No Venture Capital, No Private Sale, No Insiders: So Why Is Wall Street Falling Over Itself To Package HYPE Into An ETF?

Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange built on its own custom Layer 1 blockchain, purpose-built for perpetual futures trading at the speed and feel of a centralized exchange, without the centralized exchange.

Perpetual futures are contracts that let traders speculate on the price of an asset, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), gold, oil, or dozens of others using leverage, with no expiration date.

They are the most actively traded product in crypto. Until recently, the vast majority of that activity happened on centralized platforms like Binance and Bybit. Hyperliquid changed that.

The platform runs a fully on-chain central limit order book, meaning every trade, every order, and every position is recorded transparently on its blockchain in real time. It processes over 100,000 orders per second with sub-second finality, according to Bitcoin.com's technical analysis of the protocol.

There are no gas fees on trades. Users never give up custody of their funds. According to data from Artemis cited by BingX, Hyperliquid commands over 70% of the entire decentralised perpetuals market by open interest as of early 2026.

It is not just crypto perpetuals anymore either. In February 2026, the platform recorded over $20 billion in synthetic real-world asset perpetuals volume in a single 10-day period, covering gold, silver, and crude oil, according to BingX research. In March 2026, BitMEX Research data showed Hyperliquid captured 29.7% of the broader traditional finance perpetual swaps market in Q1 2026.