Article by Vicky Ge Huang, The Wall Street Journal
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
On a Saturday in February, when Vala Zeinali, a hedge fund commodities trader, saw his phone light up with news of President Trump announcing airstrikes on Iran, he immediately opened the Hyperliquid website.
As a decentralized crypto trading platform, Hyperliquid operates 24/7, 365 days a year. Since the beginning of this year, it has become the preferred destination for Wall Street day traders. During weekend market closures in the U.S., investors can open or close positions in advance to lock in profits before the U.S. markets reopen.
In early 2026, anticipating a potential geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, Zeinali invested a four-figure sum in crude oil derivatives. After the airstrike news was confirmed and crude prices surged, he closed his position on Hyperliquid, earning a substantial 243% return.
“At the time, I was especially relieved because, typically, oil price increases driven by such geopolitical利好 tend to decline before the U.S. stock market opens on Monday,” Zeinali said. “Fortunately, I was able to exit in time and secured most of my positions.”
An increasing number of traditional finance and crypto traders are entering this platform, trading a wide range of assets including Bitcoin, the S&P 500, crude oil, and high-profile private companies like SpaceX. Most traders focus on perpetual contracts—derivatives with no expiration date, available for trading 24/7, and capable of amplifying profits and losses through high leverage.
At an event, Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan stated that the platform’s ultimate goal is to support all financial services.
Hyperliquid was founded three years ago by Jeff Yan, a quantitative trader from the high-frequency trading firm Hudson River Trading. The collapse of FTX inspired him to create a high-performance trading system for the crypto market where users maintain full custody of their assets.
"Self-custody is not just an abstract academic concept—it's a user necessity," said Jeff Yan in an interview. "After the FTX incident, more users should have recognized this—the core principle is having control over your own assets."
The company behind Hyperliquid has only 11 employees. According to Blockworks Research, the platform and its accompanying blockchain generated combined revenues of approximately $800 million last year; the blockchain’s native token, HYPE, has risen over 100% since its launch at the end of 2024 and currently has a market capitalization of about $16 billion.
Hyperliquid's rapid rise reflects the accelerating convergence of traditional finance and the crypto market. Perpetual contracts tied to U.S. stocks and commodities have firmly captured the attention of Wall Street capital.
Recently, Eric Vishria, general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, shared a photo on X showing a banker monitoring the perpetual futures price tied to AI chipmaker Cerebras. Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices licensed Trade [XYZ] to launch a S&P 500 perpetual contract on Hyperliquid, one of the platform’s most popular contracts.
Large amounts of capital are betting on the IPO momentum of private companies; according to Hyperdash data, the perpetual contracts for SpaceX have accumulated a trading volume of $280 million on Hyperliquid.
U.S.-based users are still unable to use the platform in compliance with regulations, but the situation may soon change. Last Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) introduced a new regulatory framework permitting licensed domestic platforms to offer perpetual contracts; it also approved Kalshi’s launch of a Bitcoin perpetual product, enabling Coinbase U.S. users to access its global perpetual contract offerings through an affiliated entity.
Perpetual contracts inherently carry high leverage and high risk, magnifying profits and losses exponentially. For example, on October 10 last year, when Trump unexpectedly announced a 100% tariff on Chinese goods, the market crashed sharply, resulting in over $19 billion in liquidations across the entire market, with Hyperliquid alone accounting for $10 billion.
Jeff Yan stated that the industry's actual losses are far higher than $19 billion; Hyperliquid is listed separately because its liquidation data is fully transparent and its system operated normally throughout extreme market conditions, while multiple competing platforms experienced outages and were unable to function properly during the same period.
Benjamin Schiffrin, Head of Securities Policy at the financial regulatory group Better Markets, issued a warning: "Perpetual contracts are structurally complex—even seasoned financial professionals struggle to fully understand them. The current risk disclosures aimed at retail investors are severely inadequate, creating significant hidden dangers."
Even with restrictions, traders from the U.S. and restricted regions still access trading via VPNs. The key attraction for them is that the platform requires no identity verification, sharply contrasting with the stringent KYC procedures of traditional brokers. However, the platform’s user agreement explicitly prohibits U.S. users from participating and forbids circumventing restrictions using VPNs.
A simple and user-friendly interface, a wide variety of trading options, and a vibrant community atmosphere are key advantages that help the platform retain users.
Swiss Geneva trader Pascal Lin joined at the end of 2023 and quickly became a power user. What impressed him most was that users could provide product feedback directly to founder Jeff Yan and the team on Discord.
“Feels incredibly immersive, as if I’m building the product myself,” says Pascal, who also manages the proprietary trading desk at ARES Capital Management, primarily trading HYPE and crude oil perpetual contracts. Previously, he accurately capitalized on the crude oil bull market, as prices surged from $67 per barrel to nearly $100 per barrel.
He became obsessed with Hyperliquid, even setting up real-time price alerts on his Apple Watch, and openly admitted he doesn’t recommend ordinary traders to follow suit. “I wake up anytime during the night, open the app, and instantly check the HYPE price with one tap.”
He’s not the only enthusiastic user. The platform’s unique community culture is at the heart of its traffic. On X, users consistently end their posts with “Hyperliquid,” regardless of the topic, and many adopt the green-jacketed smiling cat, Hypurr, as their profile picture. Beyond meme culture, third-party developers continuously build complementary tools such as market dashboards and data analytics platforms.
Hyperdash co-founder Lawrence Wu said: “I think it has such a large community because it tries to realize the original vision of cryptocurrency—an elite-driven, permissionless system. It’s very idealistic.”
Jeff Yan stated that Hyperliquid’s ultimate goal is to integrate all financial resources. Hyperliquid’s next step is to enter the prediction markets and options trading sectors; its first contracts tracking Bitcoin prices, launched in early May, have already generated millions in trading volume.