial trading that bring in significant fee revenue. This is why exchanges such as Binance, Bybit and OKX have built enormous businesses around them. However, there was always a problem with those exchanges. The ones mentioned above are all centralized, meaning that while they’re fast, liquid, and easy to use, they lack the decentralized security and the self-custody benefits (allowing users to maintain direct control over their funds) offered by blockchain-based protocols like Hyperliquid, which is also decentralized. It is extremely fast and brings benefits of centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) together. Orders execute quickly, the interface is easy to use, and trades can manage leveraged positions with a level of speed that would previously be extremely difficult to get on-chain, which is 200,000 per second. Crypto enthusiasts will point out that while Hyperliquid is technically a DEX, the decentralization does not even compare to blockchains such as Ethereum. Now while this is true, it’s a feature, not a bug for Hyperliquid. The focus there is on overall user experience not being extremely decentralized and that decision has helped it attract huge growth in the overall community and trading volume. The platform now consistently processes between $300 and $600 billion in monthly trading volume, making it one of the largest trading venues in the crypto industry. One interesting development is that now Hyperliquid is no longer limited to cryptocurrencies. In recent years, it has expanded into synthetic perpetual futures tied to traditional assets. What this means is that they can represent traditional assets on-chain giving people the ability to trade commodities such as oil around the clock. This creates something that traditional finance has never truly offered—continuous global price movement. When markets can immediately react to events 24/7, the price at which it trades more accurately represents the true value. That benefits everyone, from institutional traders hedging risk to everyday consumers, since prices that more accurately reflect reality produce less volatility and fewer market inefficiencies globally. With our global environment becoming more interconnected than ever, the ability to always access the market is essential. Imagine a major geopolitical event that happens on Saturday. Under the traditional financial system, traders would need to wait until the markets reopen before really expressing a view. On Hyperliquid, users can immediately react, trade, and establish positions. Oil, gold, equities, and crypto all become part of a market that never closes. However, the 24/7 access that Hyperliquid allows to users, doesn’t come without backlash. In a recent development, CME Group and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), who also allow investors to trade perps, expressed some concerns regarding the on-chain exchange Hyperliquid. These institutions operate some of the world’s largest future markets and have long dominated global price discovery for assets. According to Coindesk’s Helene Braun, the two urged U.S. regulators to examine decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid closely, warning that it could allow market manipulation and sanctions evasions. Their concerns aren’t exactly without backing. In December 2024, MetaMask security researcher Taylor Monahan publicly flagged that wallets linked to North Korean hackers had been actively trading on the platform, writing “DPRK doesn’t trade. DPRK tests” (Crypto Briefing). Now this implies that the activity looked more like probing for vulnerabilities than legitimate trading, which triggered over $256 million in withdrawals in 30 hours. Additionally, there have been reports of insider trading. On-chain analysts identified two wallet addresses suspected of opening leveraged long positions worth about $3.17 million on Hyperliquid’s WTI crude oil futures just before prices elevated due to the geopolitical tension. However no formal charges were filed. Even internally, the platform was not immune. Hyperliquid itself confirmed that a large shorting incident involving the native token HYPE was linked to a former employee who had been dismissed in early 2024. No formal charges were filed in any of these cases. Bridget Frey, a representative of the Hyperliquid Policy Center, said that ICE and CME’s concerns are “baseless.” She argues that Hyperliquid’s fully on-chain ecosystem actually allows suspicious activity such as those expressed above to be more visible, not less. While CME Group and ICE have repeatedly stated that this expression of concern is purely based on safety and regulation, it’s hard not to read this as partly self interested. CME Group and ICE have generated $6.5 billion and $9.9 billion in revenue in 2025 respectively, for their 20th consecutive year of records. Hyperliquid however, generated $843 million in its very first full year, without venture capital backing, without a centralized team, and without the decades of regulatory infrastructure that CME and ICE have built their businesses around and have stated that no other financial institution could live without. One could say that’s a sign that traditional market players are scared of the newcomer and other potential newcomers. This institutional interest surrounding Hyperliquid has also spilled into the traditional markets. Hyperliquid Strategies Inc., an independently publicly traded company on Nasdaq, was formed to solely hold HYPE tokens as treasury assets, raising $300 million from institutional investors in late 2025. While it is unaffiliated with Hyperliquid Labs, the network, its listing on the Nasdaq represents the larger idea that the line between decentralized finance and traditional markets is beginning to fade. WHAT PLANS DOES HYPERLIQUID HAVE? More recently, Hyperliquid's ambitions have expanded beyond trading alone through the introduction of HyperEVM, which is the programming layer of the Hyperliquid ecosystem that allows developers to build applications directly on top of the network. We have yet to see much traction for HyperEVM but the possibility of new services such as trading tools and lending protocols would transform the Hyperliquid space as we know it. HYPE COIN Hyperliquid uses a majority of its revenue to purchase its native token HYPE on the open market, creating a direct connection between platform activity and demand for the token. To put the scale of this in perspective, Hyperliquid accounted for 46% of all token buyback activity across the entire crypto industry in 2025, with month buybacks averaging $66.5 million. It earns money through a few different ways. First, when traders execute trades on the platform, they pay transaction fees on every order. However, what makes them different from the traditional exchanges is that since there are no intermediaries, Hyperliquid can capture most of that revenue. Second, the platform also generates income through liquidations, where the network collects a portion of funds from leveraged positions that get closed. Third, as HyperEVM continues to develop, additional revenue from those decentralized applications built on top of the network will also help contribute to the revenue pool as well. In 2025, Hyperliquid generated $844 million in revenue, added over 600,000 new users, and recorded $2.95 trillion in total trading volume. If Hyperliquid continues to attract more traders, expand its ecosystem through HyperEVM, buybacks are expected to grow, which will increase the demand for HYPE.
Series of 4~7 minutesLast updated1 year ago