Hyperliquid Revolutionizes Crypto Perpetuals in DeFi's 'Money LEGO' Ecosystem

The concept that liquidity breeds liquidity is a fundamental principle in the world of finance. Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange, has become the go-to platform for traders seeking to engage with perpetual futures, also known as 'perps' – blockchain-based derivatives contracts that facilitate speculation on asset prices with leverage and no expiration date. Founded by Harvard alumni Jeff Yan and pseudonymous developer iliensinc, Hyperliquid has been live since the beginning of 2023 and is now capitalizing on the depth and volume of its order book by introducing a concept akin to composability from the DeFi space. This allows permissionless smart contracts to seamlessly integrate, much like LEGO blocks, forming the foundation of novel tokenized financial products. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-speed, proprietary HyperCore blockchain. This setup enables other applications to build upon the platform's shared liquidity, rather than fragmenting it. In essence, applications such as wallets or even other exchanges can utilize Hyperliquid as a backend, offering perps trading and other services without needing to develop their own infrastructure. As more developers integrate with Hyperliquid, the platform's liquidity deepens, the variety of assets expands, and network effects become more pronounced. Currently, hundreds of developers, including prominent names like MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and the South African exchange VALR, are utilizing Hyperliquid's system of 'builder codes.' These builders have generated approximately $90 million in revenue, according to Flowscan. The growing community of supporters cannot praise the platform enough. Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, the first U.S.-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token HYPE, likens Hyperliquid to 'AWS for finance,' emphasizing that it is more than just a perpetuals exchange – it is a layer-one blockchain infrastructure providing liquidity and execution. Similar to how AWS operates in the cloud infrastructure space, builders on Hyperliquid own their users 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 or maintain the backend or liquidity. Sterling Barnett, business development lead at Hyperliquid Labs, notes that 'builder codes allow integrators to focus on delivering a great user experience, while Hyperliquid serves as the backend for liquidity and execution.' For an application like MetaMask, which boasts over 100 million users worldwide, integrating with Hyperliquid's EVM module makes perfect sense. 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 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, explains that it makes sense to leverage Hyperliquid's expertise in matching orders, as 'matching orders is genuinely hard, and Hyperliquid is excellent at it.' By routing orders directly to the Hyperliquid order book, MetaMask Perps offers some of the best liquidity and execution quality available. MetaMask is seeing growth beyond crypto, with commodities and equities becoming increasingly popular, according to Saint Olive. The company charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, with no hidden spread or execution costs, ensuring transparency for traders. It is more surprising to find a large centralized exchange like VALR, ranked among the largest in Africa, handing over liquidity requirements to Hyperliquid's perps order book. However, taking the Hyperliquid route has proven to be a good option for VALR, which has close to two million retail customers and about 2,000 corporate institutional customers. After building all the necessary infrastructure in-house, including risk and liquidation engines, the team at VALR found it challenging to achieve sufficient volume and liquidity for their perpetual futures. Farzam Ehsani, CEO and co-founder of VALR, notes that despite the hard work, the perpetual futures on their own books did not take off as expected, primarily due to liquidity and volume concerns. 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. This could enable traders to maintain positions on multiple platforms, such as Robinhood and Hyperliquid, and capitalize on the differences in funding rates.