Key takeaways:
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Hyperliquid processed round $330 billion in buying and selling quantity in July 2025, briefly surpassing Robinhood.
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A split-chain design enabled CEX-like pace whereas protecting custody and execution onchain.
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The HLP vault and Help Fund buybacks aligned merchants, market makers and token holders in a reinforcing loop.
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A big airdrop, Phantom Pockets integration and self-funded operations helped entice customers and maintain adoption.
A 12 months after launching its personal layer 1 (L1), Hyperliquid has turn out to be one in all decentralized finance’s (DeFi) prime perpetuals venues, logging about $319 billion in buying and selling quantity in July 2025. Remarkably, the core staff behind it’s believed to encompass solely 11 individuals.
What’s Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetuals alternate constructed on a customized layer 1.
Its chain is split into two tightly related elements: HyperCore, which manages the onchain order e book, margining, liquidations and clearing; and HyperEVMa general-purpose sensible contract layer that interacts immediately with alternate state.
Each are secured by HyperBFT, a HotStuff-style proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus that enforces a single transaction order with out counting on offchain programs. HyperEVM launched on mainnet on Feb. 18, 2025, including programmability across the alternate core.
Do you know? Hyperliquid achieves a median commerce latency of simply 0.2 seconds (with even 99th‑percentile delays beneath 0.9 seconds) and may deal with as much as 200,000 transactions per second, rivaling centralized exchanges on pace.
The $330-billion month: What the info exhibits
July was Hyperliquid’s strongest month but. Knowledge from Defill exhibits the platform processed about $319 billion in perpetuals buying and selling quantity. That pushed DeFi-wide perpetuals to a report $487 billion — a 34% bounce from June.
On the similar time, business trackers highlighted a mixed $330.8 billion determine, which included spot buying and selling as properly. Headlines famous this meant Hyperliquid briefly surpassed Robinhood.
Robinhood’s July metrics present the premise for comparability: $209.1 billion in equities notional plus $16.8 billion in crypto buying and selling, together with $11.9 billion at Bitstamp (a Robinhood subsidiary), totaling round $237.8 billion.
A number of shops famous that July marked the third straight month Hyperliquid’s volumes topped Robinhood’s, which is a putting end result for a staff of solely 11. And these are month-to-month figures, not cumulative totals. Meaning the platform is displaying sustained high-frequency exercise relatively than a one-off spike.
Engineering for throughput
Hyperliquid’s scale comes from a fastidiously break up state machine working beneath one consensus.
HyperCore acts because the alternate engine, with central-limit order books, margin accounting, matching and liquidations all saved absolutely onchain. The documentation stresses that it avoids offchain order books. Every asset’s e book exists onchain as a part of the chain state, with price-time precedence matching.
HyperEVM is an Ethereum Digital Machine (EVM)-compatible surroundings on the identical blockchain. As a result of it shares consensus and knowledge availability with HyperCore, functions can construct across the alternate with out leaving the L1.
Each elements depend on HyperBFT, a HotStuff-inspired PoS consensus that delivers a constant transaction order throughout all the system. The design goals for low-latency finality whereas protecting custody and execution onchain.
This construction differs from typical decentralized alternate (DEX) fashions: automated market makers (AMMs) that depend on liquidity swimming pools or hybrid order-book DEXs that preserve orders onchain however match them offchain.
Hyperliquid as a substitute runs its core alternate logic (order books, matching, margin and liquidations) solely onchain whereas nonetheless enabling EVM-based apps to combine natively.
The working mannequin: How 11 individuals attained CEX pace
Hyperliquid’s organizational design is intentionally lean.
Founder Jeff Yan has mentioned the core staff consists of about 11 individuals, with hiring deliberately selective to take care of pace and cultural cohesion. The emphasis is on a small, coordinated group relatively than fast headcount growth.
The challenge is solely self-funded and has declined enterprise capital. Yan frames this as aligning possession with customers and protecting priorities unbiased of investor timelines. This method additionally explains the absence of main centralized-exchange listings — the main focus stays on know-how and neighborhood adoption.
Execution follows a good suggestions loop. When an API outage on July 29 disrupted order execution for 37 minutes, the staff reimbursed affected merchants $1.99 million the following enterprise day. For a DeFi venue, that pace of response stood out for instance of its “ship, repair, personal it” mindset.
“Hiring the unsuitable individual is worse than not hiring in any respect,” mentioned Yan on staying lean.
Collectively, selective hiring, independence from enterprise capital and fast incident administration assist clarify how a small staff can function at a centralized-exchange cadence whereas protecting custody and execution absolutely onchain.
The HLP + Help Fund flywheel
Protocol mechanisms align dealer exercise with liquidity provisioning.
Hyperliquidity Supplier (HLP) vault
HLP is a protocol-managed vault that handles market-making and liquidations on HyperCore. Anybody can deposit capital, with contributors sharing within the vault’s revenue and loss (PnL) and a portion of buying and selling charges. By making market-making infrastructure open and rules-based, HLP reduces reliance on the bilateral market-maker offers frequent elsewhere.
Help Fund (charge buybacks)
In line with DefiLlama dashboards, 93% of protocol charges circulate to the Help Fund, which buys again and burns HYPE tokenswhereas 7% go to HLP. This creates a suggestions loop: Greater natural quantity funds bigger buybacks, lowering token provide, whereas nonetheless allocating a portion to help the vault.
Funding mechanics
Perpetual funding on Hyperliquid is only peer-to-peer, with no protocol take, paid hourly and capped at 4% per hour.
Charges mix a set curiosity (0.01% per eight hours, prorated hourly) with a variable premium derived from an oracle that aggregates centralized alternate spot costs.
This construction helps preserve perpetual costs aligned with spot. Funds are made by either side of the e book, reinforcing threat sharing with out embedding yield guarantees.
Distribution and neighborhood
Hyperliquid’s token distribution leaned closely towards customers.
On Nov. 29, 2024, the challenge launched the HYPE genesis airdrop, distributing about 310 million tokens to early individuals. The occasion coincided with the token’s buying and selling debut, reinforcing a community-first method. Hyperliquid (HYPE) is used for staking in HyperBFT and for fuel funds onchain.
Momentum accelerated in mid-2025 when Phantom Pockets built-in Hyperliquid perpetuals immediately in-app. Analysts and media famous a transparent enhance in circulate and adoption.
VanEck’s July report attributed $2.66 billion in buying and selling quantity, $1.3 million in charges and roughly 20,900 new customers to the Phantom rollout. Separate reporting tracked $1.8 billion in routed quantity throughout the first 16 days.
On the product facet, HyperEVM went dwell on Feb. 18, 2025, enabling general-purpose sensible contracts and creating pathways for wallets, vaults and itemizing processes to combine across the alternate. That flexibility inspired exterior builders to plug into the ecosystem and supported a gentle pipeline of latest markets.
Do you know? Hyperliquid’s genesis airdrop distributed round $1.6 billion price of HYPE throughout 90,000 customers, equal to 31% of the whole provide. At peak costs, the typical airdrop worth exceeded $100,000 per person.
Critiques and threat elements
Decentralization and validator set
In early 2025, researchers and validators raised considerations over validator transparency and centralization. The staff acknowledged the problem and mentioned it will make the code open-source after strengthening its safety. The staff additionally outlined plans to develop validator participation.
Focus threat
Hyperliquid’s market share (usually estimated at 75%-80% of decentralized perpetuals buying and selling) poses focus challenges. Commentators highlighted the advantages of community results but in addition famous the systemic dangers if liquidity shifts or shocks happen at a single venue.
Operational incidents
A 37-minute API outage on July 29 briefly halted buying and selling. Hyperliquid reimbursed roughly $2 million to customers the following day. Whereas the swift refund strengthened its popularity for responsiveness, the occasion additionally highlighted the publicity leveraged merchants face throughout outages.
Governance and treasury execution
Observers typically scrutinize how protocol-managed vaults allocate capital offchain or throughout chains, in addition to the design of buyback mechanisms. These stay areas of operational threat to observe as Hyperliquid scales.
Do you know? Hyperliquid depends upon validator-maintained worth oracles. If these oracles are manipulated, it could set off untimely or inaccurate liquidations. To counter this, Hyperliquid limits open curiosity ranges and blocks orders greater than 1% away from the oracle worth, although the HLP vault is exempt from these restrictions.
Last ideas: Why Hyperliquid scaled when others stalled
4 elements assist clarify Hyperliquid’s outsized development.
First, its execution-first chain design: HyperCore handles onchain matching and margin, whereas HyperEVM gives composability, each ordered beneath HyperBFT. Collectively, this setup delivers close to CEX-level latency whereas protecting custody and state absolutely onchain.
Second, incentive alignment by means of fee-funded buybacks (through the Help Fund) and the open HLP vault created a reflexive liquidity loop as buying and selling volumes expanded.
Third, sustaining a lean core staff of about 11 contributors minimized managerial overhead and saved product cycles quick.
Fourth, distribution benefits (most notably Phantom Pockets’s integration) lowered onboarding friction and expanded attain throughout a positive cycle for onchain derivatives.
For these evaluating long-term sturdiness, a number of watchpoints stand out:
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Whether or not validator decentralization and code open-sourcing progress as promised
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How shortly spot markets, central restrict order e book exercise and third-party apps construct round HyperEVM
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Whether or not income and quantity stay resilient as opponents start adopting comparable fashions.
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