Jeff Yan is the founder of Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange (DEX) for perpetual futures that by 2025 has become a major force in DeFi. He keeps a low public profile, avoids social media, and has never taken venture capital money, yet his work reshaped how some decentralized derivatives are built and traded. Hyperliquid runs on a custom layer‑1 and processes very large daily trading volumes while serving more than 570,000 users.
Who is Jeff Yan?
Yan was raised in Palo Alto, California, by Chinese immigrant parents and showed early talent in physics, winning a gold medal at the 2013 International Physics Olympiad. He went on to study mathematics and computer science at Harvard, combining strong theoretical training with practical coding skills. This academic background set the stage for his later work in low‑latency trading and protocol design.
After university, Yan joined Hudson River Trading (HRT), a high‑frequency trading firm, and then had a short stint at Google before leaving to start Chameleon Trading during the 2020–2021 bull run. Even while running trading infrastructure, he generally stayed out of the spotlight and focused on systems and bots rather than public commentary. The collapse of FTX in late 2022 prompted him to build a decentralized alternative where users custody their own funds.
What is Hyperliquid and how does it work?
Hyperliquid launched in 2023 on a custom layer‑1 blockchain engineered specifically for fast, decentralized derivatives. The platform emphasizes sub‑second finality and on‑chain order books, delivering a user experience that approaches centralized alternatives. Over time Yan and his team added features that extend the protocol beyond a simple trading venue.
Those features include permissionless market creation (HIP‑3) and Ethereum compatibility through HyperEVM, which together transform Hyperliquid into a more modular financial layer. Yan has described the approach succinctly: “Our philosophy is simple: create a product that users genuinely like and are willing to use.” This product‑first focus helped attract builders and protocols to the stack.
Growth and key metrics
Within months of launch Hyperliquid was processing over $1 billion a day, and it later grew to processing around $10 billion in trades per day, with DefiLlama reporting $308 billion in volume in October. The platform serves more than 570,000 users and relies on a custom blockchain tuned for speed and reliability. These usage figures reflect both retail and professional activity on the exchange.
Remarkably, Hyperliquid scaled with a very small core team: just 11 contributors built the initial product, and Yan bootstrapped development using profits from Chameleon Trading rather than raising outside capital. There were no venture allocations or influencer campaigns; the platform grew through performance, word‑of‑mouth and incentives targeted at users.
HYPE token and economic design
HYPE launched in late 2024 with a distribution that allocated roughly 31% of the supply to early users and no allocations to venture funds. The remaining supply was set aside for future ecosystem growth, airdrops and long‑vesting team incentives, reflecting a distribution aimed at user adoption rather than VC ownership. This structure was emphasized at launch as part of Hyperliquid’s rollout strategy.
By mid‑2025 HYPE reached a near $20 billion market cap before a subsequent crypto drawdown reduced that figure, and the protocol has directed hundreds of millions in fees back to users via buybacks and burns. Hyperliquid also has a digital asset treasury vehicle, Hyperliquid Strategies, which has moved to raise up to $1 billion to accumulate HYPE as part of its treasury plan. These economic steps were presented as ways to align incentives between the protocol and its users.
Ecosystem and integrations
Permissionless market creation (HIP‑3) and HyperEVM compatibility encouraged external projects to build on the Hyperliquid stack. Protocols such as Felix and HyperLend chose to integrate with the platform, citing its speed and incentive model. In this way Hyperliquid positioned itself as more than an exchange — a substrate for other DeFi services.
Controversies and defenses
Hyperliquid faced criticism of its liquidation system during the October 10 crash, and those concerns prompted technical defenses from the team and public explanations of their models. Discussions around liquidation mechanics remain a live topic for the community; for a technical walkthrough of similar events see the liquidation breakdown. Yan has consistently argued that his models are designed to minimize systemic risk rather than maximize protocol revenue.
Despite controversy, Yan continues to favour iterative upgrades over hype‑driven milestones, and he rarely seeks public attention beyond sparse interviews and occasional conference appearances. His low‑key style has not stopped Hyperliquid from exerting pressure on competitors to improve infrastructure and rethink incentives.
Why this matters
If you mine with one or a few hundred devices in Russia, Hyperliquid’s rise is primarily relevant as part of the broader infrastructure that shapes liquidity and derivatives access in crypto markets. A large, liquid derivatives venue can affect how traders hedge and monetize positions, which in turn influences short‑term market flows that miners may observe when selling mined coins.
Token distribution and treasury moves — like buybacks, burns and accumulation plans — change who holds and can move significant token balances, which matters for market depth and potential volatility. The October 10 criticism also highlights that liquidation mechanisms on high‑speed platforms can create sharp, concentrated moves; miners who use derivatives or lend assets should understand these mechanics.
What to do?
- Monitor your payout currency and liquidity: keep an eye on where you sell mined coins and prefer exchanges or OTC channels with demonstrated depth.
- Avoid leverage unless you understand liquidation rules: if you interact with derivatives, read platform docs on margin and liquidation mechanics before using borrowed funds.
- Protect operations: maintain backups, reliable power and cooling for your rigs, and separate hot wallets from larger cold holdings.
- Follow official channels for updates: rely on project docs and published statements rather than social media rumours when protocols change tokenomics or risk models.
Further reading
For more on Hyperliquid’s recent market dynamics and liquidity changes, see the discussion of the Hyperliquid AUM drop. For technical context on liquidations in crypto futures, consult the linked liquidation breakdown.
