Hyperliquid Revolutionizes Crypto Perpetuals in DeFi

The concept that liquidity breeds liquidity is being put into practice by Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that has become the go-to platform for traders seeking to engage with perpetual futures or 'perps'. Launched in 2023 by Harvard alumni Jeff Yan and a pseudonymous developer known as iliensinc, Hyperliquid is leveraging its robust order book to provide a unique value proposition to firms: the ability to compose with the platform's shared liquidity, much like permissionless smart contracts can interlock like building blocks of LEGO, giving rise to novel tokenized financial products. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-performance HyperCore blockchain, enabling other applications to build atop the platform's liquidity without fragmenting it. This allows applications such as wallets or even other exchanges to utilize Hyperliquid as a backend, providing perps trading and other services to their users. As more developers integrate with Hyperliquid, the platform's liquidity deepens, the variety of assets expands, and network effects intensify. Currently, hundreds of developers, including prominent names like MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and South African exchange VALR, are utilizing Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', generating approximately $90 million in revenue. The platform has garnered significant praise from its growing user base. 'Hyperliquid is more than just a perpetuals exchange; it's akin to AWS for finance,' said Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, a U.S.-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token HYPE. 'While the perps aspect is notable, Hyperliquid is essentially a layer-one blockchain infrastructure, providing liquidity and execution services, allowing builders to create on top of it,' Jung added. Similar to AWS, builders on Hyperliquid own their user base and have full control over the user interface, while Hyperliquid provides the underlying liquidity and execution. Integrators of builder codes can charge fees based on the notional size of their users' trades without needing to develop the backend or maintain liquidity. 'Builder codes enable integrators to focus on delivering a great user experience, while Hyperliquid handles the backend for liquidity and execution,' said Sterling Barnett, business development lead at Hyperliquid Labs. 'Integrators can offer their users best-in-class on-chain liquidity and institutional-grade infrastructure, earning fees on every trade.' For an application like MetaMask, which boasts over 100 million users worldwide, integrating with Hyperliquid's EVM module is a natural fit. Since October 2025, MetaMask has provided its users with self-custodial access to perps directly from the wallet. As a wallet, MetaMask has the advantage of streamlined fund transfers, allowing users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold. Hyperliquid handles order matching, oracle, and margin engine, while MetaMask focuses on the user experience. 'Matching orders is a challenging task, and Hyperliquid excels at it, so we don't attempt to rebuild it,' said Matthieu Saint Olive, Staff Product Manager at MetaMask. 'By routing orders directly to the Hyperliquid order book, MetaMask Perps offers exceptional liquidity and execution quality.' MetaMask is witnessing growth beyond the crypto space, with commodities and equities becoming increasingly popular, according to Saint Olive. 'Real-world asset markets have grown from a small fraction of perp volume at the start of 2026 to roughly a quarter of it today,' he said. In terms of fees, MetaMask charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, with no hidden spread or execution costs, allowing traders to verify exactly what they paid. 'We believe transparency is a key advantage and are exploring innovative pricing models to make our economics a reason users choose MetaMask, not a source of friction,' Saint Olive added. It's noteworthy that a large centralized exchange like VALR has chosen to utilize Hyperliquid's perps order book for its liquidity needs. Despite building its own infrastructure, including risk and liquidation engines, VALR's CEO and co-founder, Farzam Ehsani, found it challenging to achieve significant volume and liquidity for its perpetual futures. 'Our volume is genuine; we don't engage in wash trading or other deceptive practices,' Ehsani said. 'We recognized Hyperliquid's ability to bring together a vast amount of volume and market participants from around the world and decided to tap into that.' Looking ahead, as major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange enter the perps market, opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage will emerge, according to Jung. 'Imagine maintaining a position on Robinhood and the other side of the position on Hyperliquid,' Jung said. 'With non-toxic flow from retail users entering and exiting the market, you'll be able to see more organic mechanisms for funding rates.'