Hyperliquid Revolutionizes Crypto Perpetuals with DeFi's Modular Architecture

The concept that liquidity sparks more liquidity is being put to the test by Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that has become a top choice for traders seeking to engage with perpetual futures, also known as 'perps'. These blockchain-based derivatives contracts allow users to speculate on asset prices with leverage and no expiration date. Founded by Harvard alumni Jeff Yan and the pseudonymous developer iliensinc, Hyperliquid launched in early 2023 and has since harnessed its substantial order book volume and depth to introduce a novel concept: composability. This DeFi idea enables permissionless smart contracts to interlock seamlessly, much like financial LEGO blocks, giving rise to new tokenized products. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-performance, homegrown HyperCore blockchain. This setup allows other applications to build upon the platform's shared liquidity, rather than fragmenting it. As a result, wallets and even other exchanges can utilize Hyperliquid as a backend, offering perps trading and other services without having to develop their own infrastructure. The more builders integrate with Hyperliquid, the deeper the liquidity, the broader the range of assets, and the more pronounced the network effects become. Currently, hundreds of developers, including prominent names like MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and the South African exchange VALR, are utilizing Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', generating approximately $90 million in revenue, according to Flowscan. Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, praises Hyperliquid, saying, 'It's not just a perpetuals exchange; it's more like the AWS for finance.' Jung views Hyperliquid as a layer-one blockchain infrastructure that provides liquidity and execution, allowing builders to focus on delivering exceptional user experiences. Similar to AWS, builders using Hyperliquid own their users and have full control over the user interface, while the platform handles the underlying liquidity and execution. Integrators can charge fees on the notional size of their users' trades without having to develop or maintain the backend. For a wallet like MetaMask, integrating with Hyperliquid's EVM module makes perfect sense. Since October 2025, MetaMask has provided its over 100 million users worldwide with self-custodial access to perps directly from the wallet. Being a wallet offers the advantage of streamlined fund transfers, allowing users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold. MetaMask's money account, social login, and follow trading features are all integrated with Hyperliquid, which handles matching, the oracle, and the margin engine. 'Matching orders is genuinely challenging, and Hyperliquid excels at it,' said Matthieu Saint Olive, Staff Product Manager at MetaMask. 'By routing orders straight to the Hyperliquid order book, MetaMask Perps offers some of the best liquidity and execution quality available anywhere.' MetaMask is witnessing growth beyond crypto, with commodities and equities becoming increasingly popular. '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,' Saint Olive noted. In terms of fees, MetaMask charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, with no hidden spread and complete transparency. 'We believe that transparency is a significant advantage and are exploring more innovative pricing models to make our economics a reason people choose MetaMask, not a source of friction,' Saint Olive added. It's surprising to see a large centralized exchange like VALR handing over liquidity requirements to Hyperliquid's perps order book. However, taking the Hyperliquid route has proven beneficial for the South Africa-based exchange, which has close to two million retail customers and about 2,000 corporate institutional customers. According to CEO and co-founder Farzam Ehsani, VALR initially built all the infrastructure in-house, including risk and liquidation engines, but struggled to gain volume and liquidity for their perpetual futures. 'We saw Hyperliquid bringing a huge amount of volume and market participants from all over the world together and thought, 'Why don't we plug into that?' Ehsani said. Looking ahead, when major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange enter the perps market, there will be opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage, according to Jung. 'If you maintain one position on Robinhood, for example, and the other side of the position on Hyperliquid, you'll be able to see more organic mechanisms for funding rates due to the non-toxic flow from retail users entering and exiting the market,' Jung explained.