Author: Vicky Ge Huang
Translator: Jiahuan, ChainCatcher
On a Saturday in February this year, when Vala Zeinali's phone lit up with the news that President Trump had announced airstrikes against Iran, the hedge fund commodity trader calmly opened Hyperliquid.
The decentralized crypto platform Hyperliquid is open 24/7. This year, the exchange has become the go-to place for Wall Street "weekend warriors" like Zeinali, who can build or sell large positions here hours or even days before the market opens.
Before Trump announced the airstrikes in early 2026, Zeinali had already bet four-figure amounts on oil derivatives, anticipating a conflict in the Middle East. When this news led to a surge in oil prices, he logged into Hyperliquid and closed out, locking in massive profits of up to 243%.
Zeinali said, "I thought to myself, 'Awesome,' because typically such volatility in the oil market fades before the Sunday open. So I felt like, 'Okay, I can really close out now,' and I did. I sold off most of my positions."
More and more traditional and crypto traders are flocking to the platform to wager on almost all assets, from Bitcoin and the S&P 500 index to oil and pre-IPO giants like SpaceX.
Their preferred market is perpetual futures—a type of derivative contract that never expires, allowing users to trade at any time and use high leverage, with their bets magnified as the position's paper value increases.
Founded three years ago, Hyperliquid was established by Jeff Yan, who previously worked as a quantitative trader at the high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading. Yan has stated that he was inspired by the catastrophic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. This event made him realize that the crypto market needed a high-performance trading platform where users, rather than exchanges, could hold their assets.
In an interview, Yan stated, "The main thing is that self-custody is not just some academic concept, but a fundamental feature that users will demand. I was surprised that after the FTX incident, users did not demand this more strongly, but it’s just as simple as having control over your funds."
As the developers behind the exchange and blockchain, Hyperliquid Labs has 11 employees. According to Blockworks Research, the blockchain and exchange sharing the Hyperliquid name generated about $800 million in total revenue last year.
According to CoinGecko data, the blockchain's native token "HYPE" was launched at the end of 2024 and has risen over 100% in the past year, with a market cap of around $16 billion.
The rapid rise of Hyperliquid highlights the merging of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance. The platform’s perpetual futures, especially contracts tied to traditional assets like stocks and commodities, are attracting the attention of Wall Street.
Recently, Eric Vishria, a general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, shared a photo on X: the photo of a banker intently watching the price of perpetual futures tied to AI chipmaker Cerebras on the day it went public on Nasdaq.
Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices licensed the S&P 500 Index to Trade[XYZ], which has created some of the most popular perpetual futures contracts on Hyperliquid tied to traditional financial assets.
Some traders are attracted to Hyperliquid because it offers contracts on some of the most anticipated upcoming IPOs. According to data from Hyperliquid's analytical platform Hyperdash, perpetual futures tied to Elon Musk’s upcoming IPO of rocket company SpaceX have achieved a total trading volume of around $280 million on Hyperliquid.
Although U.S. residents currently cannot use Hyperliquid, this may change soon.
Last Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) launched a framework for registered U.S. platforms to offer perpetual futures. The agency also approved Kalshi's listing of Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts and allowed Coinbase’s U.S. customers to access its global perpetual futures through an affiliate.
Perpetual futures are also high-leverage, high-risk products that can greatly amplify traders' profits or expose them to devastating losses. For example, when Trump unexpectedly announced a 100% tariff on China on October 10, it triggered a severe sell-off that wiped out over $19 billion in leveraged positions, of which $10 billion was on Hyperliquid.
Yan stated that the actual scale of liquidations across the entire crypto space is far greater than $19 billion, and that Hyperliquid was singled out because its liquidation data is transparent, and it remained online even when many platforms could not be fully accessed.
Benjamin Schiffrin, securities policy director at Better Markets, an organization advocating for tighter financial regulation, expressed that "perpetual futures are a complex financial product even experienced financial professionals find difficult to fully understand, and I don't think the risks of perpetual futures have been adequately disclosed to retail investors. I think this is a very dangerous combination."
None of this has prevented traders from the U.S. and other restricted areas from using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the platform. Traders have expressed that they are attracted to Hyperliquid because it does not require identity verification or standard background checks, a stark contrast to the strict identity rules enforced by traditional brokers and stock exchanges.
Hyperliquid explicitly states in its terms of use that it blocks U.S. traders and prohibits any circumvention of this restriction, including the use of VPNs.
The platform's smooth and user-friendly interface, wide variety of tradable assets, and strong community spirit that keeps its user base closely connected make it irresistible to traders.
Trader Pascal Lin, who resides in Geneva, Switzerland, stated that he discovered Hyperliquid at the end of 2023 and quickly became a heavy user. In the early days, he was impressed by how easily he could access the platform's Discord channel and provide feedback directly to Yan and other team members of Hyperliquid.
"It's like I am building this product myself," Lin said, who is also the trading director of his own company ARES Capital Management.
On Hyperliquid, Lin primarily trades the native token HYPE on the Hyperliquid blockchain but also engages in perpetual futures linked to oil. It was there that he participated in the rally as oil prices surged from about $67 per barrel to nearly $100.
Lin mentioned that he became so addicted to Hyperliquid that he set up real-time price alerts for the HYPE token on his Apple Watch, a "toxic" habit he does not recommend to other traders.
He said, "With just a click, I can access Hyperliquid. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night, I can just click once to check the price of HYPE."
Lin is not the only trader fascinated by Hyperliquid and its token. A large part of Hyperliquid's appeal stems from the culture of its vast ecosystem, which is jointly supported by individual traders and developers building around the blockchain.
On X, regardless of the topic, Hyperliquid's traders humorously use the term "Hyperliquid" as the ending to almost every post.
Many also use the platform's mascot, a smiling cat in a green jacket named "Hypurr," as their social media avatar. Beyond internet memes, developers are actively building trader-friendly tools and data trackers around the blockchain.
Lawrence Wu, co-founder of Hyperdash, stated, "I believe that the formation of such a large community stems from its attempt to realize the initial vision of cryptocurrency to establish elite governance and permissionless systems. This is very idealistic."
Yan mentioned that Hyperliquid's ultimate goal is to encompass the entire financial industry. The next step on the roadmap is to venture into prediction markets and options trading. Its first outcome contracts tracking the price of Bitcoin have generated millions of dollars in derivatives trading volume since their launch in early May.
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