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Hyperliquid Marks a Breakout Year as Community Built DeFi Scales Rapidly

WhitneyJanuary 6, 2026Last Updated: January 6, 2026

3 minutes read

Hyperliquid Marks a Breakout Year as Community Built DeFi Scales Rapidly

Hyperliquid dominated decentralized perpetuals in 2025, capturing over 70% market share.
HyperEVM launch and permissionless tools fueled trading, liquidity, and user growth.
Protocol revenue hit $800M, with fees returned to the community via HYPE token buybacks.

Hyperliquid recorded decisive expansion across decentralized derivatives markets in 2025, driven by community-led development and infrastructure upgrades. The activity was on its custom Layer 1 network throughout 2025, involving core contributors, builders, and traders worldwide. The growth followed the HyperEVM launch, permissionless tooling, and fee redistribution mechanics that reshaped participation and liquidity formation.

Infrastructure Expansion Anchored 2025 Growth

At the start of 2025, Hyperliquid operated primarily as a decentralized perpetuals venue with limited external integrations. However, the February HyperEVM launch shifted the platform toward a broader execution environment. The release enabled EVM-compatible applications through HyperCore composability, using precompiles and CoreWriter tooling.

Notably, Hyperliquid introduced a fully permissionless validator set during the year. The change expanded network participation while preserving sub-second finality through the HyperBFT consensus mechanism. According to Hyperliquid, the platform handled trades as fast as a centralized exchange while keeping the order book fully on-chain.

At the same time, Unit helped bring spot assets onto Hyperliquid, expanding the available infrastructure. This setup supported spot trading and later allowed developers to launch markets on their own, without needing approval from a central authority.

Hyperliquid also integrated native USDC and introduced portfolio margining in pre-alpha form. These releases followed earlier permissionless spot quote asset support. The new features gave traders more flexibility while keeping trades free of gas fees.

By the end of 2025, Hyperliquid reported total trading volume over $2.3 trillion. Internal stats also hit new highs for volume, open interest, and total value locked. Compared with 2024, daily trading peaked at $32 billion, and TVL reached $6 billion.

As the platform’s infrastructure grew, decentralized perpetual trading picked up speed. Hyperliquid ended up handling more than 70% of all decentralized perpetuals trading volume in 2025. Monthly volumes reached hundreds of billions, occasionally surpassing volumes reported by centralized platforms such as Robinhood.

User growth followed similar trends. Active users increased from roughly 300,000 in 2024 to about 1.4 million in 2025, according to platform data. Open interest climbed from $4 billion to $16 billion during the same period.

Revenue metrics also shifted materially. Hyperliquid reported 24-hour protocol revenue reaching $20 million in 2025, up from $3.5 million previously. Annualized revenue exceeded $800 million, with 97% allocated toward HYPE token buybacks.

Importantly, the platform operated without external venture funding. Hyperliquid stated that all protocol fees returned to the community. Additionally, over 70% of HYPE tokens distributed through airdrops and rewards.

Several governance and product milestones followed. Native Markets won the USDH governance vote, leading to USDH issuance on Hyperliquid. Later, the Assistance Fund HYPE allocation was officially burned.

Builder Activity and Governance Milestones

Builder participation expanded steadily throughout the year. According to commentator Charlie on X, Hyperliquid’s average daily volume rose from $2 billion early in 2025. Volumes peaked near $17 billion during August and September, before stabilizing near $5 billion.

Listing speed also drew attention. Hyperliquid listed the TRUMP perpetual on January 18, followed by MELANIA on January 19. Shortly after, HyperUnit became the first third-party team building on HyperCore, launching spot BTC on February 14.

The HyperEVM launch on February 18 marks another shift. Developers like Felix built apps for advanced Hyperliquid users, and wallet support grew to include Phantom, MetaMask, Rabby, and Rabby-based interfaces. Still, HL.xyz stayed the main frontend by trading volume as 2026 began.

Later, governance expanded with HIP-3, letting teams like Felix, Unit, Ventuals, and Hyena deploy perpetual markets without permission. The upgrade also extended markets beyond crypto, covering equities, commodities, and forex, making listings more decentralized across HyperCore.

Also, Hyperliquid rolled out Hypurr NFTs and added more staking benefits, letting stakers get fee discounts and deploy markets without needing approval. Community artwork by Alfie recognized key contributors across the ecosystem. The year saw steady growth in trading, users, revenue, and developer activity, driven by platform upgrades and decentralized governance rather than outside funding.

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