WSJ: Hyperliquid is becoming Wall Street's crypto "convenience store"

Author: Vicky Ge Huang

Compiled by: Jiahua, ChainCatcher

On a Saturday in February this year, when Vala Zeinali's phone lit up with the news of President Trump announcing airstrikes on Iran, the hedge fund commodity trader calmly opened Hyperliquid.

The decentralized crypto platform Hyperliquid is open 24/7, every day of the week. This year, the exchange has become the preferred place for Wall Street "weekend warriors" like Zeinali, who can build or sell large positions here hours or even days before the market opens.

In early 2026, before Trump announced the airstrikes, Zeinali had already bet four-figure sums on oil derivatives, anticipating conflict in the Middle East. When the news caused oil prices to surge, he logged into Hyperliquid and closed his positions, locking in massive profits of up to 243%.

Zeinali said, "At that moment, I thought, 'This is great,' because usually such volatility in the oil market fades before the Sunday open. So I felt, 'Okay, I can really close my positions now,' and I did. I sold off most of my positions."

An increasing number of traditional and crypto traders are flocking to the platform, betting on almost all assets, from Bitcoin and the S&P 500 to oil and pre-IPO giants like SpaceX.

Their market of choice is perpetual futures—a type of derivative contract that never expires, allowing users to trade at any time and use significant leverage, amplifying their bets as the market value of their positions changes.

Hyperliquid was founded three years ago by Jeff Yan, who previously worked as a quantitative trader at high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading. Yan has stated that his inspiration came from the catastrophic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange. This event made him realize that the crypto market needed a high-performance trading platform where users, rather than the exchange, could hold their own assets.

In an interview, Yan stated, "The main thing is that self-custody is not just some academic concept, but a fundamental feature that users will demand. I was surprised that after the FTX incident, users did not demand this more strongly, but it is as simple as controlling your own funds."

As the developers behind the exchange and blockchain, Hyperliquid Labs has 11 employees. According to Blockworks Research, the blockchain and exchange sharing the Hyperliquid name generated approximately $800 million in total revenue last year.

According to CoinGecko data, the blockchain's native token "HYPE" launched at the end of 2024 and has increased by over 100% in the past year, with a market capitalization of about $16 billion.

The rapid rise of Hyperliquid highlights the integration of cryptocurrency with traditional finance. The platform's perpetual futures, especially those linked to traditional assets like stocks and commodities, are attracting the attention of Wall Street.

Recently, Eric Vishria, a general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, shared a photo on X: in the photo, a banker is intently watching the price of perpetual futures linked to AI chip manufacturer Cerebras on the day it went public on Nasdaq.

Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices licensed the S&P 500 index to Trade[XYZ], which created some of the most popular perpetual futures contracts linked to traditional financial assets on Hyperliquid.

Some traders are attracted to Hyperliquid because it offers contracts for some of the most anticipated newly listed stocks. According to data from Hyperliquid's data analytics platform Hyperdash, the cumulative trading volume of perpetual futures linked to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is expected to go public later this year, has reached approximately $280 million on Hyperliquid.

Although U.S. residents are currently unable to use Hyperliquid, this situation may change soon.

Last Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) established a framework for perpetual futures for registered U.S. platforms. The agency also approved Kalshi's listing of Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts and allowed Coinbase U.S. customers to access its global perpetual futures through its affiliates.

Perpetual futures are also high-leverage, high-risk products that can greatly amplify traders' profits or expose them to devastating losses. For example, when Trump suddenly announced a 100% tariff on China on October 10, it triggered a severe sell-off, wiping out over $19 billion in leveraged positions, of which $10 billion was on Hyperliquid.

Yan stated that the true scale of liquidations across the crypto space is much larger than $19 billion, and Hyperliquid was singled out mainly because its liquidation data is transparent and it remained online when many platforms could not be fully accessed.

Benjamin Schiffrin, head of securities policy at Better Markets, an organization advocating for tighter financial regulation, stated, "Perpetual futures are a complex financial product that even experienced financial professionals find difficult to fully understand, and I do not believe the risks of perpetual futures have been adequately disclosed to retail investors. I think this is a very dangerous combination."

None of this has stopped traders in the U.S. and other restricted areas from using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the platform. Traders say they are attracted to Hyperliquid because it does not require identity verification or standard background checks, in stark contrast to the strict identity rules enforced by traditional brokers and exchanges.

Hyperliquid explicitly states in its terms of use that it blocks U.S. traders and prohibits any attempts to circumvent this restriction, including the use of VPNs.

What keeps traders hooked is Hyperliquid's smooth and user-friendly interface, a wide selection of tradable assets, and a strong sense of community that tightly connects its user base.

Trader Pascal Lin, who resides in Geneva, Switzerland, said he discovered Hyperliquid at the end of 2023 and quickly became a heavy user. In the early days, he was impressed by how easily he could access the platform's Discord channel and provide feedback directly to Yan and other team members at Hyperliquid.

"It felt like I was building this product myself," Lin said, who is also the trading head of his own company, ARES Capital Management.

On Hyperliquid, Lin primarily trades the native token HYPE of the Hyperliquid blockchain but also engages in perpetual futures linked to oil. It was there that he rode the wave of oil prices rising from about $67 per barrel to nearly $100.

Lin said he became so addicted to Hyperliquid that he set up real-time price alerts for the HYPE token on his Apple Watch, a "toxic" habit he does not recommend to other traders.

He said, "With just a click, I can access Hyperliquid. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, I can check the price of HYPE with just a click."

Lin is not the only trader fascinated by Hyperliquid and its token. A large part of Hyperliquid's appeal comes from the culture of its vast ecosystem, which is supported by individual traders and developers working around the blockchain.

On the X platform, regardless of the topic, Hyperliquid traders often humorously use the term "Hyperliquid" as the ending of almost every post.

Many also use the platform's mascot, a smiling cat in a green jacket named "Hypurr," as their social media avatar. Beyond internet memes, developers are actively building trader-friendly tools and data trackers around the blockchain.

Lawrence Wu, co-founder of Hyperdash, stated, "I think the reason such a large community has formed is that it attempts to realize the original vision of cryptocurrency to establish elite-managed, permissionless systems. This is very idealistic."

Yan stated that Hyperliquid's ultimate goal is to accommodate the entire financial industry. The next step on the roadmap is to venture into prediction markets and options trading. Its first contracts tracking Bitcoin prices have generated millions of dollars in derivative trading volume since their launch in early May.