HyperLiquid Breaks $2 Billion TVL Milestone, Here’s How It’s Built Without VC Money

Decentralized exchange HYPE is currently making waves as it recently crossed the $2 billion milestone in Total Value Locked (TVL).

Despite its meteoric rise, Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan has also revealed that he turned down all venture capital.

Amid the growing attention on HYPE, investors are leveraging the platform’s capabilities to make huge returns on their investments.

The Hyperliquid NO-VC Legacy

Founder Jeff disclosed in a recent YouTube video that HYPE is entirely self-funded, without dependence on Venture Capital (VC) funding.

Jeff emphasized that he did not create HYPE for profit. He said he just wanted to create something valuable to the world.

The founder added that HYPE is unique because it reinvents how people interact with finance and value.

According to Jeff, Hyperliquid has community-driven ownership vision sets it apart from its competitors.

He said the standard thing to do when Hyperliquid started was to raise money from VCs. He said this would have raised excitement based on the transition from one round to another.

However, he noted that generating money from VCs felt fake, not showing proper progress. He criticized traditional VC financing for creating an “illusion of progress” by inflating valuations.

Jeff reemphasized that the vision was to create something valuable, where users benefit from building, rather than investors.

The Hyperliquid founder expressed excitement that people were able to rally behind the vision.

Note that the team behind Hyperliquid originally started in 2020 as Chameleon Trading, a successful crypto market-making firm, led by Jeff.

The Tech Behind Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid specializes in perpetual futures trading, allowing users to trade with leverage while maintaining full control of their assets through non-custodial crypto trading.

The platform combines the best of centralized and decentralized exchanges. Hence, it offers fast speeds, low fees, and advanced trading tools like perpetual derivatives.

According to CoinGecko, Hyperliquid processes transactions in under 500ms. Rather than utilize auto market makers like most DEXes, such as Uniswap, Hyperliquid uses an order book model.

This model is similar to Binance and Coinbase, allowing precise orders directly on-chain.

Considering its unique model, Hyperliquid has surpassed other DEXes like Jupiter and GMX in trading volume.

Furthermore, Hyperliquid’s Open Interest (OI) recently hit $14 billion, while TVL soared to over $2 billion. This rally underlines the platform’s appeal to a wide range of users and its growing popularity.

Trading Examples on Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid launched its native token, HYPE, on November 29, 2024, for staking and trading. HYPE is priced $43.42 at press time, down 8.9% over the past 24 hours.

Retail and institutional players are actively betting on HYPE. Protocols built on top of Hyperliquid are also using their revenue to accumulate it.

Onchain data analytics provider Lookonchain recently spotlighted a trade on Hyperliquid. Lookonchain noted that a trader turned $125,000 into $29.6 million in just 4 months by going long on Ethereum (ETH).

Based on the details, the trader deposited $125,000 into HYPE and went long on ETH via two accounts.

He then masterfully compounded his profits, rolling back his gains into his ETH long. The trader built a massive 66,749 ETH, valued at about $303 million.

As a result, the total equity of his two accounts has grown from $125,000 to $29.6 million, representing a 236x return.

This trade comes amid massive HYPE accumulation from whale investors. In a previous transaction, three whales bought $3.5 million in HYPE through spot trades.

The first wallet used $2.5 million in USDC to buy over 70,600 HYPE tokens at $35.40 each.

The second wallet also bought $1 million worth of HYPE. Finally, the third wallet placed a limit order to buy 57,372 HYPE at $24.95.