Hyperliquid Revolutionizes DeFi with Composable Liquidity

The concept that liquidity attracts liquidity is being taken to new heights by Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that has become a top choice for traders seeking to engage with perpetual futures or 'perps'. Founded by Harvard classmates Jeff Yan and the pseudonymous developer iliensinc, Hyperliquid has been live since the start of 2023 and is capitalizing on the depth and volume of its order book by introducing a concept akin to composability. This DeFi concept allows permissionless smart contracts to seamlessly integrate, much like modular building blocks, giving rise to innovative tokenized financial products. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-performance HyperCore blockchain, allowing other applications to build upon the platform's shared liquidity without fragmenting it. This means that applications, including wallets and other exchanges, can utilize Hyperliquid as a backend to offer perps trading and other services, effectively creating a more unified and robust ecosystem. 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 such as MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and the South African exchange VALR, are leveraging Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', generating approximately $90 million in revenue to date. The platform has garnered significant praise from its growing user base. 'Hyperliquid is more than just a perpetuals exchange; it's akin to the AWS of finance,' said Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, the first US-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token, HYPE. 'While the perps aspect is notable, Hyperliquid is essentially a layer-one blockchain infrastructure. The core service offered is liquidity, and the ability for anyone to build upon it,' Jung explained in an interview. Similar to AWS in the cloud infrastructure space, builders on Hyperliquid maintain full control over their user interface and own their users, while the platform 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 or maintain the backend infrastructure or liquidity. 'Builder codes enable integrators to focus on delivering exceptional user experiences, while Hyperliquid handles the backend for liquidity and execution,' said Sterling Barnett, Business Development Lead at Hyperliquid Labs. 'This allows integrators to offer their users top-tier on-chain liquidity and institutional-grade infrastructure, while 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 not requiring a separate decentralized app (dApp) connection, and fund transfers are streamlined, enabling users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold. Matthieu Saint Olive, Staff Product Manager at MetaMask, noted that this integration allows MetaMask to focus on its core strengths while leaving the matching, oracle, and margin engine to Hyperliquid. 'Matching orders is a challenging task, and Hyperliquid excels at it, so we don't attempt to rebuild it,' said Saint Olive. 'By routing orders directly to the Hyperliquid order book, MetaMask Perps offers some of the best liquidity and execution quality available in the market.' According to Saint Olive, MetaMask is witnessing growth beyond the crypto space, with commodities and equities becoming increasingly prominent. '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 stated. In terms of fees, MetaMask charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, which is transparent and disclosed upfront, with no hidden spread or execution costs. 'We believe that transparency is a significant advantage, and we're actively exploring innovative pricing models to ensure that our economics are a reason for users to choose MetaMask, not a source of friction,' Saint Olive added. It's notable that a large centralized exchange like VALR has opted to leverage 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, candidly admitted that it was challenging to achieve significant volume and liquidity for perpetual futures. 'Our volume is our volume; we are truthful and transparent and don't engage in wash trading or similar practices,' Ehsani said. 'We recognized that Hyperliquid was bringing together a substantial amount of volume and market participants from around the world, and we thought, 'Why not plug into that?'' Looking ahead, as major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange enter the perps market, there will be opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage, according to Jung of Hyperion. 'Imagine maintaining one position on Robinhood, for example, and the other side of the position on Hyperliquid,' Jung said. 'With a significant amount of non-toxic flow, which occurs when retail users are simply entering and exiting the market, you'll be able to see more organic mechanisms for funding rates.'