Hyperliquid has quickly become one of the most popular decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. The seamless interface coupled with the offering of familiar trading features and the underlying benefits of decentralization have made it a preferred choice for many traders.
In the following Hyperliquid Review, we take a look at what makes Hyperliquid different compared to existing solutions, its structure, tokenomics, and more.
Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that, unlike most of its competitors, runs on its own blockchain. The platform offers crypto-based perpetual futures contracts that can be traded without owning the underlying assets, similar to how centralized exchanges (CEXs) work.
One of Hyperliquid’s main appeals is its high-speed, simple yet feature-rich platform for high-level trading while offering low latency, reliability, and a smoother user experience. That said, Hyperliquid finds a good balance between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) elements.
The platform supports a lot of different cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, AVAX, SOL, SUI, you name it. It supports so many cryptocurrencies that even data aggregators have dedicated pages to keep track of its ecosystem (which spans a market capitalization of around $8 billion, mostly due to the HYPE token).
Main Takeaways:
The following is a brief summary. Check out a full breakdown on the Hyperliquid bridge.
Bridging to Hyperliquid is particularly easy, and there are two routes you can take: using a centralized exchange or using a bridging solution.
In both cases, you will 100% need to use a self-custody wallet such as MetaMask, for example. If you haven’t got it – go ahead and create one.
First things first, you have to bridge a stablecoin, and the only one supported by Hyperliquid is USDC. Therefore, if you want to use a CEX, you have to pick one that also supports it. Fortunately, most of them do. The only other consideration is that the exchange of choice should support Arbitrum for withdrawals because that’s the only network that can bridge to Hyperliquid at the time of this writing. Again – a lot of the popular centralized exchanges offer support for Arbitrum.
Next, all you need to do is withdraw the USDC to your Arbitrum wallet (MetaMask offers support for the network).
From there, you can go ahead and connect your wallet to the Hyperliquid platform and you’re good to go.
If you already have funds on MetaMask (or any Web3 wallet), you might not want to go through a centralized exchange.
Fortunately, there’s a solution for that too.
Let’s assume that you have funds (USDC) on Ethereum and you want to trade on Hyperliquid. You can check which networks are currently connected on your wallet from the top left drop-down menu. If Arbitrum isn’t there, check out this official guide by ConsenSys on how to add it – it’s very easy.
Now, click on “Bridge,” which is found at the center of your wallet toward the top part of it. This should lead you to a page that looks kind of like this:
At this point, all you need to do is input the original network (in this case, Ethereum) and the destination (Arbitrum), select the token (USDC), and hit confirm – the button is found right below. Once your funds arrive at your Arbitrum wallet (it will be the exact same wallet address, just on Arbitrum), you can connect to Hyperliquid (as shown above) and start using the platform.
The rise in Hyperliquid’s total value locked and ecosystem growth is more than just hype. It could be attributed to the protocol’s team constantly developing and deploying new features, rolling out new, exotic trading instruments that not many other DEXs cared about at the time.
One of the most interesting features of Hyperliquid is the ability to capitalize on forming narratives and events. For instance, you can trade index or pre-launch tokens, most popularly, memecoins. Hyperliquid is actually one of the first perp DEXs to allow memecoin trading on its platform.
It is also the first DEX to introduce scale orders, a popular type of order in traditional markets. It allows users to split a large order into smaller ones. It’s a conglomerate of limit orders that incrementally increase or decrease in price depending on whether it’s a buy or sell action.
Besides scale orders, Hyperliquid offers most things you would see on a CEX; that is market and limit orders, take profits, stop loss, cross-margin, and leverage up to 50x (depending on the asset). It also has Hyperps, which are Hyperliquid-only perpetuals that work similarly to regular perps, the difference being that they don’t require a spot or index oracle price data.
Yes, most of those features are already found in many of today’s decentralized trading platforms. Hyperliquid’s appeal lies in its technical aspects. Let’s review them below.
We have one of the best guides on how to trade on Hyperliquid, if you want to dive in deeper and uncover all of its bells and whistles. However, the following is an executive summary, of sorts.
Once you have your funds bridged and account set up, you are ready to start trading on Hyperliquid. If you have any sort of experience with futures or crypto margin trading exchanges, then the interface will be very familiar, but even if you don’t, you need not worry because it’s very straightforward. This, in fact, is one of the benefits of Hyperliquid – it wraps its decentralized capabilities in a familiar trading interface, making it very easy for users to start using it right away. The learning curve is super straightforward.
In case you’ve missed it, this is what the interface looks like:
For your convenience, we have pointed out everything there is, so let’s break down the numbers you see on the picture.
Number 1: this is where you switch between different cryptocurrencies and also where you switch between different trading modes such as spot and leverage. Once you click on the downward arrow to see the list of supported coins, you will also see right there that you can switch between “Perps” and “Spot.” Perps stands for perpetual futures contracts – just like the ones you are used to trading on centralized exchange and they offer leveraged trading. NOTE: When you deposit funds, they will appear in your perps account, so if you want to switch to spot, you have to transfer them. Also, if you want to withdraw, the funds have to be in your perps account.
Number 2: This is your trading chart.
Number 3: This is where you select the type of order that you want to use. You can choose between market, limit, and more profesionally-oriented solutions like TWAP and Scale orders.
Number 4: This is where you will be able to monitor your open positions and also close them. Here, you can follow your PNL, your entry price, current price, realized and unrealized profits and so forth.
Number 5: This is the orderbook.
Number 6: This is where you track the general information about your overall account.
One of Hyperliquid’s strong sides is the support of multiple cryptocurrencies for leverage trading, as well as the fact that the team is doing its best to add newly-minted coins as quickly as possible to allow its users to capitalize on potentially emerging trends.
That said, the decentralized exchange also supports all the major coins. Here is a list of some of the available options.
Note that all cryptocurrencies on Hyperliquid are trading against USDC.
UPDATE 24/04/2025: Hyperliquid has also added HYPER, ZORA,WCT, BABY, PROMPT, PAXG for trading with 3x leverage.
The list for spot trading is shorter and that’s because Hyperliquid is mostly geared towards perpetual trading.
As an interesting fact here – Pump.fun was one of the most heavily-anticipated token launches of the year on Solana. Hyperliquid was the first exchange to create market for prelaunched tokens, generating billions of volume and liquidity leading up to the TGE.
As mentioned, the team runs its own blockchain of the same name. It’s composed of the HyperEVM and HyperBFT. These two protocols allow Hyperliquid to provide Ethereum-compatible smart contracts and the speed and reliability of a custom layer-1 (L1), which makes it suitable for high-speed trading and building DeFi projects.
HyperEVM is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) integrated directly into Hyperliquid’s L1. It operates within the same consensus layer, HyperBFT, unlike standalone EVM implementations. It was launched on February 18th, 2025.
HyperEVM has three key characteristics:
In addition to that, in late March 2025, the team also upgraded the blockchain to feature fully on-chain validator voting for asset delisting. When a quorum of stake has voted for a delisting, the action automatically triggers onchain. This is a permissionless stake-based vote mechanism, which is built natively into HyperCore and requires no offchain coordination.
HyperBFT is Hyperliquid’s custom consensus algorithm, inspired by the Hotstuff protocol. It is designed to meet the demands of high-frequency trading while maintaining security and consistency across the ecosystem.
HyperBFT is characterized by three main features.
All in all, what makes traders and developers flock to Hyperliquid is the unified ecosystem made for advanced financial applications and more innovative trading options. Developers can leverage Ethereum-compatible smart contracts while benefiting from low latency, high throughput, and deep on-chain liquidity, making Hyperliquid more than just a DEX; it instead comes off as a high-performance platform for creating advanced trading tools and decentralized applications, all within a single environment.
The aforementioned deep on-chain liquidity is enabled through a concept that the team refers to as “vaults.”
How do these vaults work?
This approach was quite different from most protocols, as these features are usually reserved for the exchange operators or privileged market makers. But the risk with these vaults is no different from other vaults; if traders become more profitable or the market-making strategy goes south, the yield is lower.
Hyperliquid’s native cryptocurrency, HYPE, powers the platform’s ecosystem as it’s used for decentralized governance, economic incentives, and fee payments. By holding HYPE coins, users can participate in the decision-making processes to influence updates and changes through governance mechanisms.
Moreover, HYPE can be staked to earn rewards while also contributing to the network’s security. For traders, the token offers practical benefits like reduced trading fees when used for transactions on the platform.
Hyperliquid’s allocation schedule was simple and heavily focused on its community to incentivize long-term growth:
On November 29, 2024, Hyperliquid conducted a significant airdrop of its native token, HYPE, to nearly 100K eligible users. Many in the industry believe that it managed to set the standard for future airdrops. It was a generous distribution of value. The average allocation was worth around $45K – $50K, making it one of the most lucrative airdrops in history.
Moving on, Hyperliquid didn’t follow the typical airdrops schedule wherein huge amounts of tokens were allocated to venture capitalists (VCs). Instead, they focused on its community, with 76.2% of the token supply earmarked for user-centric initiatives, while team members were vested for at least one year after the token generation event (which took place November 29, 2024). All of this is because Hyperliquid has no private investors.
Needless to say, this reinforced trust and set a new standard for community-focused token distributions. And even though tokens usually dump after users have received their beloved bags, it wasn’t the case with HYPE. It actually surged from $4 to $35 in the weeks ahead instead, and its TVL grew exponentially.
All in all, Hyperliquid prioritized quality over quantity, as only 94,000 users were eligible for the airdrop, while most projects usually targeted between 500K to over 1M users. Even with one million users, the average allocation would be around $5K, which would still be higher than the market standard.
While this major airdrop has concluded, the platform’s focus on rewarding its community suggests future opportunities are likely. To position yourself for potential future distributions, it’s crucial to actively use the platform. For a step-by-step strategy, see our complete guide on how to farm airdrops on Hyperliquid.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Hyperliquid, like all DeFi platforms, carries a non-zero chance of failure. That said, toward the end of 2024, there was significant controversy revolving around the protocol. It all started when security expert Taylor (Tay) Monahan raised alarms about wallet activity linked to North Korean hackers on the Hyperliquid platform, alleging that addresses associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) were trading ETH on Hyperliquid. Well, not trading, more like testing the platform’s vulnerabilities – according to the expert.
To say the allegations triggered a substantial sell-off is an understatement. Over $256 million in funds were withdrawn from the platform within 30 hours, while the HYPE token price plummeted by approximately 25%. By December 23, net outflows exceeded $502 million.
Hyperliquid Labs denied any form of security breach, saying:
“There has been no DPRK exploit—or any exploit for that matter—of Hyperliquid. All user funds are accounted for.”
They stated how committed they are to security, citing its bug bounty program and adherence to industry standards in blockchain analytics.
As of the time of writing this guide, there have been no reported incidents with the protocol. Funnily enough, the wallets associated with North Korean hackers were liquidated on-chain for half a million dollars.
Let’s round up what makes Hyperliquid stand out from its competitors in such a heated market.
High slippage often concerns traders on decentralized platforms due to the reliance on automated market makers (AMMs). This is why Hyperliquid takes elements from traditional platforms and employs a decentralized orderbook model, leading to efficient price matching, transparency, and significantly reduced slippage —even in volatile markets.
Hyperliquid allows users to perform cross-chain transfers across its entire ecosystem, meaning you can transfer cryptocurrencies from multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, and BNB Chain.
There are several bridges to choose from:
Hyperliquid was co-founded by Jeff Yan, who began his career in Hudson River Trading and then moved on to create Chameleon Trading, a market-making firm. Yan is usually very active on social media and has attended several conferences and interviews in popular cryptocurrency podcasts.
However most of its team members (like in most DeFi projects) remain either anonymous or use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. For instance, Hyperliquid was also co-founded by Iliensinc, while Xulian HL (@KingJulianIAm on X) is mentioned as a core contributor.
Yan and his team have stated that most of Hyperliquid contributors come from MIT, Harvard, Hudson River Trading.
While innovative, Hyperliquid has some fierce competition. Below are some of the best decentralized exchanges that are dominating the derivatives market.
GMX is one of the oldest and largest DEXs, focusing on providing spot and perpetual futures trading for a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Like Hyperliquid, users can trade BTC, ETH, SOL, and more using 50x leverage.
GMX has different fees depending on the type of order. Open and closing positions incur a 0.1% fee, while swaps range from 0.2% to 0.8% —depending on pool balance impact. GMX V2 reduces fees to 0.05% to 0.07% for positions and standard token swaps, while stablecoin swaps cost between 0.005% and 0.02%.
dYdX is the leading DEX specializing in perps contracts and margin trading, having recorded over $1 trillion in total trading volume by December 2023.
Despite its success, dYdX is more conservative on its approach, offering a maximum of 20x leverage on selected cryptocurrencies. Its low fees (0.02% and 0.05%, respectively), advanced trading features yet simple UI are the protocol’s main appeal.
It was built on the Ethereum blockchain before transitioning into its own chain, the dYdX Chain.
Jupiter Perps was launched in 2022 as a DEX and liquidity aggregator on the Solana blockchain. It’s not only fast, but also extremely generous with risk-on traders, allowing them to trade futures contracts with up to 100x leverage.
The platform supports WBTC, USDT, USDC, SOL, ETH, and more, allowing liquidity providers to lock assets in its vault for returns, with APYs that can go from 50% to over 70%.
Hyperliquid is a popular DEX operating on its own blockchain of the same name. It offers perpetual futures trading similar to traditional futures contracts.
The protocol combines elements of CeFi and DeFi to provide users with a high-performance, low slippage, and a user-friendly platform. It also supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies and innovative features such as scale orders, Hyperps, copy trading vaults, and tools for DeFi developers.
Hyperliquid stands out by integrating its own blockchain with Ethereum-compatible smart contracts, providing high transaction speeds and deep liquidity while allowing developers to build their own financial apps within the ecosystem.
It also introduces advanced trading features like scale orders, pre-launch token trading, and decentralized order books, reducing slippage and enhancing price efficiency. Its ecosystem includes unique tools like the Hyperp perpetuals and democratized market-making strategies through liquidity vaults.
While Hyperliquid’s main focus is providing one of the best DEXs in the market, recent security concerns have been raised after DPRK hackers started testing its trading platform. Moreover, its reliance on a small number of validators and quorum-based transaction approval generated fear.
Despite this, the platform has not suffered any hack or experienced any exploits or attacks.
Hyperliquid has carved out its own niche within the perpetuals trading ecosystem, daring to take more risks where others would remain conservative.
The most attractive features of this protocol are the light and user-friendly UI and the wide range of options available to trade while adding their unique touches to them with features such as Scale Orders, Hyperps, and their own copy trading system.
