Hyperliquid Revolutionizes DeFi with Composable Liquidity

The adage 'liquidity begets liquidity' holds true, and Hyperliquid has emerged as a premier decentralized exchange for traders, particularly those drawn to perpetual futures or 'perps'. Founded by Harvard alumni Jeff Yan and the pseudonymous developer iliensinc, Hyperliquid has been live since early 2023, capitalizing on the depth and volume of its order book to offer firms a unique value proposition: composability. This concept, borrowed from decentralized finance (DeFi), allows permissionless smart contracts to interlock seamlessly, much like LEGO blocks, giving rise to innovative tokenized financial products. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-performance, homegrown HyperCore blockchain, allowing other applications to build upon the platform's shared liquidity without fragmenting it. This means that wallets, exchanges, and other applications can leverage Hyperliquid as a backend, offering perps trading and other services to their users. As more developers integrate with Hyperliquid, the platform's liquidity deepens, asset variety expands, and network effects intensify. With hundreds of developers, including prominent names like MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and VALR, utilizing Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', the platform has generated approximately $90 million in revenue, according to Flowscan. The platform's growing user base is enthusiastic about its capabilities. 'Hyperliquid is more than just a perpetuals exchange; it's akin to AWS for finance,' said Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, the first U.S.-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token, HYPE. 'While the perps aspect is impressive, Hyperliquid is essentially a layer-one blockchain infrastructure providing liquidity and execution services. Builders can focus on delivering exceptional user experiences while Hyperliquid handles the underlying complexities,' Jung explained. Similar to AWS, builders maintain control over their user interfaces and own their users, while Hyperliquid provides the necessary liquidity and execution. Integrators using builder codes can charge fees based on the notional size of their users' trades without developing or maintaining backend infrastructure. 'Builder codes enable integrators to focus on their core strengths, delivering outstanding user experiences, while Hyperliquid serves as the backbone for liquidity and execution,' said Sterling Barnett, business development lead at Hyperliquid Labs. For applications like MetaMask, which boasts over 100 million users worldwide, integrating with Hyperliquid's EVM module is a natural fit. Since October 2025, MetaMask has offered users self-custodial access to perps directly from the wallet. As a wallet, MetaMask enjoys the advantage of streamlined fund transfers, allowing users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold. Hyperliquid handles matching, oracle, and margin engine tasks, freeing MetaMask to focus on its core competencies. '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 gaining traction. '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 spreads or execution costs, ensuring transparency and verifiability for traders. 'We believe transparency is a key advantage and are exploring innovative pricing models to make our economics a compelling reason for users to choose MetaMask,' Saint Olive added. It's notable that a large centralized exchange like VALR has opted to utilize Hyperliquid's perps order book for its liquidity requirements. Despite initially building its own infrastructure, including risk and liquidation engines, VALR's CEO and co-founder, Farzam Ehsani, acknowledged that perpetual futures struggled to gain traction due to liquidity and volume concerns. 'Our volume is genuine; we don't engage in wash trading or other manipulative practices. When we saw Hyperliquid aggregating a substantial amount of volume and market participants from around the world, we decided to tap into that,' Ehsani said. Looking ahead, as major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange expand their perps offerings, opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage will emerge, according to Jung of Hyperion. 'Imagine maintaining a position on Robinhood and the opposing side on Hyperliquid. With a significant amount of non-toxic flow from retail users entering and exiting the market, you'll be able to observe more organic mechanisms for funding rates,' Jung explained.