Hyperliquid Revolutionizes DeFi with Composable Perpetual Futures

The concept of liquidity begetting liquidity is being taken to the next level by Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that has become the go-to platform for traders of perpetual futures, also known as 'perps'. Launched in 2023 by Harvard classmates Jeff Yan and iliensinc, Hyperliquid has harnessed the power of its robust order book to provide firms with a unique opportunity for composability, a concept from DeFi that allows permissionless smart contracts to interlock like building blocks, creating new tokenized financial products. The platform's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM connects directly to its high-performance HyperCore blockchain, allowing other applications to tap into its shared liquidity pool, rather than fragmenting it. This enables applications like wallets and exchanges to utilize Hyperliquid as a backend, offering perps trading and other services. As more developers integrate with Hyperliquid, the platform's liquidity deepens, asset variety expands, and network effects multiply. With hundreds of developers, including big names like MetaMask and VALR, using Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', the platform has generated $90 million in revenue, according to Flowscan. Hyperliquid's innovative approach has drawn praise from its users, with Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, describing it as 'the AWS for finance'. 'Hyperliquid is not just a perpetuals exchange; it's a layer-one blockchain infrastructure that provides liquidity and execution, allowing builders to focus on delivering a great user experience,' Jung said. Similar to AWS, Hyperliquid provides the underlying infrastructure, while builders own their users and control the user interface. Builder code integrators can charge fees on the notional size of their users' trades without developing the backend or maintaining liquidity. For apps like MetaMask, integrating with Hyperliquid's EVM module makes perfect sense. MetaMask has given its users self-custodial access to perps directly from the wallet since October 2025. As a wallet, MetaMask has 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 up MetaMask to focus on the user experience. 'Hyperliquid excels at matching orders, so we don't try to rebuild 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 seeing growth beyond crypto, with real-world-asset markets now accounting for roughly a quarter of perp volume. The company charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, with no hidden spread or execution costs. Even large centralized exchanges like VALR are turning to Hyperliquid for liquidity. Despite building their own infrastructure, including risk and liquidation engines, VALR struggled to gain traction with perpetual futures due to liquidity and volume issues. 'Hyperliquid brought a huge amount of volume and market participants from all over the world together, so we thought, 'Why not plug into that?' said Farzam Ehsani, CEO and co-founder of VALR. As the likes of Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange enter the perps market, opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage will arise, according to Jung. 'With non-toxic flow from retail users, you'll be able to see more organic mechanisms for funding rates,' Jung said.