Hyperliquid history: an exchange with no venture money
A trader builds an exchange
Jeff Yan, who traded at the high-frequency firm Hudson River Trading, started Hyperliquid in 2022. The team built its own blockchain for one job: a futures exchange with an order book that runs on-chain and feels as fast as a centralised one. It raised no venture money.
November 2024: 31% to the users
On 29 November 2024 Hyperliquid launched HYPE and sent 310 million tokens, 31% of the billion-token supply, to people who had used the exchange. Typical airdrops give out 5% to 15%. HYPE opened at 3.81 dollars, its lowest price on record, and passed 6 dollars within a day.
Buybacks from fees
The exchange sends most of its trading fees to an assistance fund that buys HYPE on the market. The more you and other traders trade, the more tokens the fund buys.
The JELLY test
In March 2025 a trader pushed the price of the small JELLY token to squeeze the exchange’s liquidity vault. Validators delisted JELLY and settled positions at an earlier price, which protected the vault and raised questions about how decentralised the exchange is. HYPE kept climbing and reached its all-time high of 97.96 dollars on 23 September 2026.