Launched in 2023, Hyperliquid has rapidly become one of the most talked-about projects in DeFi.

Today, it leads all decentralized derivatives exchanges with $4 billion in daily trading volume and a dominant 60% market share, according to DefiLlama.

Launched in 2023, Hyperliquid has rapidly become one of the most talked-about projects in DeFi. Today, it leads all decentralized derivatives exchanges with $4 billion in daily trading volume and a dominant 60% market share, according to DefiLlama. Moreover, since this year, Hyperliquid is not only a high-performance DEX but also a full Layer-1 blockchain fueled by its native token, HYPE.

After scoring huge success with its decentralized exchange and perpetual swaps offering, Hyperliquid is now making a strategic shift to launch a general-purpose blockchain called HyperEVM. It will be fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), opening the door for third-party DeFi DApps to join the ecosystem.

This move will turn Hyperliquid into a full-stack ecosystem where HyperCore will power trading, HyperEVM will power DeFi DApps, and the HYPE token will serve as the fuel for both.

What is Hyperliquid?

Hyperliquid began as a decentralized exchange built for speed, capable of matching the performance of centralized giants like Binance. Unlike most DEXs, which rely on liquidity pools and slow confirmation times, Hyperliquid uses a custom Layer-1 chain called HyperCore built for real-time performance.

The chain supports order book trading—a rarity in DeFi—thanks to the combination of a PoS consensus and a proprietary consensus called HyperBFT, designed specifically to support high-frequency trading. Hyperliquid currently handles 20,000 operations per second, including orders, cancels, and liquidations.

On the downside, Hyperliquid is relatively centralized, with only 16 validators to secure the blockchain.

In February 2025, Hyperliquid launched HyperEVM, a general-purpose blockchain designed to host third-party DeFi applications. This strategic shift turns Hyperliquid into a full-stack ecosystem where HyperCore will power trading, HyperEVM will power DeFi DApps, and the HYPE token will serve as the fuel for both.

What is HYPE token?

In November 2024, Hyperliquid launched its native token, HYPE, via an airdrop to nearly 100,000 users. It was immediately dubbed “the most valuable airdrop ever,” with 12% of participants receiving between 5,000–10,000 tokens—worth over $140,000 within weeks. In total, Hyperliquid distributed 310 million HYPE, which is equivalent to 31% of its total 1 billion token supply.

HYPE tokens have two primary functions: powering governance and serving as gas fees on the Hyperliquid chain. Gas fees are generally not required for standard transactions and trading. However, for advanced operations—such as deploying tokens or interacting with smart contracts on HyperEVM—gas fees are payable exclusively in HYPE tokens.

What sets HYPE apart is its VC-free distribution model. Hyperliquid Labs opted to remain self-funded, allowing the team to distribute 75% of the airdrop to current and future users. The rest went to core contributors, but those tokens don’t vest until 2027–2028, minimizing the risk of early insider selloffs.

Within a month of launch, HYPE hit a $10 billion market cap, which has since corrected to $5 billion.

Hyperliquid potential

Despite being a relatively new player, Hyperliquid is already outperforming many established blockchains and DeFi protocols in terms of fee generation. In February 2025, it brought in $12.6 million in weekly fees, surpassing Solana ($11.8M), Tron ($10.2M), and Raydium ($9.8M), according to DefiLlama.

Such performance suggests a highly efficient and sustainable revenue model necessary for long-term growth.

Momentum accelerated further on March 25, when Hyperliquid announced HyperCore and HyperEVM linking now live on mainnet. This linking allows HyperEVM builders to have a permissionless path to listing on HyperCore’s order books and makes HyperCore spot assets available as building blocks for DApps on HyperEVM.

This integration marked a powerful synergy. Liquidity and user activity on HyperCore now flow naturally into the broader app ecosystem, while new DApps on HyperEVM drive demand back to the core exchange. It’s a self-reinforcing system.

This echoes the vision of Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan. Last year, he said: “Most L1s build infrastructure and hope that others will come build the killer apps. Hyperliquid takes the opposite approach: polish a native application and then grow into general-purpose infrastructure.”

This user-first strategy appears to be paying off. With a clean interface, zero trading fees, and no KYC requirement, Hyperliquid has so far attracted over 400,00