Unpicking Hyperliquid’s golden airdrop, the most lucrative token giveaway of all time

Excluding enterprise capital and prioritizing early lovers turned out to be a successful mixture for the DeFi token

On the finish of final 12 months, crypto Twitter was raving concerning the newest airdrop. Nothing new there — buzzy airdrop bulletins blast into social newsfeeds each week. However this time the hype was actual. In truth, HyperLiquid ($HYPE) had pulled off one of the extraordinary airdrops ever.

The corporate took a really completely different path to market, reserving the lion’s share for early customers with no set-asides for VCs, centralized exchanges, or market makers.

A cult-like following, pent-up VC demand, and kudos from analysts culminated in essentially the most profitable airdrop in historical past, valued at near $7.5 billion on the finish of 2024.

It was so singularly profitable that analysts now surprise how sustainable the community-first method actually is. Did HYPE break the mildew, solely to interrupt its personal mannequin?

• Created by Hyperliquid Labs, Hyperliquid is a DeFi-focused L1 blockchain created to host the venture’s flagship futures alternate, Hyperliquid DEX.
• In November 2024, Hyperliquid launched its HYPE token by way of airdrop.
• The airdrop turned essentially the most profitable of all time, value about $7.5 billion on the finish of 2024.

Hyperliquid is a layer one (L1) blockchain constructed to host decentralized finance (DeFi) purposes. It makes use of delegated Proof of Stake (PoS or dPOS) secured by a consensus mechanism known as HyperBFT.

Hyperliquid says it may possibly deal with throughput of 100,000 orders per second, recording each order, cancellation, commerce, and liquidation with block latency of lower than one second.

A word to buyers from ETF and Mutual Fund supervisor VanEck calls Hyperliquid a “hybrid blockchain” that may be thought of each a layer 1 (L1) and a layer three (L3).

Working its personal set of validators makes Hyperliquid an L1, VanEck analysts wrote. Nevertheless, since most of Hyperliquid’s buying and selling capital is in USDC stablecoin, which is bridged from the Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 (L2) chain Arbitrum, Hyperliquid successfully turns into an L3 — depending on each Arbitrum and Ethereum for the state of USDC tokens.

This twin framework was chosen, VanEck added, as a result of it permits Hyperliquid to optimize its blockchain to course of many extra TPS than different blockchains whereas additionally giving Ethereum customers a safer, extra responsive bridge.

“The L1 structure offers Hyperliquid a scaling benefit over rivals whereas the L3 framework offers Hyperliquid entry to Ethereum’s large base of customers and property.”

The Hyperliquid DEX, a totally on-chain order ebook perpetual futures alternate, is the venture’s flagship software. Initially, Hyperliquid’s L1 was optimized for the Hyperliquid DEX. Low charges, clear on-chain trades, as much as 50x leverage, and one-click buying and selling are a few of its foremost options.

Though Hyperliquid had earlier introduced in April 2023 that the venture has no plans to “assist general-purpose sensible contracts” on the Hyperliquid L1, it’s at present growing a general-purpose Ethereum digital machine (EVM) known as HyperEVM.

The HyperEVM is just not a separate chain however fairly secured by the identical HyperBFT consensus as the remainder of the L1. This lets the EVM work together immediately with the native elements of the L1, akin to spot and perp order books,” mentioned Hyperliquid.

The corporate behind the venture, Hyperliquid Labs, is led by CEO Jeff Basedzos and a bunch of tech heavyweights from Harvard, CalTech, and MIT. Members of Hyperliquid Labs have additionally beforehand labored at Airtable, Citadel, Hudson River Buying and selling, and Nuro.

The group initially labored on proprietary market-making in crypto in 2020, later increasing to develop DeFi options in 2022.

Based on Hyperliquid’s official web site, Hyperliquid Labs is a self-funded group and has not taken exterior capital.

HYPE, the native token of Hyperliquid L1, is designed for staking and fuel price cost on HyperEVM.

Previous to the airdrop, Hyperliquid mentioned tokens allotted to core contributors shall be locked for one 12 months after genesis, and that the majority token vesting schedules could be accomplished between 2027 and 2028.

No tokens had been allotted to non-public buyers, centralized exchanges, or market makers.

Listed below are the important thing HYPE token tokenomics as of January 9, 2025:

In a 12 months marked by crypto neighborhood frustration over sky-high valuations of enterprise capital-backed tokens, and criticism of low float, excessive totally diluted valuations, Hyperliquid’s community-first method reinvigorated a bloated crypto airdrop market.

The venture was rewarded for its egalitarian method and has gained a type of cult standing amongst crypto devoted, not least as a result of it seems to have the utility and vary of use instances promised by its founders.

In March 2025, the Hyperliquid DEX is broadly thought of to be one of the best perpetual futures DEX. Figures from DefiLlama recorded a 24-hour quantity of over $6.19 billion in Mid-February. Solana-based Jupiter got here second with a quantity of $983.2 million.