Hyperliquid's high-risk bet: Zero Gas Volatility Rewrites Cryptocurrency Rules

A giant whale on Hyperliquid has surpassed James Wynn to become the platform’s biggest loss party, which has sparked concerns about the risks of leveraged trading on decentralized perpetual contract exchanges. Hyperliquid went live at the end of 2024, with open contracts exceeding $101 billion and USDC locked in more than $35 billion. The platform uses a centralized order book and proprietary L1 blockchain for high-speed transactions, with zero Gas fees pushing transaction volume from $14 billion to $820 billion in 2024. Its Dutch auction system for token listing is auctioned every 31 hours, making the issuance of meme tokens popular, while HyperEVM L2 attracts DeFi protocols such as HyperLend (total lock value of $370 million). The earnings share includes 46% to liquidity providers, 54% to HYPE buybacks, and a $12 billion airdrop in November 2024. Regulatory risks and market cyclicality remain worrying.