Hyperliquid Revolutionizes DeFi with Composable Perpetual Futures

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'. Founded by Harvard alumni Jeff Yan and the pseudonymous developer iliensinc, Hyperliquid has been live since early 2023 and is now capitalizing on the depth and volume of its order book. It offers firms the ability to compose with its shared liquidity, much like the concept of composability in DeFi, where permissionless smart contracts can be combined like LEGO blocks to create new financial products. The HyperEVM, which is compatible with Ethereum, directly connects to Hyperliquid's high-performance HyperCore blockchain, allowing other applications to utilize the platform's shared liquidity without fragmenting it. This means that applications such as wallets or even other exchanges can integrate with Hyperliquid, using it as a backend to offer perps trading and other services. As more developers integrate with Hyperliquid, the platform's liquidity deepens, the range of assets expands, and network effects intensify. Currently, hundreds of developers, including prominent names like MetaMask, Phantom wallet, and the South African exchange VALR, are utilizing Hyperliquid's 'builder codes', generating approximately $90 million in revenue. The platform has garnered significant praise from its growing user base. 'Hyperliquid is more than just a perpetuals exchange; it's akin to AWS for finance,' said Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, a U.S.-listed treasury company focused on Hyperliquid's native token HYPE. 'While the perps aspect is notable, Hyperliquid is essentially a layer-one blockchain infrastructure providing liquidity and execution services. Builders own their users and have full control over the user interface, while Hyperliquid handles the underlying liquidity and execution,' Jung explained. Similar to AWS, Hyperliquid allows builders to focus on delivering a seamless user experience while providing the necessary backend infrastructure for liquidity and execution. Builder code integrators can charge fees based on the notional size of their users' trades without having to develop or maintain the backend or liquidity. 'Builder codes enable integrators to concentrate on what they do best – providing a great user experience – while Hyperliquid serves as the backend 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 logical step. 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 dApp connection, and fund transfers are streamlined, allowing users to trade directly with the tokens they already hold. Hyperliquid handles matching, oracles, and margin engines, freeing up MetaMask to focus on its core functionality. '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 some of the best liquidity and execution quality available.' According to Saint Olive, 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,' he noted. In terms of fees, MetaMask charges a flat 0.1% builder fee, with no hidden spread or execution costs, allowing traders to verify exactly what they paid. 'We believe transparency is a significant advantage and are exploring innovative pricing models to make our economics a reason people choose MetaMask, not a source of friction,' Saint Olive added. It's notable that a large centralized exchange like VALR has chosen to leverage Hyperliquid's perps order book for its liquidity requirements. Despite having built its own infrastructure, including risk and liquidation engines, VALR found it challenging to achieve sufficient volume and liquidity for its perpetual futures. 'Our volume is our volume; we are truthful and transparent and don't engage in wash trading or similar practices,' said Farzam Ehsani, CEO and co-founder of VALR. 'We saw Hyperliquid bringing together a huge amount of volume and market participants from around the world and thought, 'Why not plug into that?'' Looking ahead, as major players like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Intercontinental Exchange enter the perps market, opportunities for cross-venue arbitrage will emerge, according to Jung. 'For instance, if you maintain one position on Robinhood and the other side of the position on Hyperliquid, you'll be able to capitalize on non-toxic flow, allowing for more organic mechanisms for funding rates,' Jung explained.