By: Vicky Ge Huang, The Wall Street Journal
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
One Saturday in February, when the phone of hedge fund commodity trader Vala Zeinali lit up with the news that President Trump had announced airstrikes against Iran, he immediately opened the Hyperliquid website.
As a decentralized crypto trading platform, Hyperliquid is open for business 24/7, all year round. Since the beginning of this year, it has become the go-to destination for short-term traders on Wall Street. During weekends when U.S. stock markets are closed, investors can open or close positions here in advance, locking in profits before the U.S. markets open.
Back in early 2026, anticipating that geopolitical conflict might erupt in the Middle East, Zeinali had deployed four-figure capital into crude oil derivatives. When the airstrike news hit and oil prices surged, he promptly closed his position on Hyperliquid, securing a hefty 243% return.
"I was particularly grateful at that moment," Zeinali said. "Typically, the oil price spike from such geopolitical news tends to retrace before the U.S. markets open on Monday. Luckily, I could exit in time, and most of my positions were successfully cashed out."
An increasing number of traditional finance and crypto traders are flocking to the platform, trading a diverse range of assets: Bitcoin, the S&P 500, crude oil, and even pre-IPO stars like SpaceX. The primary focus is on perpetual contracts, a type of derivative with no expiry date that trades around the clock and allows leveraged amplification of gains and losses.
Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan, appearing at an event, stated that the platform's ultimate goal is to host all financial activities.
Hyperliquid was founded three years ago by Jeff Yan, a former quantitative trader at high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading. The FTX collapse inspired him: the crypto market desperately needed a high-performance trading system where users self-custody their assets.
"Self-custody isn't some abstract academic concept; it's a fundamental user need," Jeff Yan said in an interview. "After the FTX incident, more users should have prioritized this. The core essence is having assets in your own hands."
The company behind Hyperliquid has only 11 employees. According to Blockworks Research data, the platform and its associated blockchain generated approximately $800 million in revenue last year; the blockchain's native token, HYPE, has surged over 100% since its launch in late 2024, with a current market cap of around $16 billion.
Hyperliquid's rapid rise is a microcosm of the accelerating convergence between traditional finance and crypto markets. Perpetual contracts linked to U.S. stocks and commodities have firmly captured Wall Street's attention.
Recently, Eric Vishria, a general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, shared an image on platform X showing a banker monitoring the price of perpetual futures linked to AI chipmaker Cerebras. Earlier this year, Trade [XYZ], a licensed partner of S&P Dow Jones Indices, launched an S&P 500 index perpetual product on Hyperliquid, which has also become one of the platform's popular contracts.
Significant capital is betting on the IPO prospects of unlisted companies. According to Hyperdash data, perpetual contracts for SpaceX have accumulated a trading volume of $280 million on Hyperliquid.
Currently, users within the U.S. cannot legally access the platform, but this may change. Last Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) introduced a new regulatory framework allowing licensed domestic platforms to list perpetual contracts; it also approved Kalshi to launch a Bitcoin perpetual product, and U.S. Coinbase users can access its global perpetual contracts through an affiliated entity.
Perpetual contracts inherently carry high leverage and risk, magnifying both profits and losses. For example, on October 10th last year, when Trump suddenly announced 100% tariffs on China, the market crashed violently, with over $19 billion in leveraged positions liquidated across all markets. Hyperliquid alone accounted for $10 billion of that.
Jeff Yan stated that the actual industry-wide losses were far higher than $19 billion. Hyperliquid was singled out in statistics because its liquidation data is fully transparent, and its system remained fully operational during the extreme volatility, while several competing platforms suffered outages and were unable to function normally.
Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy at financial watchdog Better Markets, issued a warning: "Perpetual contracts are structurally complex; even seasoned finance professionals struggle to fully grasp them. The current level of risk disclosure to retail investors is severely inadequate. This combination harbors significant dangers."
Despite restrictions, traders from the U.S. and other prohibited regions still participate via VPNs. The key attraction lies in the platform's lack of mandatory identity verification, a stark contrast to the rigorous due diligence required by traditional brokerages. The platform's user agreement explicitly prohibits U.S. user participation and forbids using VPNs to circumvent restrictions.
Another major advantage retaining users is the simple and user-friendly interface, diverse trading offerings, and strong community atmosphere.
Geneva-based trader Pascal Lin joined in late 2023 and quickly became a power user. What impressed him most was the ability to give direct product feedback to founder Jeff Yan and the team via the Discord community.
"The sense of involvement is intense; it feels like you're building the product yourself," said Pascal, who also runs the proprietary trading desk at ARES Capital Management, primarily trading HYPE and crude oil perpetuals. He previously capitalized on a major oil bull run, riding prices from $67 per barrel to nearly $100.
His obsession with Hyperliquid is such that he even set up real-time price alerts on his Apple Watch, though he admits he wouldn't recommend ordinary traders to follow suit. "Waking up at any hour of the night, you can open the app with one tap to check HYPE's price."
He's not the only fervent user. The platform's unique community culture is central to its traffic. On platform X, users habitually tag Hyperliquid at the end of their posts, regardless of topic. Many users adopt the green-hoodie smiling cat Hypurr as their social avatar. Beyond the meme culture, third-party developers continuously build supporting ecosystem tools like market trackers and data dashboards.
Lawrence Wu, co-founder of Hyperdash, remarked: "I think the reason it has such a massive community is that it's trying to achieve crypto's original vision—a meritocratic, permissionless system. It's highly idealistic."
Jeff Yan stated that Hyperliquid's ultimate goal is to consolidate all financial activity. The next step for Hyperliquid is to venture into prediction markets and options trading. Its first set of contracts tracking Bitcoin prices, launched in early May, has already generated millions in trading volume.
