Hyperliquid: $100 million in revenue per employee

Hyperliquid has become a leading decentralized perpetual swap exchange over the past year, surpassing competitors in both performance and market share. Key metrics have increased exponentially since our December 2024 review: Daily trading volume has risen from several billion dollars to an average of over $10 billion, peaking at over $30 billion. Open interest has climbed from several billion dollars to approximately $15 billion.

HYPE's market capitalization has expanded from approximately $4 billion in fully diluted value at launch to over $16 billion in circulating value (≈ $48 billion FDV) as of August 28, 2025.

Infrastructure now completes transactions in under one second (median ≈ 0.2 seconds) while processing approximately 200,000 orders per second.

Buybacks have reduced the total token supply by approximately 8% to 9%, supporting a 15x increase in the token price since launch.

The market share of decentralized perpetual swap trading has jumped to approximately 75% to 80%, far ahead of dYdX, GMX, and other competitors.

Hyperliquid has become the benchmark for on-chain transaction speed and liquidity. New challengers, such as Sei-based order book decentralized exchanges or hybrid models, are emerging, and the first major token unlock in November 2025 is attracting much attention, but Hyperliquid maintains a commanding lead. Furthermore, Hyperliquid boasts the highest revenue efficiency globally, with an average revenue of $102.4 million per person on a team of just 12. By comparison, Tether had a revenue efficiency of $93 million; OnlyFans had a revenue efficiency of $37.6 million; Nvidia had a revenue efficiency of $3.6 million; Apple had a revenue efficiency of $2.4 million; and Meta had a revenue efficiency of $2.2 million. Unlike venture-driven projects with locked-up allocations and token economics that favor insiders, Hyperliquid reserves 70% of the total $HYPE supply for the community. No private rounds dilute user ownership, ensuring broad and equitable token distribution. By eschewing external capital, Hyperliquid aligns incentives with its user base and encourages organic network effects. The Hyperliquid Labs team is a core contributor to Hyperliquid's development and is led by co-founders Jeff and iliensinc, both Harvard classmates. Team members hail from prestigious institutions like Caltech and MIT and have experience working at leading companies like Airtable, Citadel, Hudson River Trading, and Nuro. The team initially focused on proprietary cryptocurrency market making in 2020, but pivoted to DeFi in 2022 due to frustration with the inefficiencies of existing platforms, including poor market design, inferior technology, and clunky user interfaces. Leveraging their expertise, the team aims to bridge the gap between decentralized and centralized trading experiences by building a seamless, efficient, and user-friendly product. Hyperliquid's rapid rise began with the "Genesis" airdrop on November 29, 2024, which distributed 31% of the 1 billion HYPE supply, valued at approximately $1.5 billion. The token opened at nearly $4.80 and saw $165 million in trading volume within the first hour. By mid-December, the exchange was experiencing billions of dollars in daily liquidations and nearly $1 billion in deposits. At the same time, the HyperEVM, compatible with the EVM and sharing state with the core order book chain, officially launched, laying the foundation for future DeFi applications. The platform experienced structural growth in early 2025. In January, the on-chain assistance fund began using transaction fees to repurchase HYPE tokens. The number of validators increased from 5 to 16, and a marketing campaign in Asia highlighted the platform's sub-second execution speed. The HyperEVM officially launched on February 18, 2025, giving Solidity contracts the same rapid finality as transactions. In March, the platform added a validator voting mechanism, and total trading volume exceeded $1 trillion, with whale users demonstrating that nine-figure positions could be managed on-chain. During April and May, monthly trading volume exceeded $200 billion, exceeding Robinhood's equity flow. Builder Codes also allowed external front-ends to leverage Hyperliquid's liquidity in exchange for a fee share. In June, the HIP-3 testnet opened permissionless market creation, with the validator set reaching the planned 21 independent nodes. Subsequently, new cryptocurrencies were listed, ranging from wrapped BTC and ETH to meme coins and the SPX Perpetual Index. July's performance was crucial: monthly trading volume reached a record $330 billion, open interest exceeded $15 billion, and Hyperliquid's share of decentralized perpetual swap trading exceeded 75%. Media reports highlighted that just 11 core contributors generated approximately $1.17 billion in annualized revenue. In August, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes predicted significant upside for HYPE, with daily trading volume reaching $12 billion and the token price reaching a new high of nearly $50. Institutional signals followed as BitGo and Phantom added custody and trading support. By August 28, 2025, the relief fund had accumulated nearly 30 million HYPE, with staking participation reaching 43% of the supply. Currently, the team is focused on bringing HIP-3 to mainnet, furthering open source, and preparing for the first major team treasury unlock scheduled for November. Hyperliquid runs on a purpose-built Layer 1 that combines HyperCore, a high-speed orderbook blockchain, with HyperEVM, an embedded EVM runtime. HyperCore uses a Tendermint-like consensus mechanism, with a rotating rotation of 21 highest-stake validators processing all on-chain transactions, fund payments, and liquidations. Block times are approximately one second, transaction confirmations are approximately two-tenths of a second, and the matching engine has been load-tested to over 200,000 orders per second. Users pay no gas fees; fees are based on transaction volume and are used to pay for validator rewards and on-chain buybacks to the treasury. Because each market's order book is sharded in memory across validators, throughput headroom remains significant, consuming only a small fraction of CPU capacity even on its busiest day (~$3 billion in trading volume). Horizontal scaling with additional matching engines is possible but not currently required. Finality is instant with the signature of two-thirds of validators, providing centralized exchange-like execution without the risk of chain reorganizations. Deterministic price-time priority and a single global order book minimize Mean Estimated Value (MEV); no exploits have been identified. Risk management utilizes an on-chain and cross-margin model. Positions are checked against oracle prices every block, and anyone willing to assume the risk can liquidate. A small, protocol-operated liquidation pool supports the entire liquidation process. The oracle combines internal trade-weighted prices with external data sources such as Chainlink or Python. Permissionless market deployers must post a 1 million HYPE security deposit, which can be slashed if the data is incorrect. The HyperEVM resides within each HyperCore block and shares the same validators and state, allowing smart contracts to communicate with the order book without cross-chain latency. Gas is paid for using HYPE, resulting in conservative block gas limits and throughput comparable to fast sidechains, easily handling typical DeFi workloads. Assets are connected to the network via the HyBridge, which has been audited multiple times and remains bug-free. Delegated "session keys" allow traders to place orders without requiring fixed wallet signatures, supporting high-frequency strategies. The network is highly resilient, with no outages and can tolerate the failure of up to one-third of its validators. Since launch, the number of validators has expanded from 5 foundational nodes to 21 independent operators, with approximately 43% of all HYPE staked. Governance remains validator-centric, with the matching engine code partially closed, but committed to full open source after further field testing.

HYPE Token Economics

Supply and Current Float

• Hard Cap: 1B tokens, no inflation.

• Airdrop at Launch (November 2024): 31% ≈ 310M.

• Circulating Supply as of August 28, 2025: 334M (33.4%). The slight increase from the airdrop reflects a small amount of liquidity mining release or overdue claims.

• Locked: 666M (66.6%), roughly divided into 388.8M future rewards and 300M team/treasury.

Unlock Schedule

• The team/treasury block (≈ 300M) is expected to begin vesting on November 29, 2025, after a one-year cliff period, and then be released over 2-3 years.

• Future rewards will be distributed through incentive plans at the Foundation's discretion. Unlike many L1 tokens, HYPE initially offered no staking rewards to holders, as the first validators were run by the foundation. In January 2025, as the number of validators grew, HYPE's staking rewards became a significant factor: validators earn a percentage of transaction fees and share them with delegators. Hyperliquid distributes a fixed percentage of protocol fees to stakers/validators (the exact percentage has not been officially announced, but it's likely a small percentage, as most fees are used for buybacks). Validators compete by offering high commissions to delegators. As of August 2025, staking rewards have not been publicly disclosed, but are presumably relatively low (as the $1 billion+ in fees are primarily used for buybacks, not distributions). The greater incentive for staking is governance rights and the prospect of HYPE's appreciation. Fees, Buybacks, and Burns Transaction fees are primarily paid in USDC. HIP-1 converts any spot market fees collected in token form into HYPE and burns it—approximately 360k HYPE has been burned to date. The majority of protocol fees go to the on-chain Assistance Fund (AF). The AF uses USDC to purchase HYPE on the market and then holds it. As of August 27, 2025, the HYPE balance was 29.8 million, effectively reducing the liquidity float to 304 million.

Outlook and Risks

• There will be no ongoing emission beyond the locked-up allocation, so the circulating supply will grow slowly until unlocked in November 2025.

• Upcoming team unlocks may add approximately 25 million tokens per month in 2026. Hyperliquid's buyback rate (approximately $100 million per month) will need to match the pace of any sell-offs to avoid price pressure.

• AF's growing funds combined with a high staking ratio will help keep market supply tight, but transparency into the exact vesting schedule will improve visibility. Liquidity as a Service: The "AWS of Liquidity" Concept AWS revolutionized computing by abstracting bare metal servers, enabling developers to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure. Hyperliquid applies a similar logic to liquidity. Developers building on Hyperliquid don't need to reinvent order book logic, liquidity incentives, or complex backend systems. Instead, they access ready-made liquidity pools and order matching infrastructure at the protocol level. The builder code is a key innovation. It enables third-party developers, regional exchanges, and specialized front-ends to directly integrate with Hyperliquid's order book. Each builder can define its own fee structure and user interface without custodial control of user funds. This model significantly lowers the barrier to entry and has enabled thousands of exchanges to flourish—each tailored to a specific user base, region, or trading strategy, yet all leveraging Hyperliquid's deep liquidity. EVM compatibility ensures that lending protocols, stablecoins, yield aggregators, and insurance products can interoperate with Hyperliquid's liquidity engine. This composability creates a "financial Lego" environment where advanced strategies like automated hedging, cross-margin, and yield optimization will naturally emerge. Over time, this could give rise to a new class of DeFi primitives with liquid, live markets at their core. Growth and Distribution Hyperliquid's expansion relies on several well-timed initiatives: Early Points Campaign (June-November 2023): A large volume-based points campaign, later the HYPE airdrop, attracted approximately 50,000 active addresses. Referral and Fee Discounts (Starting December 2024): Fees are reduced by 4% for new traders and 10% for referral recipients, incentivizing influencers, Telegram groups, and Discord servers to drive traffic. Build Code (Mid-2025): Teams that embed Hyperliquid into custom wallets, analytics dashboards, or bots will receive a 20% to 50% share of fees. Integrations with Phantom and other front-ends will quietly direct users to the exchange. In addition to these incentives, community-led trading competitions, research reports, and testimonials from celebrities like Arthur Hayes have helped it win over quant funds and proprietary traders. This effect is further amplified by centralized exchanges in regions like China, South Korea, and Turkey, particularly where these on-chain exchanges face less regulatory pressure than offshore centralized exchanges. User Base and Behavior As of August 2025, there were 640,000 unique trading addresses (approximately 200,000 real users), compared to 200,000 a year earlier. Monthly active traders are estimated to be in the tens of thousands, with whales accounting for the majority of volume; a Pareto effect dominates. Retail interest is reflected in the over 400,000 spot USDC holders on HyperCore, but many only hold to stablecoins or farm yields rather than trade. Trading volume is growing faster than the number of users, suggesting high retention rates among existing professional users and increasing adoption. The primary challenge now is converting a large number of passive retail investors into active traders without undermining the platform's expertise. Hyperliquid has rapidly expanded by rewarding early adopters, outsourcing user acquisition to referrers and builders, and maintaining visibility through expert reviews rather than flashy marketing campaigns. To unlock the next wave of growth, it needs a more streamlined experience or campaigns to attract its large passive user base to real trading. The competitive landscape of decentralized perpetual swaps in 2025 is fierce, but Hyperliquid remains a significant leader in trading volume and market share. However, a comparison with its major competitors in the DeFi and CeFi sectors is instructive. Hyperliquid leads in on-chain metrics (with trading volume roughly 5x that of its closest on-chain competitor, Drift, and roughly 4x that of dYdX). Its liquidity (spread/depth) is the best among DEXs, thanks to its custom-built chain and strong market maker (MM) support. Only Binance and OKX boast higher raw liquidity, but Hyperliquid is closing the gap with top assets. In terms of finality, Hyperliquid and Solana (Drift) are the fastest on-chain; other DEXs, such as those based on Arbitrum, experience slight delays. Decentralization: While GMX and Vertex rely on Arbitrum (which has core elements), dYdX operates on a separate blockchain (with approximately 16 validators—somewhat similar to HL in its early stages). Hyperliquid has 21 validators, comparable to some mid-sized proof-of-stake blockchains (Tron, for example, has 27 SRs). Its decentralization isn't yet as high as Ethereum or Solana, but it's likely higher than any competitor except Drift (which inherits Solana's large validator set). Token Burn/Value: Hyperliquid uniquely features a direct revenue buyback mechanism, which benefits HYPE. dYdX's token is solely for governance and has a high issuance (they discontinued their rewards mechanism but haven't burned fees—fees go to the community treasury and aren't currently redistributed). GMX has a strong token model (GMX stakers earn real returns in ETH), which has helped it remain popular despite declining trading volume. However, GMX's growth has stagnated relative to HL due to declining GLP yields (GLP's annual interest rate is now around 10%, compared to over 20% previously, due to slower trader losses). HL's HLP yield has historically been approximately 100% (not directly distributed to HYPE holders, but can be simulated by holding HLP).

  New Entrants (such as GTE):GTE is a new on-chain trading platform on MegaETH that bundles a launch platform, an automated market maker (AMM), a centralized limit order book, and a price aggregator, directly competing with Hyperliquid's "perpetual contract first" model. GTE claims to have performance comparable to that of centralized exchanges (CEXs) and fully non-custodial execution, processing 100,000 orders per second with approximately 1 millisecond latency, and routing orders to the best price through platform scanning. In June 2025, GTE completed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm and backed by top market makers and funds, and is currently live on the testnet. Strategically, GTE's competitive advantage lies in its ownership of the full token lifecycle, from listing to spot trading to leveraged trading, while Hyperliquid focuses on high-performance perpetual contracts and boasts a proven liquidity moat.

  Centralized vs. Decentralized: Several key comparisons are worth highlighting:

  Trading Volume: Hyperliquid's daily trading volume is approximately $10 billion (August average), while Binance's is approximately $80 billion. Hyperliquid accounts for approximately 12% of Binance's futures trading volume. This is a significant figure considering Binance's years-long lead and broader asset offering. Hyperliquid's share is likely to continue to grow, as its trend is upward. If the cryptocurrency market enters a strong bull run, Binance's daily trading volume could reach $200 billion, while Hyperliquid's daily volume could regularly reach $30 billion (which, as Coindesk notes, is sometimes "comparable to the largest centralized exchanges"). Users: Hyperliquid's user base (hundreds of thousands) pales in comparison to Binance's approximately 150 million registered users. However, DeFi can sometimes prioritize the quality of trading volume over quantity—a handful of quantitative firms on Hyperliquid can generate the equivalent volume of millions of retail traders on Binance. However, expanding the user base remains key to a sustainable ecosystem (especially in terms of decentralization—thousands of small traders mean less risk of concentrated trading volume). Feature Set: Many CEX features (stop-loss, take-profit, advanced order types) are already implemented in Hyperliquid. It also offers one-click trading. In comparison, dYdX and other platforms have historically had more limited order types (dYdX v4 improved this, but Hyperliquid has been ahead of the curve since day one, offering, for example, bracket orders). GMX still lacks advanced orders (beyond a basic stop-loss as a single trigger). This same complex functionality as CEXs is another reason quantitative traders are excited to migrate to HL. Competitive Moats and Risks: Hyperliquid's Moats: Liquidity + Performance + Current Brand Recognition in the DeFi Space. Furthermore, as a proprietary chain, if competitors want to replicate it, they'll either need to launch a similar chain (making it difficult to bootstrap liquidity now that HL is already established) or attempt to replicate it on Layer 2 (but performance will suffer). However, competition from CeFi: Binance isn't standing still. It has launched several DeFi-like projects, but hasn't made significant progress in actual implementation. If Binance feels threatened, it could list the HYPE token and absorb HL's liquidity through cross-listing services (this is just speculation). Or, more likely, Binance may further reduce fees or run promotions to retain traders on the platform. Competition from other DeFi natives: Another competitive category is protocol-controlled perpetual swaps (for example, Perennial offers a different design that uses long-lived pools instead of order books, aiming to reduce slippage). So far, no DeFi native has been able to challenge HL in terms of trading volume. However, new ideas such as "RFQ-style perpetual swaps" or "pure on-chain high-frequency trading via L3" may emerge. dYdX vs. Hyperliquid: dYdX is conceptually closest (custom on-chain order book perpetual swaps). dYdX lags slightly behind in terms of trading volume and technology (the dYdX chain, based on the Cosmos system, has a 2-second block time and slower finality, and its token economics (high inflation for stakers) are considered weaker). However, dYdX has a strong brand and regulatory credibility (they have geofenced the US from day one, which may give them higher returns on compliance). If dYdX can revitalize itself (for example, by adjusting its token value accumulation mechanism, adding features like spot trading, or operating on a multi-provider platform), it may be able to regain market share. But as of now, dYdX's market share has plummeted from around 60% in early 2024 to less than 20%, while Hyperliquid holds over 75%—a significant shift. Centralized Finance (CeFi) Crackdown/Regulatory Arbitrage: If centralized exchanges (CEXs) are subject to regulatory restrictions (such as KYC requirements or leverage limits), traders may increasingly turn to decentralized exchanges like HL for freedom. This is already happening in part due to derivatives restrictions in the US and EU. This macro tailwind favors HL. Conversely, if regulators specifically target DeFi violators, HL, as the largest offender, will be a prime target (see the next section). In summary, Hyperliquid currently outperforms its DeFi competitors across all key metrics and is encroaching on the performance of centralized incumbents. The listed competitors (dYdX, GMX, etc.) each have their own unique advantages (such as GMX's community and token yields, and dYdX's existing user base), but none can match Hyperliquid's combination of speed, liquidity, and active token buybacks. Unless a new paradigm emerges (for example, true on-chain order books on Ethereum Layer-2, if feasible), the competitive landscape will likely ultimately position Hyperliquid as the leader, with dYdX and a few other platforms relegated to a distant second. Hyperliquid’s task is to maintain this leading position—which means continuously optimizing its technology, keeping market makers happy, and safely navigating regulation so that users can continue to use it with confidence.

  Key indicators