Project & Team
Description of Project
Provide a concise narrative that clearly states each of (a)–(e) below.
- (a) Problem the project solves — The problem the project is solving.
- (b) Operational priorities — Provide a high-level description of how the project expects to support ongoing development and operations over time.
- (c) High-level project overview — How the project works at a high level.
- (d) Primary token functions — The primary functions of the token (e.g. gov participation).
- (e) Control surface reliance — If any, briefly describe the anticipated or possible evolution of the protocol's governance/control model.
(a) Problem the project solves
Hyperliquid is a layer-one blockchain built to house an open financial system fully onchain. It removes the tradeoff between centralized-exchange performance and onchain transparency by running order-book trading, settlement, and general-purpose applications on a single high-performance chain.
(Source: About Hyperliquid, Hyperliquid 101)
(b) Operational priorities
Hyperliquid Labs leads core blockchain development and has funded the project entirely with its own capital, with no venture investors or external fundraising. Ongoing operations center on core protocol development by Labs, permissionless validator participation, builder expansion across HyperCore and HyperEVM, and programmatic routing of trading fees to HLP, the Assistance Fund, and market deployers. The Assistance Fund converts fees into open-market HYPE purchases that are treated as burned, and the Hyper Foundation supports ecosystem growth through its validator delegation program and grants.
(Source: Hyperliquid 101, Core Contributors, Fees, Delegation Program)
(c) High-level project overview
Hyperliquid is a layer-one blockchain secured by HyperBFT consensus and split into two execution surfaces. HyperCore contains fully onchain perpetual-futures and spot order books with onchain matching, liquidation, and settlement. HyperEVM exposes a general-purpose EVM environment secured by the same consensus and state as HyperCore.
(Source: About Hyperliquid, HyperEVM)
(d) Primary token functions
HYPE secures the network through delegated proof-of-stake staking to validators, serves as the native gas token on HyperEVM, provides tiered trading-fee discounts of 5% to 40% based on staked amount, and directs governance because stake-weighted validator votes decide delistings, network upgrades, and other protocol matters. HYPE is also the asset the Assistance Fund purchases and burns with protocol fee revenue.
(Source: Hyperliquid 101, Staking, HyperEVM)
(e) Control surface reliance
Governance operates today through stake-weighted validator voting, with HYPE stakers directing outcomes by delegating stake to validators whose positions they support. This mechanism has executed binding decisions including the September 14, 2025 assignment of the USDH stablecoin ticker to Native Markets, the December 24, 2025 vote recognizing Assistance Fund HYPE as permanently burned, and the June 2026 approval of the AQAv2 network upgrade with 69.08% of stake. Hyperliquid Improvement Proposals (HIPs) provide the public proposal surface, and the Genesis Event Terms state that governance transitions over time to the broader community of Hyperliquid L1 users.
(Source: HIPs, USDH Vote, Burn Vote Result, AQAv2 Result, Genesis Event Terms)
Known Project Team
For each existing entity: Labs/DevCo (e.g., Founder, CEO, CTO, COO), Foundation (e.g., President, Executive Director, CFO, COO), and DAO / onchain governance leadership (if applicable) list the: (a) full names, (b) official titles, (c) and prior experience of key team members. For any non-existent entity, explicitly mention it does not exist. External links may be included but they will not factor into the score.
Full Name | Entity | Official Title | Prior Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
Jeff Yan (Jeffrey Yan) | Labs / DevCo | Co-Founder, Hyperliquid Labs | Harvard graduate in mathematics and computer science, former quantitative trader at Hudson River Trading, and founder of the crypto market-making firm Chameleon Trading. He is the only non-pseudonymous member of the team. |
iliensinc (pseudonymous) | Labs / DevCo | Co-Founder, Hyperliquid Labs | Harvard classmate of Jeff Yan and architect of the Hyperliquid L1 and HyperBFT consensus. The broader Labs team of roughly a dozen people has prior experience in proprietary crypto market making and at Airtable, Citadel, Hudson River Trading, and Nuro. |
(Source: Core Contributors, Colossus Profile) | Labs / DevCo | ||
The Hyper Foundation has not publicly disclosed a named officer roster. Its public communications, including the February 2026 Hyperliquid Policy Center announcement, are attributed to an unnamed Foundation spokesperson. | Foundation | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed |
(Source: Terms of Service, HPC Launch Release) | Foundation | ||
The project does not have a DAO or DAO officeholders. Onchain governance operates through stake-weighted validator voting, and no individual holds a governance leadership title. | DAO / Onchain Governance | Not applicable | Not applicable |
(Source: HIPs, Genesis Event Terms) | DAO / Onchain Governance |
DAO Structure
Provide a structured description of the DAO's governance, powers, and economic rights. If a DAO does not exist, state so. Address the lettered items below. Even if there is no DAO, there must be an answer to (d).
- (a) IP ownership & control — State what IP the DAO owns or controls (e.g., codebases/repos, trademarks/brands). Note any license if relevant.
- (b) Contract/admin powers — List onchain or administrative authorities and limits: pause/upgrade roles (e.g., multisig pause), governance-executor authorities, and the method of authority for each (e.g., veto, majority, super-majority).
- (c) Locked-token rights (conditional) — If locking/staking for additional rights exists, explain the additional rights and what tokenholders can and cannot decide. If no locking mechanism exists, leave absent.
- (d) Value accrual & holder rights — If any, describe the current rights of tokenholders over revenue distribution and the treasury.
- (e) Dissolution authority — State who can dissolve/wind up the DAO and by what mechanism (e.g., onchain vote threshold, board resolution of a legal wrapper).
(a) IP ownership & control
The project does not have a DAO legal entity, and no DAO owns or controls project IP.
(Source: HIPs, Genesis Event Terms)
(b) Contract/admin powers
The project does not have a DAO. Onchain governance authority sits with the validator set, weighted by staked and delegated HYPE. Validator votes delist validator-operated perpetual markets, slash HIP-3 deployers and certain quote-asset deployments for malicious market operation, approve network upgrades at a two-thirds stake threshold, and decide protocol-level matters put to a vote. Executed decisions include the September 14, 2025 USDH ticker assignment to Native Markets, the December 24, 2025 recognition of Assistance Fund HYPE as burned with 85% of stake in favor, and the June 2026 AQAv2 network upgrade approved by 19 of 26 validators representing 69.08% of stake. Validator operation is permissionless and the active set is selected transparently by stake.
(Source: Delisting, HIP-3, Validator Docs, Burn Vote Result, AQAv2 Result)
(c) Locked-token rights (conditional)
(conditional) Staking HYPE grants three rights. Stakers delegate to validators and direct governance outcomes because validator voting power is proportional to delegated stake, and stakers can redelegate to validators whose declared positions they support during a vote. Stakers earn rewards paid from the future emissions reserve at a rate inversely proportional to the square root of total HYPE staked, approximately 2.37% per year at 400 million HYPE staked. Stakers receive tiered trading-fee discounts from 5% at more than 10 HYPE staked to 40% at more than 500,000 HYPE staked. Tokenholders do not vote directly on proposals and cannot decide matters outside what the validator set puts to a vote.
(d) Value accrual & holder rights
Tokenholders hold no formal legal claim on protocol revenue, dividends, or treasury assets. Value accrues to holders programmatically. Trading fees route to HLP, the Assistance Fund, and market deployers, and the Assistance Fund converts its fee share into open-market HYPE purchases sent to a system address with no private key. A December 24, 2025 validator vote formally recognized the roughly 37 million HYPE then held in the Assistance Fund as permanently burned and removed from circulating and total supply, and ongoing fee flows to the fund operate as permanent burns. Under the AQAv2 framework approved in June 2026, approximately 90% of cost-adjusted USDC reserve yield on the platform also flows to the Assistance Fund, with yield accrual beginning August 26, 2026 and the first payment scheduled for October 3, 2026.
(Source: Fees, Burn Vote Result, AQAv2 Passed)
(e) Dissolution authority
The project does not have a DAO entity to dissolve, and no public source discloses a dissolution or wind-up mechanism for the onchain governance system.
(Source: Genesis Event Terms, HIPs)
Primary Foundation
For the Primary Foundation do the following independently. If an entity does not exist, state that explicitly. Items (a)–(f) apply only if that entity exists; state explicitly that the entity doesn't exist. Definitions: The primary Foundation and DevCo can be explained as those entities which are directly involved in the issuance of the native token at launch.
- (a) Entity — Type and jurisdiction.
- (b) IP ownership & control — What IP the entity owns/controls (repos/code, trademarks/brand; license optional) and an explanation of any subsidiary entities.
- (c) Powers over DAO, treasury, protocol-controlled resources, and token administration — If any, describe the current powers over DAO governance, treasury actions, protocol-controlled resources (e.g. revenue), token administration, or reward parameters, and the method/threshold for each.
- (d) Powers over DevCo — Explain whether the foundation can exert direct or indirect influence over decision-making of the DevCo.
- (e) Contract/admin powers — Pause/upgrade/governance-executor authorities and the method/threshold for each (e.g., veto/majority/super-majority; "3/5 multisig").
- (f) Current economic arrangements and distribution policies — Describe any current governance-approved, contractual, or programmatic mechanisms, if any, by which protocol-controlled resources, treasury assets, fees, revenue, rewards, or token distributions may be directed to this entity, its equityholders, contributors, or other participants. If no such mechanism currently exists, state that explicitly. Do not discuss hypothetical future dividends, repurchases, or distributions unless formally adopted.
(a) Entity
The Hyper Foundation is a Cayman Islands foundation company. It describes itself as an independent foundation supporting the growth of the Hyperliquid ecosystem.
(Source: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, HPC Launch Release)
(b) IP ownership & control
The Foundation's Terms of Service state that the Organization and its licensors own rights in the Foundation's Services and content, that user Feedback becomes the Organization's property, and that certain Hyperliquid L1 components are made publicly available under open-source or source-available licenses. The Foundation has not publicly disclosed ownership of the Hyperliquid L1 codebase, specific repositories, or trademarks, and has not publicly disclosed any subsidiary entities.
(Source: Terms of Service)
(c) Powers over DAO, treasury, protocol-controlled resources, and token administration
The Foundation holds no publicly disclosed unilateral powers over governance, protocol treasury actions, token administration, or reward parameters. Its documented governance role is proposal and participation. The Foundation runs a validator delegation program, operates validators and a non-validating node, proposed the December 2025 Assistance Fund burn vote that validators then decided, and in the September 2025 USDH ticker vote committed its validators to abstain and align with the majority of non-Foundation stake. Team-staked HYPE was also excluded from the USDH vote weighting.
(Source: Delegation Program, Burn Proposal, USDH Vote Mechanics)
(d) Powers over DevCo The Foundation has not publicly disclosed any formal power to direct Hyperliquid Labs or Hyperliquid Labs Pte. Ltd.
(Source: Terms of Service, Core Contributors)
(e) Contract/admin powers
The Foundation holds no publicly disclosed pause, upgrade, or governance-executor authority. The Genesis Event Terms state that under current plans and over time the Organization may lack the ability to effectuate upgrades and that upgrades are adopted by Hyperliquid L1 users. In practice, network upgrades require approval by validators representing a two-thirds stake threshold, as demonstrated by the June 2026 AQAv2 vote.
(Source: Genesis Event Terms, AQAv2 Result)
(f) Current economic arrangements and distribution policies
The Foundation received 6.0% of HYPE genesis supply as its budget allocation, which the Bitwise ETF filing describes as funding grant programs, educational initiatives, and strategic partnerships. The Foundation operates a validator delegation program using its holdings and contributed 1 million HYPE in February 2026 to seed the Hyperliquid Policy Center, an independent 501(c)(4) advocacy organization led by Jake Chervinsky. No recurring entitlement of protocol fees or treasury flows to the Foundation has been publicly disclosed.
(Source: Bitwise S-1/A, Delegation Program, HPC Announcement)
Primary Dev Co
For the Primary DevCo do the following independently. If an entity does not exist, state that explicitly. Items (a)–(f) apply only if that entity exists; state explicitly that the entity doesn't exist. Definitions: The primary Foundation and DevCo can be explained as those entities which are directly involved in the issuance of the native token at launch.
- (a) Entity — Type and jurisdiction.
- (b) IP ownership & control — What IP the entity owns/controls (repos/code, trademarks/brand; license optional) and an explanation of any subsidiary entities.
- (c) Powers over DAO, treasury, protocol-controlled resources, and token administration — If any, describe the current powers over DAO governance, treasury actions, protocol-controlled resources (e.g. revenue), token administration, or reward parameters, and the method/threshold for each.
- (d) Powers over Foundation — Explain whether the DevCo can exert direct or indirect influence over decision-making of the Foundation.
- (e) Contract/admin powers — Pause/upgrade/governance-executor authorities and the method/threshold for each (e.g., veto/majority/super-majority; "3/5 multisig").
- (f) Current economic arrangements and distribution policies — Describe any current governance-approved, contractual, or programmatic mechanisms, if any, by which protocol-controlled resources, treasury assets, fees, revenue, rewards, or token distributions may be directed to this entity, its equityholders, contributors, or other participants. If no such mechanism currently exists, state that explicitly. Do not discuss hypothetical future dividends, repurchases, or distributions unless formally adopted.
(a) Entity
Hyperliquid Labs Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore private limited company and the core contributor to the Hyperliquid L1. The Labs team relocated to Singapore in 2024 and operates with roughly a dozen people. Further corporate details beyond the entity name and its core-contributor role are not publicly disclosed.
(Source: Genesis Event Terms, Core Contributors, Colossus Profile)
(b) IP ownership & control
Hyperliquid Labs has not publicly disclosed its ownership or control of repositories, trademarks, brands, or subsidiary entities.
(Source: Core Contributors, Terms of Service)
(c) Powers over DAO, treasury, protocol-controlled resources, and token administration
Hyperliquid Labs holds no publicly disclosed formal powers over governance, treasury actions, or token administration. Team-staked HYPE was removed from the September 2025 USDH governance vote weighting, and the Genesis Event Terms state that governance transitions over time to the broader community of Hyperliquid L1 users.
(Source: USDH Vote Mechanics, Genesis Event Terms)
(d) Powers over Foundation
Hyperliquid Labs has not publicly disclosed any formal power to direct the Hyper Foundation.
(Source: Terms of Service, Genesis Event Terms)
(e) Contract/admin powers
Hyperliquid Labs holds no publicly disclosed pause, upgrade, or governance-executor authority. Network upgrades are adopted through validator votes at a two-thirds stake threshold.
(Source: Genesis Event Terms, AQAv2 Result)
(f) Current economic arrangements and distribution policies
Development has been fully self-funded with no venture capital or external fundraising. Current and future core contributors received a 23.8% allocation of genesis supply subject to lockups and vesting, and recipients of HYPE allocations from Hyperliquid Labs Pte. Ltd. were subject to a one-year lockup from the November 29, 2024 genesis. No mechanism directing ongoing protocol fees or treasury assets to Hyperliquid Labs has been publicly disclosed.
(Source: Hyperliquid 101, Bitwise S-1/A, Genesis Event Terms)
Token Supply & Allocations
Initial Allocation
Disclose launch and initial supply details in a single initial allocation schedule covering the token's launch.
- (a) Launch supply totals — The total number of tokens issued at launch, the total number of tokens locked at launch or the total number of tokens unlocked at launch.
- (b) Recipient categories & use of funds — The recipient categories with brief explanations as to how the category will use the tokens so an auditor can distinguish each bucket.
- (c) Initial price per token (if applicable) — The initial price per token at TGE. If the token launched via a liquidity bootstrapping mechanism, auction, or other price-discovery process rather than a fixed offering price, describe that mechanism and the final market set price instead. If no fixed price was set, state so.
- (d) Ticker / market symbol — The ticker/market symbol.
- (e) Total supply & supply regime — The total supply and whether the supply is fixed (if not explain inflation rate or deflation rate).
- (f) Initial vesting / release schedules — The initial vesting/release schedules (identify which categories/recipients are subject to vesting and the high-level timing logic).
(a) Launch supply totals
HYPE launched on November 29, 2024 with a genesis supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens. The Genesis Distribution allocated 310,000,000 HYPE, equal to 31.0% of supply, fully unlocked at launch, of which approximately 274 million HYPE was claimed by recipients who signed the Genesis Event terms. Unclaimed genesis tokens were reallocated to the future emissions and community rewards bucket. The remaining 690,000,000 tokens across the other allocation categories were locked or reserved at launch.
(Source: Bitwise S-1/A, MPost Genesis Report, ChainCatcher Airdrop Data)
(b) Recipient categories & use of funds
- Recipient Category: Genesis distribution
- Allocation: 31.0%, 310,000,000 HYPE
- Publicly Described Use: Distribution to past users of the network through the genesis airdrop, allocated by points earned through platform activity.
- Recipient Category: Future emissions and community rewards
- Allocation: 38.888%
- Publicly Described Use: Reserved for future emissions, staking rewards, and community incentives. Staking rewards are paid from this reserve.
- Recipient Category: Current and future core contributors
- Allocation: 23.8%
- Publicly Described Use: Contributor compensation, subject to a one-year lockup and multi-year vesting.
- Recipient Category: Hyper Foundation budget
- Allocation: 6.0%
- Publicly Described Use: Foundation budget and treasury funding grant programs, educational initiatives, and strategic partnerships.
- Recipient Category: Community grants
- Allocation: 0.3%
- Publicly Described Use: Grants to ecosystem participants.
- Recipient Category: HIP-2 Hyperliquidity
- Allocation: 0.012%
- Publicly Described Use: Protocol-owned liquidity for the HIP-2 Hyperliquidity spot liquidity mechanism.
(Source: Bitwise S-1/A, 21Shares S-1, Tokenomist, Staking)
(c) Initial price per token (if applicable)
(if applicable) No fixed offering price, auction, or other price-discovery mechanism was used at TGE. The Genesis Distribution was a free airdrop with no token sale, and HYPE opened trading on Hyperliquid's spot order book at approximately $2 on November 29, 2024.
(Source: MPost Genesis Report, ChainCatcher Airdrop Data)
(d) Ticker / market symbol
The ticker is HYPE.
(Source: 21Shares S-1, Genesis Event Terms)
(e) Total supply & supply regime
Genesis total supply was 1,000,000,000 HYPE and no issuance above the genesis supply has occurred or been adopted. The supply regime is net deflationary in practice. Trading fees route continuously to the Assistance Fund, which converts them into open-market HYPE purchases sent to a system address with no private key, and a validator vote concluded on December 24, 2025 with 85% of stake in favor formally recognized the approximately 37 million HYPE then in the fund as permanently burned and removed from circulating and total supply, with ongoing fund inflows treated as permanent burns. Staking rewards are paid from the pre-allocated future emissions reserve inside the genesis supply rather than from new minting. As of September 1, 2026, CoinMarketCap reports total supply of approximately 952.05 million HYPE and circulating supply of approximately 251.7 million HYPE, while CoinGecko reports circulating supply of approximately 222.4 million HYPE under a stricter unlock-based methodology.
(Source: Burn Vote Result, Staking, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko)
(f) Initial vesting / release schedules
The 310 million genesis-distribution tokens were fully unlocked at launch. Core-contributor tokens, 23.8% of supply, were locked for one year from the November 29, 2024 genesis and vest monthly thereafter, with most vesting completing between 2027 and 2028 and a portion extending beyond 2028. The next scheduled core-contributor unlock is 9.92 million HYPE, equal to 1.0% of total supply, on September 6, 2026. The Genesis Event Terms separately impose a one-year lockup on organization service providers and recipients of HYPE allocations from Hyperliquid Labs Pte. Ltd. The future emissions and community rewards reserve has no published release schedule and is drawn on for staking rewards.
(Source: MPost Genesis Report, Genesis Event Terms, Tokenomist, CoinGecko)
Airdrop Process
Address each of the following sub-items based on the project's airdrop status. If a sub-item does not apply to the project's situation, state that explicitly.
- (a) Planned but not yet executed airdrop — If the project has planned but not yet airdropped, commit to publishing a recipient wallet list in a public channel and provide it to Blockworks quarterly until the initial TGE airdrop is fully completed. Additionally, generally state the possible target user segments (e.g., "stakers of X," "Aave users") and the allocation method (e.g., proportional to ve-balance or net position).
- (b) Executed airdrop — If the project has already airdropped, point to a per-address source such as CSV/TSV/JSON files, a Dune table, a full Merkle dump, GitHub repo files embedding per-address allocations, or RPC endpoints that expose claim/amount data; explorer links alone do not count. Additionally, clearly state covered user segments (e.g., "stakers of X," "Aave users") and the allocation method (e.g., proportional to ve-balance or net position).
- (c) No airdrop planned or conducted — If the project does not plan to conduct an airdrop for TGE and has never conducted one, state so plainly (e.g., "We have never conducted an airdrop to date and do not plan to execute one").
Planned but not yet executed airdrop. Not applicable. The project executed its TGE airdrop on November 29, 2024.
Executed airdrop. Applicable.
(a) Per-address source Address-level genesis distribution data is published through the ASXN Hyperliquid data dashboard, which records per-address genesis balances, claim amounts, and subsequent holdings for the distribution. Claims were executed onchain through the Genesis Event claim process, exposing per-address claim and amount data on the Hyperliquid L1.
(Source: Blockworks ASXN Coverage, PANews Airdrop Data)
(b) Covered user segments & allocation method The distribution covered users of the Hyperliquid platform across the closed alpha, testnet, and mainnet phases in 2023 and 2024, including points-program participants and referral participants. Allocation was proportional to points earned through platform activity. The distribution reached 94,000 addresses, with approximately 274 million of the 310 million allocated HYPE claimed, an average allocation of 2,915.66 HYPE per address, a median of 64.53 HYPE, and individual allocations ranging from 0.11 HYPE to 1,975,126.70 HYPE.
(Source: Points, PANews Airdrop Data, ChainCatcher Airdrop Data)
No airdrop planned. Not applicable. The project conducted its airdrop at TGE on November 29, 2024.
Transactions & Market Structures
Market Maker Agreements & Deals
Projects must disclose all material terms of market-making arrangements that affect token liquidity. If the project has no agreements or deals with market makers, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit. For each market maker, include in a table:
- (a) Market maker's name — the market maker's name;
- (b) Token allocation or loaned amount — the token allocation or loaned amount as a percentage of total supply;
- (c) Duration/term of agreement — the duration/term of the agreement; and, where applicable,
- (d) Name of agreement structure — label the financial vehicle being used in the agreement (i.e. loan, option/call, retainer model) without describing trading strategy or expected outcomes.
If the project has no agreements or deals with market makers, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit. If no native tokens were loaned or allocated to market makers, state that explicitly; cash/fiat retainers or fees are not required for this item.
- Market Maker Name: None. The project has no market-maker agreements and allocated no HYPE to market makers.
- Token Allocation Committed: None
- Term Duration: Not applicable
- Structure Name: Not applicable
The project has no market-maker agreements or deals affecting HYPE liquidity. Hyperliquid's market-making policy states there is no designated market maker program and no special rebates, fees, or latency advantages for any market maker, and no HYPE was loaned or allocated to market makers at genesis.
(Source: Market Making, MPost Genesis Report)
CEX / DEX Agreements & Deals
Projects must disclose all material terms of centralized or decentralized exchange listings that affect token liquidity. For each listing, include in a table:
- (a) Exchange name / DEX pool — the exchange name (and, for DEX, the specific pool/pair);
- (b) Token allocation for listing — the token allocation supplied or committed for listing as a percentage of total supply;
- (c) Term Duration — the duration/term of any listing lockups, liquidity, or incentive programs; and, where applicable,
- (d) Native-token listing fees — whether any listing fees were paid in native tokens, with amounts (tokens or % of supply), recipients, and any vesting or lock terms tied to the partnership.
If the project has no agreements or deals with CEX or DEX, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit; cash/fiat fee amounts are not required for this item.
- Exchange Name: None. The project has no CEX or DEX listing agreements and paid no native-token listing fees.
- Token Allocation Committed: None
- Term Duration: Not applicable
- Native Token Listing Fees: None
The project has no exchange-listing agreements or native-token listing-fee arrangements affecting HYPE liquidity. The genesis allocation schedule in the Bitwise and 21Shares ETF filings contains no exchange allocation, and no HYPE was allocated to centralized exchanges at genesis. HYPE launched directly on Hyperliquid's own onchain spot order book.
(Source: Bitwise S-1/A, 21Shares S-1, MPost Genesis Report)
Financial Disclosures & Risks
Prior Token Sales & Fundraising
Disclose all prior token sales by the Project — including fundraising rounds, any material OTC sales to investors, and any discounted market-maker sales. For each sale, provide:
- (a) Series Name
- (b) Early-Stage Investment Instrument used (i.e. SAFT, STAMP, SAFE, SAFE+Token Warrant, etc.)
- (c) Date of sale (at least month & year)
- (d) Number of tokens sold (or % of total supply)
- (e) Vesting schedule
If no prior sales occurred, state that explicitly (e.g., "No prior fundraising, OTC, or discounted MM sales have occurred.").
- Series Name: None. No prior fundraising, OTC, or discounted market-maker token sales have occurred.
- Date Of Sale: Not applicable
- Number of tokens sold: None
- Vesting Schedule: Not applicable
No prior fundraising, OTC, or discounted market-maker token sales have occurred. Development was fully self-funded by the founders with no venture capital or external capital, and no HYPE was allocated or sold to private investors.
(Source: Hyperliquid 101, Core Contributors, MPost Genesis Report)
Previous Exploits Affecting The Native Token
If any, list prior exploits or incidents that directly affected the token, token supply, tokenholder balances, token contract, minting controls, burn mechanics, or custody of token supply. This question is not asking about general protocol, application, or smart contract exploits unless the incident directly affected the native token itself. If no prior incidents, state this explicitly (e.g., "No exploits affecting tokenholders or protocol funds as of YYYY-MM-DD").
- (a) Date & component affected — Date (YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD), chain(s)/component affected.
- (b) Exploit vector summary — Plain-language summary of the exploit vector (what the hack was).
- (c) Quantified impact — Quantified impact (assets/tokens affected or a clear "no loss of funds" statement).
- (d) Remediation/response taken — Remediation/response taken (patches, upgrades, governance actions, compensation).
- (e) Current status — Current status (resolved, in litigation, under investigation, refunded, etc.).
- (f) References (optional) — References (optional): link(s) to post-mortem/advisory/PR.
(a) Date & component affected
Three market-manipulation incidents have imposed losses on the protocol-owned HLP vault. No smart-contract, consensus, or bridge exploit has compromised Hyperliquid protocol funds as of 2026-09-01.
(Source: Halborn JELLY Analysis, Halborn POPCAT Analysis, CoinDesk POPCAT Report)
- Date & Component Affected: 2025-03-12, HLP and the ETH perpetual market
- Exploit Vector Summary: A trader opened a $271 million ETH long at 50x leverage on $6 million collateral, then withdrew margin to force liquidation while hedging short externally, exploiting liquidation mechanics rather than a code vulnerability and leaving HLP to absorb the position.
- Quantified Impact: $4 million HLP loss.
- Remediation / Response Taken: Maximum leverage was reduced to 40x on BTC and 25x on ETH, and a 20% additional margin ratio requirement was applied to margin withdrawals from open positions.
- Current Status: Resolved.
- Date & Component Affected: 2025-03-26, HLP and the JELLY perpetual market
- Exploit Vector Summary: An attacker opened offsetting long and short JELLY positions, pushed the JELLY spot price higher on external markets, and self-liquidated so HLP inherited a large short position exposed to mark-to-market losses.
- Quantified Impact: HLP carried an unrealized loss reported at $12 million to $13.5 million at its peak.
- Remediation / Response Taken: The validator set voted to delist the JELLY perpetual and settle positions at $0.0095 rather than the manipulated price near $0.50, and Hyperliquid made all users whole from Hyper Foundation funds apart from flagged attacker addresses. Onchain validator voting for delistings and stricter open-interest caps and leverage tiers followed the incident.
- Current Status: Resolved. The market was closed, users were compensated, and HLP finished the incident without a net loss.
- Date & Component Affected: 2025-11-12, HLP and the POPCAT perpetual market
- Exploit Vector Summary: An attacker distributed $3 million in USDC across 19 wallets, opened more than $26 million in leveraged POPCAT longs, placed and then cancelled a $20 million spoofed buy wall at $0.21, and triggered cascading liquidations that HLP absorbed as bad debt.
- Quantified Impact: $4.9 million in HLP bad debt. The attacker burned approximately $3 million of its own capital.
- Remediation / Response Taken: The team briefly paused POPCAT perpetuals, applied an emergency lock to an Arbitrum bridge route, and manually closed inherited positions to cap losses. Normal operations resumed within approximately one hour.
- Current Status: Resolved. HLP absorbed the loss and platform solvency was unaffected.
(Source: Arrington Capital Analysis, CoinDesk JELLY Report, Halborn JELLY Analysis, Halborn POPCAT Analysis, CoinDesk POPCAT Report, Delisting)
Material Risk Factors (Regulation, Technology, Token Economics)
Describe material risk factors across the three categories below. Each category includes prompts to address at a minimum.
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(a) Regulatory, Legal & Tax Risks — Describe how evolving laws and regulations could affect the project by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
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Impact of Regulatory Change on TGE and Listings: (If applicable) How could evolving or conflicting laws and regulations affect your ability to complete the TGE, deliver tokens to purchasers, and list or maintain the token on trading venues in key jurisdictions?
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Entity-Level Regulatory Impact: (If applicable) How could regulatory or legal changes impact your core entities (Foundation, DevCo, DAO, affiliated service providers), including enforcement actions, licensing requirements, or forced changes to structure or operations?
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Tokenholder Tax Treatment: (If applicable) What uncertainties exist around how tokenholders may be taxed, and make clear that tokenholders are responsible for understanding their own tax obligations?
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Jurisdictional & User Access Restrictions: (If applicable) If the project restricts access for certain jurisdictions or user types (e.g., U.S. persons, sanctioned countries, retail vs. professional), what are those restrictions and what risks do they create for users and for the project?
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(b) Protocol, Technology & Security Risks — Describe risks to network and contract reliability, correctness, and safety by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
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Bugs and Design Flaws: (If applicable) What bugs, design flaws, or implementation errors could exist in your core protocol code, smart contracts, and any bridges, rollups, or oracles that you depend on, and how could these lead to loss of funds or disruption of the protocol?
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Security Measures & Their Limitations: (If applicable) What security measures have you taken (audits, formal verification, bug bounties), and what types of failures might these measures still fail to detect or prevent?
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(c) Token Economics, Unlocks & Incentive Risks — Describe how the token's economic design and supply schedule could affect holders by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
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Critical Economic Assumptions: (If applicable) Which economic assumptions (e.g., staking yields, fee revenue, liquidity incentives, MEV capture, demand for blockspace) are critical for protocol security, utility, and governance, and what happens if those assumptions fail?
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Governance Control over Monetary Policy & Rewards: (If applicable) To what extent can governance change monetary policy, fee parameters, or reward allocations (e.g., inflation rate, treasury flows, incentive programs), and how could such changes adversely affect tokenholders?
(a) Regulatory, Legal & Tax Risks
The Genesis Event Terms warn that evolving legal and regulatory frameworks for blockchain technology could impair adoption of Hyperliquid and use of HYPE, and specifically disclose the risk that HYPE or HYPE transactions could be treated as securities or other regulated financial instruments in some jurisdictions. The Hyperliquid front end restricts access for users in the United States and other blocked jurisdictions, and Foundation-operated programs impose further restrictions. The Hyper Foundation delegation program excludes validator applicants from restricted jurisdictions including the U.S., Ontario, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Syria, and certain Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, and the Foundation non-validating node imposes sanctions and U.S. and Ontario restrictions plus eligibility thresholds tied to 10,000 staked HYPE and Tier 1 maker volume. The project has responded to U.S. regulatory uncertainty at the entity level. The Hyper Foundation contributed 1 million HYPE in February 2026 to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center, an independent 501(c)(4) led by Jake Chervinsky that advocates for clear U.S. rules for decentralized finance, and U.S. users currently lack a legal path to trade derivatives on decentralized protocols pending CFTC rulemaking. The Genesis Event Terms disclose uncertainty around the tax treatment of digital assets and rewards and direct tokenholders to consult their own tax advisers, and tokenholders are responsible for understanding their own tax obligations.
(Source: Genesis Event Terms, Delegation Program, Foundation Node, HPC Announcement)
(b) Protocol, Technology & Security Risks
Hyperliquid's public risk disclosures identify bridge smart-contract risk, L1 consensus and downtime risk, market-liquidity risk, and oracle-manipulation risk, with open-interest caps and order-resting restrictions deployed as partial mitigants for oracle-related issues. The protocol's operational history demonstrates that its principal realized loss vector is market manipulation of thin-liquidity perpetual markets that forces the HLP vault to absorb bad debt, as in the March 2025 JELLY incident and the November 2025 POPCAT incident, rather than code exploits. Additional control-surface risks are disclosed in official docs. Validator-operated perps can be delisted by validator vote, HIP-3 deployers are responsible for market definition and operation and can be slashed by validator vote for malicious market operation, and the Foundation's non-validating node is not an authoritative source for time-sensitive activity. The Hyperliquid bridge contract has been audited by Zellic, and Hyperliquid runs a bug bounty covering mainnet node and API-server outages and logical errors that pays rewards in USDC and provides safe-harbor language for good-faith researchers. Staking currently has no automatic slashing, which leaves validator discipline dependent on stake-weighted voting and operational response rather than an automated slashing regime. Audits and the bug bounty do not cover economic-design failures of the kind realized in the HLP manipulation incidents.
(Source: Risks, Delisting, HIP-3, Foundation Node, Audits, Bug Bounty Program, Staking)
(c) Token Economics, Unlocks & Incentive Risks
HYPE's economics depend on continued trading volume and fee generation. Trading fees route to HLP, the Assistance Fund, and market deployers, and the Assistance Fund converts the substantial majority of protocol fees into open-market HYPE purchases that are permanently burned, a mechanism that had repurchased approximately 45 million HYPE for roughly $1.1 billion cumulatively by August 2026. The AQAv2 framework approved by validators in June 2026 adds a second buyback input by directing approximately 90% of cost-adjusted USDC reserve yield on the platform, estimated at $135 million to $160 million annually on roughly $5 billion in reserves, to the Assistance Fund beginning with an August 26, 2026 accrual start and a first payment on October 3, 2026. A sustained decline in trading volume would reduce both fee-funded buybacks and HLP returns, and a decline in platform USDC balances or interest rates would reduce AQAv2 flows. Staking rewards are paid from the future emissions reserve at a rate inversely proportional to the square root of total HYPE staked, approximately 2.37% per year at 400 million staked, so staking yield declines as participation grows and depends on the finite reserve. Supply-side risk centers on the core-contributor allocation of 23.8% of genesis supply, which exited its one-year lockup on November 29, 2025 and vests monthly with most vesting completing between 2027 and 2028, including a 9.92 million HYPE tranche on September 6, 2026. The December 24, 2025 validator vote recognizing Assistance Fund HYPE as permanently burned removed approximately 37 million tokens from circulating and total supply and committed validators to never authorize a protocol upgrade accessing that address, making the burn mechanics a load-bearing assumption for long-run supply.
(Source: Fees, AQAv2 Coverage, AQAv2 Passed, Staking, Tokenomist, Burn Vote Result)
This Token Transparency Filing is provided for general informational purposes only and does not verify or warrant the accuracy of individual answers.