Author: A Ray's New World

Recently, the listing mechanism publicly announced by Hyperliquid has sparked heated discussions. However, the reason this matter has attracted market attention is closely related to a tweet posted by Moonrock Capital CEO Simon on November 1st of this year. He claimed that "Binance requires a certain potential project to provide 15% of its total token supply to ensure its listing on CEX, which accounts for 15% of the total token supply, valued at approximately $50 million to $100 million."

At the same time, Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic Labs, also stated, "Binance does not charge listing fees, but Coinbase has repeatedly requested fees, quoting $300 million, $50 million, and $30 million, with the most recent quote being $60 million."

Why is there always a dispute over listing fees?

In the crypto world, which is primarily based on the spirit of decentralization, centralized exchanges (CEX) have become the main participants. However, the opaque operations of CEX listings make it difficult for the market to accept them. Rumors about CEX listings circulate from time to time. Binance's founder He Yi stated after the listings of PNUT and ACT that "no listing fees were charged." Even a strong player like Binance needs to navigate the public discourse surrounding "listing fees."

He Yi's response to the listing fee controversy

Despite this, it remains challenging to convince the market that CEXs do not charge listing fees. Even without "open and honest" charges, discussions about hidden token fees continue to arise. Some leading CEXs explicitly state in their announcements that there are no listing fees, but after the listing, project teams still need to pay corresponding deposits to ensure price stability. Additionally, matters such as CEX's investment shares and activity funds must be agreed upon with the CEX during the listing process. These indefensible hidden listing fees have become a reason for the market to conclude that CEX listings operate in a "black box."

On one hand, this cumbersome and opaque listing mechanism is an additional burden for project teams. They need to incur extra costs to deal with CEX listing matters, leading to reverse selection issues. Project teams may neglect long-term development and instead develop an expectation of "listing success," ultimately resulting in most listed projects exiting the market after selling off.

On the other hand, the unfair listing practices of CEXs have even given rise to a niche market. Researching listings has become a serious "business," and the study of listing strategies has become a required course for many investors and KOLs. For example, a recent news article from Equation News made a profit of $3 million by trading on the news of the ACT listing.

Equation News profiting from preemptive trading on listing announcements

It can be said that the crypto world has long suffered from centralization. The wealth effect of each listing is almost entirely captured by CEXs (listing fees) and scientists (preemptive trading after listings), while project teams, burdened with significant listing fees, sacrifice project quality, and ultimately, retail investors bear the cost. The logic behind listing events and the current trend of retail investors embracing memecoins while rejecting VC coins is fundamentally about fairness.

What is driving the market's optimism?

However, the emergence of Hyperliquid has broken the deadlock of "black box listings."

Hyperliquid's rise in the crypto space can be traced back to the hype surrounding its token, HYPE. After its TGE, HYPE entered the top 50 by market capitalization within just two weeks, surpassing both new and established projects like Fantom and Bittensor, even exceeding Arbitrum itself. Although the narrative of Perp DEXs is no longer novel, Hyperliquid has successfully refocused the market's attention on DEXs.

The indispensable listing mechanism

Today, HYPE has surpassed $20, setting a new historical high. Behind this new high is Hyperliquid's precise "market aesthetics," keenly capturing the market pulse of this cycle's "VC to meme" transition. Hyperliquid, which appears to have a "VC-backed" quality, did not follow the old path of first securing VC funding and then inflating trading volumes before listing. Its founder, Jeff, has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with this form and market logic multiple times.

On the other hand, Hyperliquid's team operations and project development are also top-notch. Hyperliquid's ambitions extend beyond Perp DEX; it is actively building a "trading" public chain characterized by low latency, high throughput, high-frequency trading, and order books. When the underlying logic shifts from Perp DEX to a public chain, it also opens up its valuation ceiling.

In addition to the reasons mentioned above, Hyperliquid's success can also be attributed to its open and transparent listing mechanism. So how does Hyperliquid specifically list tokens?

Dutch Auction

Hyperliquid uses a Dutch auction to auction the token ticker, and its listing process is relatively open and transparent, with detailed introductions in the official documentation.

First, if a project team wants to launch a spot token, they need to apply for deployment rights for the HIP-1 native token (HIP-1 is the token standard established by Hyperliquid). Subsequently, a Dutch auction mechanism will be used to determine which party will ultimately acquire the token ticker. A Dutch auction, also known as a descending price auction, starts at a price higher than market expectations and continuously decreases until the first party accepts the price. From a game theory perspective, a Dutch auction reflects the true psychological expectations of bidders and can achieve a fair price for the auction.

Hyperliquid's spot deployment process

When a project team deploys a token on Hyperliquid, they need to pay a gas fee, but this gas auction fee will later be returned to the HLP Vault.

Additionally, Hyperliquid's auctions typically occur every 31 hours, allowing for a maximum of 282 spot listings per year. This passive "capping" method also indirectly improves the quality of listed projects.

In summary, compared to the opaque operations of CEXs that leave the public confused, Hyperliquid's listing mechanism is open and transparent, and the gas auction price collected will later be returned to the community in the form of staking, creating a virtuous cycle.

Emerging gameplay from the auction mechanism

By adopting this open auction mechanism, more interesting routes are expected to emerge in the future. For instance, this auction mechanism may lead to "ticker" disputes. Earlier this year, when zkSync was listing on various major exchanges, the Polyhedra Network, which initially used the ZK token ticker, ceded the prestigious ZK ticker to zkSync, subsequently changing Polyhedra's token to ZKJ.

It is foreseeable that more projects will exhibit similar "conflicts" after launching on Hyperliquid. Project teams will fiercely compete for ticker symbols that better align with their tokens, and stories similar to "Sina invested $8 million to purchase weibo.com" or "Finance was acquired by Moniker for $3.6 million in 2007" will likely unfold on Hyperliquid in the near future.

The "big fool" who spent $180,000

After completing its "epic" airdrop at TGE, Hyperliquid's auction prices have continuously broken new highs. Back in June of this year, its auction ceiling hovered around $35,000, failing to break the previous hard cap of $35,000. However, after the TGE, Hyperliquid received unprecedented market attention, pushing the price directly to $128,000, breaking previous constraints. On December 11, it achieved a historical high with a FARM auction at $180,000.

The previous record-breaking $128,000 ticker dispute stemmed from "SOLV," and it is noteworthy that the Solv Protocol is expected to TGE soon, making it highly likely that this ticker was acquired by Solv Protocol. Previously, the token tickers auctioned by Hyperliquid were primarily meme-based, such as PIP and CATBALL.

Following this airdrop, Hyperliquid's popularity began to soar. The record-breaking auction for SOLV marks a turning point for Hyperliquid, transitioning from a meme playground to a serious contender, with Solv Protocol being the first top project to launch on Hyperliquid.

At the same time, Solv's entry has brought significant "catalyst effects" to Hyperliquid, not only setting a benchmark for future ticker auctions but also promoting a healthier trading structure.

Hyperliquid auction history

On one hand, after Solv led the ticker auction market to significantly break the previous price ceiling, the subsequent token tickers auctioned by Hyperliquid have also "improved." The market views SOLV's auction as a reference for post-TGE pricing, with tickers like BUZZ and SHEEP reaching bids over $100,000, and the lowest, HYFI, also trading at $90,000. Subsequently, the FARM ticker on December 11 set a new historical record at $180,000.

The final owner of the FARM token ticker is @thefarmdotfun. The Farm is creating the world's first GenAI artificial intelligence agent game, where users can generate different types of pet AI agents through the GenAI model. When these AI pets are minted or traded, the FARM token will be used for fees. Under a fixed total supply, 50% of the FARM tokens used for fees will also be burned. The $180,000 spent on FARM was not in vain, as it quickly achieved a market capitalization of $30 million within hours of opening, approaching $50 million. This also opened up new possibilities for the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

FARM's market capitalization approached $50 million on December 13th

On the other hand, according to AXSN data, the daily trading volume of the HYPE token on Hyperliquid has monopolized the market, reaching a trading volume of $360 million, far ahead of tokens like PURR, PIP, and JEFF. With the entry of SOLV, Hyperliquid's trading structure will further optimize. As the market attention and public discourse surrounding the Solv Protocol's entry grow, more project teams are expected to choose to launch on Hyperliquid, leading to a more diversified trading volume in the future.

Distribution of Hyperliquid's trading structure

What has Hyperliquid changed?

As Hyperliquid founder Jeff stated, "ownership goes to the believers and doers, not rent-seeking insiders." The development of Hyperliquid aligns with this principle.

A mutual journey with project teams

For VC coins, listing on Hyperliquid is also a complementary and mutually beneficial market behavior. The listing auction itself serves as a form of advertising. Without needing to pay additional advertising fees, Solv became the center of market discussion by winning the Hyperliquid auction for its ticker.

For many altcoin project teams, even if some projects are listed on major exchanges, it is still challenging to maintain stability. If a project cannot list on a top-tier CEX during a bull market, it is nearly impossible to maintain an attractive "K-line." Without liquidity, there is no traffic, and consequently, no follow-up story; most obscure tokens become "high heels" or "Christmas trees" after listing.

Many tokens struggle to maintain stability even after being listed on major exchanges

Hyperliquid offers a more economical solution, catering to the needs of projects that cannot initially launch on major exchanges while allowing them to "secure a seat" on a decent trading platform at a low cost. After integrating HyperEVM, tokens purchased on Hyperliquid can be used in other EVMs, further highlighting the relative cost-effectiveness of its listing process. Although Hyperliquid currently does not have the powerful listing effects typical of CEXs, the widespread market attention surrounding the SOLV auction has further emphasized its position in the eyes of crypto enthusiasts.

Hyperliquid's epic airdrop resembles a grand market education campaign, allowing more people to recognize Perp DEX, understand, engage with, and use it; the transparent listing scheme serves as the first shot fired against opaque operations, leading to resistance, struggle, and victory.

From an industry perspective, the emergence of Hyperliquid is both a historical progression and a choice of the times. In response to the public's call, the market has repeatedly voted with its feet for fairness. Hyperliquid's open listing mechanism is a revolution against the existing black-box operations of CEX listings, forcing the entire industry to become more open and transparent.

What kind of entrepreneurial spirit does Crypto need?

Often, the founders of a company determine its core spirit. This statement is vividly illustrated in Hyperliquid.

Founder Jeff lost trust in CEXs after the bankruptcy of FTX and refused any VC investments. In Jeff's view, most projects first secure investment backing from top institutions, then use various so-called incentive programs to embellish their data, ultimately completing their exit by listing on large trading platforms. This industry model seems to have become the ultimate template for many project teams to achieve rapid success: write stories, attract investments, and list on major exchanges. Ultimately, retail investors bear the brunt, leading to chaos; this short-sighted industry phenomenon is ultimately unsustainable.

In the end, Hyperliquid witnessed the victory of Jeff's decentralized spirit. The transparent and open mechanism, along with a strong and cohesive community, has propelled Perp DEX to a climax of 2.0, and Jeff can proudly say: "We did not allocate tokens to any private investors, centralized trading platforms, or market makers." The bullet fired years ago has now hit the mark.

The history of Crypto's development is also a history of the struggle for decentralization, from the birth of Bitcoin to the recent capitalization debate surrounding Neiro. Regardless of how Crypto evolves, victory and justice will always stand on the side of the people, on the side of fairness, and on the side of decentralization.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。