Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures that launched its own high-performance Layer-1 blockchain in 2023 and added a general-purpose EVM rollup, HyperEVM, in 2025. Founded by former high-frequency trader Jeff Yan, it was self-funded from prior trading profits and notably declined venture capital. In November 2024 the newly formed Hyper Foundation distributed the native HYPE token via a large airdrop to users. The protocol has grown to process very high daily perpetuals volume, becoming one of the dominant on-chain derivatives venues, at times capturing a record 7.6% of global perpetual-futures volume and generating more than $1.02 billion in cumulative revenue. Its HIP-3 upgrade opened permissionless builder-deployed markets, which reached about $62 billion in monthly volume by May 2026, and in May-June 2026 the protocol's USDH stablecoin was sold to Coinbase and sunset in favor of USDC.

Hyperliquid showed that an on-chain perps DEX on a purpose-built L1 can rival centralized exchanges on volume, all without VC funding, making it a defining case for decentralized derivatives.

hyperliquid.xyz Exchanges & Tradingprivate

At a glance

Total raised

Undisclosed

no public funding on record

Headcount

11-50

approximate · public range

Headquarters

—

Founded

2023

3 years active

Status

Private

Exchanges & Trading

Subsector

Exchanges & Trading

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Funding history

Total raised

Rounds tracked

No dated funding rounds on file. This company is privately held and may be raising or operating on undisclosed capital.

Founder backgrounds

Jeff Yan

Co-founder

Jeff Yan grew up in Palo Alto and represented the United States twice at the International Physics Olympiad, winning silver in 2012 and gold in 2013, before studying mathematics and computer science at Harvard, graduating in 2017. He worked as a quant trader at the high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading and briefly at Google, then founded the crypto market-making firm Chameleon Trading in 2019. In 2022 he co-founded Hyperliquid, bootstrapping it with Chameleon's profits and declining venture capital, and built it into one of the dominant on-chain perpetual-futures exchanges, running on its own purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain.

AI bull / bear

Bull case

Hyperliquid is the most financially real business in crypto that venture capital never touched. Founded by former high-frequency trader Jeff Yan and self-funded from trading profits, it runs a fully on-chain central-limit-order-book perps exchange on its own purpose-built L1 — and it is taking share from the giants, not from other DEXs: 7.6% of total exchange perpetuals volume by June 2026 (a record), with volume running at 14.4% of Binance's in May. Cumulative protocol revenue crossed $1.02B by June 30, 2026, and the tokenomics are brutally shareholder-friendly — the Assistance Fund routes roughly 97-99% of fees into open-market HYPE buybacks, making it one of the only crypto assets with a functioning capital-return program. The platform is compounding into an ecosystem: HyperEVM hosts third-party apps against the L1's native liquidity, HIP-3 lets builders deploy their own perp markets (over $62B of monthly volume by May 2026), and the 2026 USDC alignment deal routes stablecoin reserve yield back into buybacks. A team of a few dozen with no dilutive cap table, nine-figure annualized profits, and structural share gains against centralized incumbents — this is what product-market fit looks like when it isn't subsidized.

Hyperliquid

At a glance

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Funding history

Founder backgrounds

Jeff Yan

AI bull / bear

In the news

Leadership

Products

Hyperliquid Perps DEX

Hyperliquid L1 & HyperEVM

Open roles

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