Hyperliquid, A Wall Street-Style All-Weather Trading Convenience Store
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Hyperliquid, A Wall Street-Style All-Weather Trading Convenience Store
Jeff Yan stated that Hyperliquid’s ultimate goal is to support all financial activities.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Vicky Ge Huang, The Wall Street Journal
Translated by Luffy, Foresight News
On a Saturday in February, when hedge fund commodities trader Vala Zeinali’s phone lit up with news of President Trump announcing an airstrike on Iran, he immediately opened the Hyperliquid website.
As a decentralized crypto exchange, Hyperliquid operates 24/7, year-round. This year, it has become the go-to platform for short-term traders on Wall Street. During weekends when U.S. equities markets are closed, investors use Hyperliquid to open or close positions early—locking in profits before U.S. markets reopen on Monday.
Back in early 2026, anticipating potential geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, Zeinali allocated four-figure capital into oil derivatives. When the airstrike news broke and oil prices surged, he promptly closed his position on Hyperliquid—earning a substantial 243% return.
“I was especially grateful at that moment,” Zeinali said. “Typically, oil price rallies driven by such geopolitical catalysts fade before U.S. markets open on Monday. Fortunately, I exited in time, securing most of my gains.”
An increasing number of traditional finance and crypto-native traders are flocking to the platform, trading a wide range of assets—including Bitcoin, the S&P 500, crude oil, and even pre-IPO stars like SpaceX. Most trade perpetual contracts: derivative instruments with no expiration date, available for trading around the clock, and offering high leverage to magnify both gains and losses.
Jeff Yan, Hyperliquid’s founder, appeared at an event stating the platform’s ultimate goal is to host all financial services
Hyperliquid was founded three years ago by Jeff Yan, formerly a quant trader at high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading. The collapse of FTX inspired him: the crypto market urgently needed a high-performance trading system where users retained full custody of their assets.
“Self-custody isn’t just an academic buzzword—it’s a user necessity,” Yan said in an interview. “After FTX collapsed, more users should have taken this seriously. At its core, it means holding your assets in your own hands.”
Hyperliquid’s parent company employs only 11 people. According to Blockworks Research, the platform and its associated blockchain generated approximately $800 million in combined revenue last year. Its native token, HYPE, launched in late 2024 and has since surged over 100%, reaching a current market cap of roughly $16 billion.
Hyperliquid’s rapid ascent reflects the accelerating convergence between traditional finance and crypto markets. Perpetual contracts tied to U.S. equities and commodities have firmly captured the attention of Wall Street capital.
Recently, Eric Vishria, General Partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, shared an image on X showing a banker monitoring perpetual futures prices linked to AI chipmaker Cerebras. Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices authorized partner Trade [XYZ] to launch S&P 500 perpetual products on Hyperliquid—one of the platform’s most popular contracts.
A significant volume of capital is betting on IPO prospects of unlisted companies. According to Hyperdash data, perpetual contracts on SpaceX have generated $280 million in cumulative trading volume on Hyperliquid.
U.S.-based users remain unable to access the platform legally—but that may soon change. Last Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) introduced a new regulatory framework permitting licensed domestic platforms to list perpetual contracts. It also approved Kalshi to launch Bitcoin perpetual products, while Coinbase U.S. users can now access its global perpetual contract offerings via affiliated entities.
Perpetual contracts carry inherent high-leverage, high-risk characteristics—amplifying both profits and losses exponentially. For example, on October 10 last year, when Trump unexpectedly announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, markets crashed violently. Total leveraged liquidations across the industry exceeded $19 billion—with Hyperliquid alone accounting for $10 billion.
Jeff Yan noted that actual industry-wide losses far exceeded the $19 billion figure. Hyperliquid was singled out in the statistics simply because its liquidation data is fully transparent, and its system remained fully operational during extreme market conditions—while several competing platforms went offline and failed to function normally.
Benjamin Schiffrin, Head of Securities Policy at financial watchdog Better Markets, issued a warning: “The structure of perpetual contracts is highly complex—even seasoned finance professionals struggle to fully grasp them. Current risk disclosures to retail investors are severely inadequate, making this combination inherently hazardous.”
Despite restrictions, U.S. and other banned-region traders continue accessing the platform via VPNs. What attracts them is Hyperliquid’s lack of mandatory KYC—standing in stark contrast to traditional brokers’ stringent account-opening due diligence. Yet the platform’s terms of service explicitly prohibit U.S. users from participating and expressly forbid circumventing these restrictions via VPN.
Its intuitive interface, diverse product suite, and strong community culture further enhance user retention.
Pascal Lin, a Geneva-based trader, joined Hyperliquid in late 2023 and quickly became a power user. What impressed him most was the ability to directly share product feedback with founder Jeff Yan and the team in the Discord community.
“It feels incredibly participatory—as if I’m helping build the product myself,” said Pascal, who also leads proprietary trading at ARES Capital Management, focusing primarily on HYPE and oil perpetuals. He previously captured the oil bull run, riding prices from $67 per barrel to nearly $100.
He’s so immersed in Hyperliquid that he’s set real-time price alerts on his Apple Watch—and admits he doesn’t recommend this habit for ordinary traders. “I wake up anytime at night, tap the app, and instantly check HYPE’s price.”
Pascal isn’t alone in his enthusiasm. The platform’s distinctive community culture is central to its growth. On X, users routinely append “Hyperliquid” to the end of every post—regardless of topic—and many adopt the green-jacketed, smiling cat mascot “Hypurr” as their social media avatar. Beyond meme culture, third-party developers continue building complementary tools—including market-data dashboards and analytics platforms.
Lawrence Wu, Co-Founder of Hyperdash, said: “I believe its massive community stems from its attempt to realize crypto’s original vision—a permissionless, elite-driven system. It’s highly idealistic.”
Jeff Yan says Hyperliquid’s ultimate ambition is to integrate all financial services. Its next steps include expanding into prediction markets and options trading. Its first Bitcoin-price-tracking options, launched in early May, have already generated several million dollars in trading volume.
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