Hyperliquid Revolutionizes Crypto Perpetuals with DeFi's Modular Approach

The concept that liquidity breeds liquidity is particularly relevant in the context of Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that has gained popularity among traders, especially those interested in perpetual futures or 'perps.' These blockchain-based derivatives contracts allow users to speculate on asset prices with leverage and no expiration date. Founded by Harvard classmates Jeff Yan and a pseudonymous developer known as iliensinc, Hyperliquid has been live since the beginning of 2023. The platform is capitalizing on the depth and volume of its order book by introducing the concept of composability, a key principle in decentralized finance (DeFi) that enables permissionless smart contracts to interlock like financial building blocks. Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible HyperEVM is directly connected to its high-speed, homegrown HyperCore blockchain. This allows other applications to build upon the platform's shared liquidity, rather than fragmenting it. As a result, applications such as wallets or 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 stronger the network effects. 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. A growing number of enthusiasts are praising the platform. 'Hyperliquid is more than just a perpetuals exchange; it's akin to the AWS for finance,' said Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, the first U.S.-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token HYPE. 'The perps aspect is impressive, but this is essentially a layer-one blockchain infrastructure. The service offered is liquidity, and having all these markets function smoothly, allowing anyone to build on top of them,' Jung explained in an interview. Similar to AWS for cloud infrastructure, builders 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 having to develop the backend or maintain liquidity. 'Builder codes enable integrators to focus on delivering a great user experience, while Hyperliquid serves as the backend for liquidity and execution,' said Sterling Barnett, business development lead at Hyperliquid Labs, via email. 'Integrators can offer their users top-notch on-chain liquidity and institutional-grade infrastructure, earning fees on every trade.' For an application like MetaMask, the Ethereum-based wallet with 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, allowing users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold, according to Matthieu Saint Olive, Staff Product Manager at MetaMask. It integrates with MetaMask's money account, social login, and follow trading, leaving Hyperliquid to handle matching, the oracle, and the margin engine, he said. 'Matching orders is genuinely challenging, and Hyperliquid excels at it, so we don't attempt to rebuild it,' said Saint Olive via email. 'By routing orders directly to the Hyperliquid order book, MetaMask Perps offers some of the best liquidity and execution quality available anywhere.' MetaMask is witnessing growth beyond crypto, venturing into areas like commodities and equities, according to Saint Olive. 'Real-world-asset markets have expanded from a small portion of perp volume at the start of 2026 to roughly a quarter of it today,' he said. In terms of fees, MetaMask charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, disclosed upfront, with no hidden spread and nothing buried in execution, allowing traders to verify exactly what they paid. 'We believe transparency is a significant advantage, and we're actively exploring more innovative pricing models, as we want the economics to be a reason people choose MetaMask, not a source of friction,' Saint Olive added. It's more surprising to find a large centralized exchange relying on Hyperliquid's perps order book for liquidity. However, taking the Hyperliquid route has proven beneficial for the South Africa-based exchange VALR, ranked among the largest exchanges in Africa with close to two million retail customers and about 2,000 corporate institutional customers, according to the exchange's CEO and co-founder, Farzam Ehsani. Initially, VALR offered customers spot market, spot margin, and then perpetuals, building all the infrastructure in-house, including risk and liquidation engines, Ehsani said. Despite the effort invested in launching perpetual futures, Ehsani candidly admitted that it was challenging to achieve sufficient volume and liquidity. 'Our volume is our volume; we are truthful and transparent and don't engage in wash trading or similar practices. We saw Hyperliquid bringing a huge amount of volume and market participants from all over the world together and thought, 'Why not plug into that?' ' Ehsani said in an interview. Looking ahead, when major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange fully engage in offering perps, 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. 'Then, because you have a lot of non-toxic flow, which is when more retail users are simply entering and exiting the market, you'll be able to see more organic mechanisms for funding rates.'