Hyperliquid: The Rise from Challenger to Industry Star

Recently, with the active operations of some large capital players on Hyperliquid, this decentralized derivatives exchange has once again become the focus of attention in the crypto world. After going through previous turmoil, Hyperliquid, with its impressive data performance and rapid development of its ecosystem, has begun to truly challenge the status of traditional centralized exchanges.

This article will conduct an in-depth analysis of Hyperliquid's recent data performance, comprehensively presenting its current development status.

The contract open interest has repeatedly hit new highs, keeping pace with mainstream exchanges.

On May 23, the open interest of Hyperliquid reached $9.31 billion, setting a new historical record. This figure more than doubled from the high of $4.4 billion in December last year. Among them, Bitcoin and Ethereum contributed about half of the contract positions.

In a horizontal comparison, the contract positions of Hyperliquid have become comparable to those of certain mainstream centralized exchanges. In terms of Bitcoin contract holdings, Hyperliquid is on par with several well-known exchanges, ranking between 5th and 7th. On May 23, Hyperliquid's DEX trading volume reached $714 million, an increase of about three times from $200 million at the beginning of the month.

As trading activity increases, Hyperliquid's revenue has also surged significantly. In the past 30 days, Hyperliquid has generated fees of $62 million, making it the 8th ranked protocol in terms of revenue, just behind Jito and Pump.fun, and even surpassing Tron and Solana.

Capital inflow reversal, creating new highs

After the incident in March where Hyperliquid faced a vulnerability exploit by traders using the order book, the capital inflow saw a significant decline. From March 1 to April 7, Hyperliquid's capital dropped from $2.47 billion to $1.85 billion, a decrease of about 25%. However, with the return of large capital players and frequent large contract operations, the capital inflow into Hyperliquid began to reverse. As of May 26, Hyperliquid's net capital inflow has increased to about $3.5 billion, not only recovering the previous losses but also reaching a new high. This trend has been particularly noticeable since May, with the highest single-day net inflow reaching $240 million and an average daily net inflow of about $53 million.

The influx of these funds is closely related to the large operations of some well-known traders on Hyperliquid. Since May, several large capital players have frequently opened contract orders worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars on Hyperliquid. Under the real-time attention of on-chain analysts, these operations have become a market hotspot, inadvertently promoting Hyperliquid. It is noteworthy that the transparency of these on-chain operations has created a unique "follow order effect," which has become an advantage for Hyperliquid as a decentralized exchange, something that traditional centralized exchanges find difficult to replicate.

Token market value soars, ecosystem rapidly expands

Against the backdrop of overall improving data, Hyperliquid's governance token HYPE has begun to rise sharply since hitting a low of $9.3 in April. As of May 27, HYPE reached a peak price of $39.9, with a maximum increase of approximately 329%. The market capitalization of HYPE token peaked at $12.9 billion, surpassing SUI to become the 13th ranked token by market capitalization.

In terms of ecological construction, Hyperliquid has also made significant progress recently. In April, external DeFi protocols such as Morpho and Upshift began to deploy on Hyperliquid. Several exclusive protocols have also emerged within the ecosystem, such as HyperLend, Felix, and HypurrFi, with multiple protocols having a TVL exceeding $100 million. As of May 27, Hyperliquid's TVL reached $1.46 billion, with the number of protocols increasing to 27, of which 16 are exclusive Hyperliquid protocols. Some protocols that are in the early stages have launched point programs, presenting significant airdrop potential.

In addition, Hyperliquid has also made progress in capital flow and stablecoin issuance. The newly added cross-chain bridge tools such as Hyperunit, HyperSwap, and HyBridge support the direct flow of more on-chain assets. In terms of stablecoin issuance, Hyperliquid ranks sixth among all public chains with a stablecoin market value of $3.6 billion, surpassing longer-established public chains such as Arbitrum, Aptos, Sui, and TON. Among them, USDC accounts for 97%, with an issuance volume of $3.5 billion, while Hyperliquid's unique feUSD currently has an issuance volume of $51 million and is still in the early stages. Additionally, the full-chain stablecoin USDT0 was launched on Hyperliquid in May, providing a new important channel for capital flow.

Challenges in Development: User Growth and Rebuilding Trust

Despite most data showing strong performance, Hyperliquid still faces some challenges. For example, the recent growth in new user numbers has been slow, with only a few hundred new users added daily, far below the thousands seen when the platform first launched. While the number of daily active traders has increased, peaking at over 30,000, it still lags behind centralized exchanges. Additionally, in terms of trading categories, the trading shares of BTC, ETH, and SOL tokens have long accounted for about 50%, making it difficult for other tokens to break through, which hinders the traditional "listing effect" for newly launched tokens on Hyperliquid. Recent token auctions have also been relatively quiet, with auction prices generally ranging between $20,000 and $30,000.

Another issue worth paying attention to is the recovery status of the HLP treasury. Although HLP earnings have risen to $64.7 million, a record high, the amount of deposits in the treasury has not fully recovered. After the incident in March, deposits fell from a low of $500 million to $149 million, and while they have since rebounded to $350 million, this is still about 30% lower than the peak, indicating that the trust of some large deposit users has not yet fully recovered.

Overall, Hyperliquid has shown impressive performance recently, with core data and the HYPE token displaying strong upward momentum. The entry of large capital players and transparent on-chain operations have brought a new wave of attention to the platform. However, the slowdown in new user growth and the complete restoration of trust among large depositors in the HLP treasury remain issues that Hyperliquid needs to address. Nevertheless, Hyperliquid's overall performance proves that it is becoming an emerging force in the trading platform space that cannot be ignored.