In-depth Analysis: PerpDEX Reshuffle Moment, What More Can Hyperliquid Offer?

Original Title: "In-depth Analysis: The PerpDEX Reshuffle—What’s Next for Hyperliquid?"

Original Author: Biteye

Global Perpetual DEX Market Overview and Industry Transformation

The decentralized perpetual trading market is experiencing an unprecedented wave of growth and a reshaping of its competitive landscape. As of September 2025, the global perp DEX daily trading volume has surpassed $52 billion, a 530% increase since the beginning of the year, with cumulative monthly trading volume reaching $13 trillion. Behind this growth are breakthroughs in technological innovation, increasing user demand for decentralized financial products, and regulatory pressure on centralized trading platforms. The entire sector now accounts for about 26% of the crypto derivatives market, a qualitative leap from the single-digit share in 2024.

Changes in Total Perp DEX Trading Volume

The rapid segmentation of the market is reshaping the competitive landscape. Traditional order book models (such as dYdX, Hyperliquid) dominate the professional trading sector with precise price discovery and deep liquidity, while AMM models (such as GMX, Gains Network) attract retail users with instant liquidity and simplified operations. Emerging hybrid models (such as Jupiter Perps) attempt to combine the advantages of both, using keeper systems to seamlessly switch between order book and AMM in high-speed environments. Data shows that the order book model is gaining more market share, with Hyperliquid’s CLOB architecture processing a cumulative trading volume of $2.76 trillion.

The Rise of Aster DEX and Market Impact

The protocol Aster, formed by the merger of APX Finance and Astherus, has achieved a leap from zero to top-tier in just a few weeks through a multi-chain aggregation strategy and support from YZi Labs, especially CZ. On the token launch day, September 17, it saw a 1650% price surge, $371 million in trading volume on the first day, and an influx of 330,000 new wallet addresses, fully demonstrating its strong market acquisition capability.

Aster’s technological innovation is mainly reflected in improvements to user experience. Its Simple mode offers leverage up to 1001x, far exceeding Hyperliquid’s 40-50x. Although the risk is huge, it is highly attractive to speculators seeking high returns. The hidden order feature borrows from the dark pool concept in traditional finance, effectively protecting large trades from MEV attacks. The yield integration feature allows users to use yield-bearing assets such as asBNB as margin, earning a base yield of 5-7% while trading—an innovation that maximizes DeFi composability.

From a data perspective, Aster’s TVL skyrocketed from $370 million on September 14 to $1.735 billion, an increase of 328%, with BNB Chain contributing 80% of the funds. Daily trading volume repeatedly broke $20 billion, at one point surpassing Hyperliquid to become the world’s largest perpetual DEX, with 24-hour fee revenue of $7.12 million. More importantly, Aster accumulated $19.383 billion in perpetual trading volume within just a few months. Although still behind Hyperliquid’s $2.76 trillion, the growth rate is astonishing.

Community discussions show a clear split in trader preferences between the two platforms. Professional traders favor Hyperliquid, considering its "one-block confirmation" and deep liquidity essential for professional trading. In contrast, cross-chain users and beginners prefer Aster, whose multi-chain support without bridging and CEX-like user experience significantly lower the usage threshold.

Hyperliquid: Technological Leadership but Market Share Pressure

As a pioneer in the perpetual DEX field, Hyperliquid has redefined the possibilities of on-chain derivatives trading through its innovative HyperCore architecture. HyperCore achieves processing of 200,000 orders per second with 0.2-second latency, performance metrics that surpass many centralized trading platforms. With a cumulative perpetual trading volume of $2.765 trillion, current open interest of $133.5 billion, and 24-hour trading volume of $15.6 billion, these figures fully demonstrate the success of its technical architecture and user trust.

However, Hyperliquid is facing the challenge of a continuous decline in market share. Its share of the perpetual DEX market dropped from 71% in May 2025 and 80% in August to the current 38%, mainly due to the rapid rise of new competitors and the success of multi-chain strategies. Especially in terms of daily trading volume and fee revenue, Hyperliquid has been repeatedly surpassed by Aster DEX, a change that was unimaginable in the past.

Perpdex Trading Volume Statistics

Despite the challenges, Hyperliquid’s advantages remain obvious. It has the deepest liquidity, with BTC/ETH and other major asset spreads as low as 0.1-0.2 basis points; the most stable technical architecture, with one-block confirmation providing traders with unparalleled certainty; and the most mature ecosystem, with over 100 projects building a complete DeFi infrastructure on its platform. More importantly, its deflationary token model uses 99% of protocol revenue for HYPE buyback and burn, with an annualized income of $20.1 billion providing strong support for token value.

From a user quality perspective, Hyperliquid demonstrates higher user value. Of its 825,000 daily active addresses, monthly active users reach 3.651 million, and the open interest to trading volume ratio (OI/Volume) is 287%, far above the industry average. This metric indicates that Hyperliquid’s users are more likely to have real hedging needs rather than short-term speculative trading. In contrast, Aster’s ratio is only 12%; although its daily trading volume is higher, user behavior is more oriented toward short-term arbitrage.

In response to competitive pressure, Hyperliquid is also actively adjusting its strategy. The upcoming HIP-3 (permissionless perpetual market) will allow anyone to deploy custom perpetual contracts, potentially bringing innovative products such as RWA perpetuals and AI computing power futures, reigniting ecosystem vitality. The launch of the native stablecoin USDH will further improve its financial infrastructure, expected to manage $5.5 billion in funds, with 95% of the yield used for HYPE buyback, significantly enhancing token value support.

In this fiercely competitive market environment, Hyperliquid’s true moat is not just its technology, but the complete ecosystem built around its core protocol. From a pure perpetual trading platform at the beginning to a comprehensive DeFi ecosystem with over 100 projects today, Hyperliquid has formed a self-contained financial infrastructure. This ecosystem includes full-stack solutions from infrastructure, DeFi protocols, to the application layer, with each component contributing to the network’s value accumulation and user stickiness.

Against this backdrop, this article will deeply analyze the core projects and innovative applications within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, exploring how these projects build sustainable competitive advantages for Hyperliquid in fierce market competition, and how they collectively shape the future of decentralized derivatives trading.

In-depth Analysis of Core Hyperliquid Ecosystem Projects

1. Kinetiq – The Pillar of Liquid Staking (TVL: $1.757 billion)

Kinetiq’s position in the Hyperliquid ecosystem is unshakable, with its $1.757 billion TVL accounting for about 78% of the entire ecosystem, making it the core hub of capital flow. As the "Jito" of the ecosystem, Kinetiq redefines the validator delegation mechanism through its innovative StakeHub algorithm, achieving unprecedented efficiency and yield optimization.

The core of the StakeHub algorithm lies in the precise design of its multi-dimensional scoring system. The system scores over 100 active validators in real time, dynamically adjusting capital allocation strategies based on reliability (40% weight), security (25%), economic performance (15%), governance participation (10%), and operational history (10%). This algorithm not only considers validators’ historical performance but also predicts their future stability, continuously optimizing allocation weights through machine learning models to ensure delegated funds always flow to the highest-quality validators.

Kinetiq Node Operation Status

The protocol’s yield structure is extremely rich and highly competitive in the market. The base PoS reward is about 2.3% annualized, already among the top in similar LST projects. StakeHub optimization provides an additional 0.2-0.5% enhanced yield by avoiding underperforming validators, and MEV income contributes about 1% annualized, coming from Hyperliquid network’s MEV capture mechanism. Even more attractive are the integrated rewards from other DeFi protocols, offering a 6-8% variable bonus, bringing the total yield to 10-12%, which is highly competitive in the current DeFi environment.

In terms of user experience, Kinetiq achieves ultimate simplicity. Users stake HYPE to receive kHYPE tokens, enjoying a slight premium of 1:0.996, reflecting the market’s extra valuation of liquid staking tokens and confidence in protocol security. The unstaking mechanism features a 7-day safety delay and a 0.1% fee, providing a reasonable exit mechanism while ensuring network security.

Kinetiq’s TVL exploded from $458 million in July to $1.81 billion currently, a threefold increase in just two months. This growth is mainly due to the integration effect of the Pendle protocol, which creates additional liquidity demand and yield strategies for kHYPE through the PT/YT separation mechanism.

Kinetiq TVL Growth

The upcoming $KNTQ governance token will provide an important tool for the protocol’s decentralized governance and long-term value creation. It is expected that 30-50% of the token supply will be distributed to the community via airdrop, with priority given to points holders, early users, and kHYPE stakers. The core functions of $KNTQ include protocol upgrade voting, MEV routing strategy decisions, and HIP-3 market curation rights. This decentralization of governance will further enhance the protocol’s decentralization and community participation.

How to interact: Users can stake HYPE via kinetiq.xyz to receive kHYPE, supporting instant minting and a 7-day unlock period. The protocol also offers a kPoints points system, with weekly points distribution in preparation for the upcoming $KNTQ airdrop. Points can be earned based on staking amount, holding duration, and other dimensions.

2. Based – Mobile Super App and Ecosystem Entry Point

Based is the highest-earning Builder app on Hyperliquid, with a 24-hour income of about $90,300, ranking first among all third-party apps. Its cumulative perpetual trading volume exceeds $16.699 billion, with a 24-hour perpetual trading volume of $321 million, processing about 7% of Hyperliquid’s total trading volume. These figures fully reflect its high-net-worth user base and deep engagement. Its revenue model is based on Hyperliquid’s Builder fee-sharing system, with up to 0.1% of perpetual trading fees and 1% of spot trading fees shared, and most revenue returned to users through affiliate programs, forming a sustainable incentive structure for users, the platform, and Based. Seven-day income is $2.22 million, and 30-day income is $6.71 million, proving the robustness of its business model and its key role as a revenue contributor in the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

Based Trading Interface

Based’s tokenomics design reflects a deep understanding of user behavior and innovative incentive mechanisms. The $PUP token, used as an XP booster, was airdropped on August 22, 2025, with a total supply of 100 million, 5% of which was allocated to early users and community contributors. The main function of $PUP is to increase users’ XP earning efficiency, providing a 25-60% points multiplier, allowing holders to earn more rewards in trading and spending activities. $BASED, as the main governance token, will be distributed based on users’ total XP, with the snapshot date set for September 20, 2025. Each $1 of perpetual trading volume contributes 0.06 XP, each $1 of spot trading volume contributes 0.30 XP (5x incentive), and each $1 of Visa spending contributes 4-6 points (converted to XP at TGE).

This dual-token mechanism cleverly combines short-term incentives ($PUP boost) and long-term governance ($BASED distribution). $PUP holders essentially gain "leverage" for the $BASED airdrop, further strengthening user loyalty and ecosystem stickiness. In the community, $PUP’s circulating market cap is about $5 million, with the price stable around $0.05, showing strong demand as a utility tool. The expected supply of $BASED is 1 billion, with 40% allocated to the community, expected to be fairly distributed to active users via the XP system.

How to interact: Users can download the mobile app or access the web terminal, register accounts with email, and support one-click recharge of multi-chain assets. The trading interface is designed similar to traditional finance apps, offering spot and perpetual trading functions. Users can also apply for a Visa debit card (existing users should note the November deactivation schedule) for fiat spending. The XP system displays points progress in real time, and $PUP holders can activate boosts in their wallets to increase reward efficiency.

3. Pendle – Yield Tokenization Protocol Giant

Pendle’s successful deployment on HyperEVM marks the mature application of the yield tokenization concept in the Hyperliquid ecosystem and represents a new level of complexity and innovation in DeFi products. The protocol splits yield-bearing assets such as kHYPE into PT (principal tokens) and YT (yield tokens), providing investors with precise tools for fixed income investment and yield speculation. In just a few months, Pendle’s TVL on HyperEVM grew from zero to $1.23 billion, a 76.27% increase in 30 days.

Pendle TVL Distribution Across Chains

The synergy between Pendle and Kinetiq is the key factor behind its rapid success in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. This synergy is not only reflected in product complementarity but, more importantly, creates new value capture mechanisms. By tokenizing kHYPE into PT and YT, Pendle offers liquid staking users more diversified yield strategy options, while also creating new ways to earn points in Kinetiq’s system. YT-kHYPE holders can receive all Kinetiq points rewards without bearing principal volatility risk, while PT-kHYPE holders enjoy the certainty of fixed income, suitable for building stable yield strategies.

Pendle’s product matrix continues to expand, demonstrating its strategic intent for deep integration with the Hyperliquid ecosystem. In addition to the mainstream kHYPE market, the protocol has successively supported the yield tokenization of other ecosystem yield assets such as feUSD, hwHLP, and beHYPE. Each new asset creates new yield strategy combinations and arbitrage opportunities, further driving ecosystem activity and composability. Especially as more LSTs and yield assets emerge, Pendle provides standardized yield separation tools for these assets, becoming an important bridge connecting different protocols.

How to interact: Users can access the protocol, select the Hyperliquid network, and split their yield-bearing assets such as kHYPE into PT/YT, or directly trade these tokenized yield products on the secondary market. The protocol provides intuitive yield curves and maturity information to help users make investment decisions.

Pendle Yield Tokens on HyperrEVM

4. HyperLend – Core Lending Infrastructure

HyperLend, as the "credit bank" of the Hyperliquid ecosystem, plays a crucial role in the entire DeFi infrastructure, providing core support for liquidity circulation and capital efficiency improvement. The protocol adopts a market-proven Aave V3 fork architecture, but has been deeply optimized and innovated for Hyperliquid’s high-performance environment and unique asset characteristics. Its greatest technological breakthrough is the HyperLoop feature, an innovative mechanism that enables one-click leveraged looping through flash loans, providing advanced users with unprecedented capital efficiency tools while maintaining operational simplicity.

HyperLend’s architecture demonstrates a delicate balance between risk management and capital efficiency. The protocol innovatively adopts a dual-pool architecture: the unified liquidity pool handles efficient lending of core assets such as HYPE, kHYPE, and USDC, significantly reducing trading slippage and improving capital utilization through shared liquidity; the isolated risk pool handles more volatile or riskier assets, supporting fully customizable risk parameter settings to ensure that risk events of a single asset do not affect the stability of the entire system.

The technical implementation of the HyperLoop feature showcases the ultimate application of DeFi composability and a significant improvement in user experience. Through a simple and intuitive interface, the protocol automatically executes a complex sequence of atomic operations in the backend: first, it borrows the target debt asset via flash loan, then swaps it for the desired yield asset through the built-in DEX aggregator, supplies the asset as collateral to the corresponding pool, borrows more debt assets based on the new collateral, and finally repays the initial flash loan. The entire complex operation sequence is completed atomically within a single block, allowing users to easily achieve 3-5x leverage amplification without the complexity, time cost, and gas fees of multiple manual operations.

HyperLoop One-Click Loop Lending Interface

From the perspective of asset composition and operational efficiency data, HyperLend shows healthy and stable development and good market adaptability. Its $524 million total TVL is mainly composed of wstHYPE ($254 million, 48%) and native HYPE ($206 million, 39%), clearly reflecting the importance of LSTs in the ecosystem and the strong demand for native token liquidity. The current total borrowing is $267 million, with an overall utilization rate of 48%, a healthy operational range for DeFi lending protocols, ensuring sufficient liquidity for withdrawals while optimizing capital utilization for reasonable yield returns.

HyperLend Protocol Scale

HyperLend’s revenue model demonstrates a clear and sustainable ability to create business value. The protocol’s annualized income is $15.89 million, with diversified and stable revenue sources, mainly including lending spread income, liquidation fee income, and flash loan fee income. Notably, its flash loan fee is set at 0.04%, significantly lower than Aave’s standard rate of 0.09%. This competitive pricing strategy maintains market competitiveness while providing users with better cost efficiency, helping to attract more high-frequency trading and arbitrage activity. The protocol also has a robust points system, running for 22 consecutive weeks, with cumulative points distributed in preparation for the upcoming $HPL governance token airdrop, of which 3.5% of the token supply is reserved for Aave DAO.

How to interact: Users can connect their wallets to deposit and earn interest, borrow, and use the HyperLoop one-click leverage feature. The interface is simple and intuitive, providing real-time interest rate information and risk indicators to help users make informed lending decisions.

5. Hyperbeat – DeFi Super App (TVL: $387 million)

Hyperbeat positions itself as a one-stop DeFi hub, offering a complete solution covering staking, lending, yield optimization, and other diversified services. The protocol recently completed a $5.2 million seed round led by Electric Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Chapter One, DCF God, and other well-known institutions, fully reflecting institutional investors’ recognition of its business model and technical team.

Hyperbeat’s product matrix design reflects a deep concept of ecosystem integration. The beHYPE liquid staking module provides a slashable security model and supports governance participation; the Morphobeat lending market is optimized based on the Morpho protocol, specifically for LST and other yield assets; the yield vault uses Meta-Yield strategies for automated yield optimization, diversifying risk across multiple protocols. Its cross-chain integration capability allows deployment on multiple chains such as Arbitrum, currently with $28.92 million TVL on Arbitrum, expanding its user base and assets under management.

Hyperbeat’s technological innovation is mainly reflected in its automated yield optimization strategies. The protocol automatically monitors yield changes across DeFi protocols via smart contracts, dynamically adjusting fund allocation for optimal returns. This "set-and-forget" user experience significantly lowers the technical threshold for DeFi participation, especially suitable for users who want DeFi yields but are unwilling to operate frequently. The Meta-Yield strategy also includes risk hedging mechanisms, diversifying investments across multiple protocols to reduce single-protocol risk while leveraging arbitrage opportunities to enhance overall returns.

How to interact: Users can access the multi-product dashboard to perform one-stop DeFi operations such as staking, lending, and yield farming. The interface focuses on user experience, providing yield estimates and risk alerts. The Hearts points system is nearing its end, with less than 12% of the total 51 million Hearts points remaining to be distributed in preparation for the upcoming $BEAT token airdrop. The points system encourages users to stay active across multiple product modules, earning rewards through staking, lending, yield farming, and other activities.

6. USDH – Native Stablecoin Infrastructure

USDH, as the soon-to-be-launched native stablecoin of Hyperliquid, carries the important mission of improving the ecosystem’s financial infrastructure. Native Markets won the right to issue USDH in a community vote on September 14, 2025. The launch of USDH will fill the gap in native stablecoins within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, providing a more complete and autonomous financial infrastructure for the entire ecosystem.

USDH’s technical architecture reflects deep consideration for compliance and scalability. The stablecoin will be backed by US Treasuries through Stripe Bridge and traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock, ensuring sufficient asset backing and regulatory compliance. More importantly, USDH will be dual-compatible with HyperEVM ERC-20 and HyperCore HIP-1, allowing seamless flow throughout the Hyperliquid ecosystem. It can be used as collateral and liquidity in DeFi protocols and as margin in perpetual trading, achieving true native ecosystem integration.

USDH is expected to launch in Q4 2025, with specific progress depending on the completion of technical development and regulatory applications. As a key infrastructure, the successful launch of USDH will have a profound impact on the entire Hyperliquid ecosystem, not only improving user experience and capital efficiency but, more importantly, enhancing the ecosystem’s independence and sustainability. Especially in competition with external stablecoins such as USDC, USDH’s native advantages and yield-sharing mechanism will provide it with unique competitiveness.

Ecosystem Data Panorama and Development Outlook

The Hyperliquid ecosystem shows strong growth momentum and healthy development. Total TVL has reached $6.535 billion, with DeFi protocols locking $2.37 billion and perpetual trading open interest at $4.165 billion. Perpetual trading volume over 30 days reached $651.6 billion. User data shows high quality: 308,000 monthly active users, an average position size of $162,000, and a 30-day retention rate of 67%, far exceeding similar platforms.

The ecosystem’s greatest advantage lies in the deep synergy between protocols. The integration of Kinetiq and Pendle, HyperLend’s capital efficiency amplification, Felix feUSD’s internal ecosystem circulation, and Based’s mobile traffic import create a strong network effect. However, the decline in market share cannot be ignored. Hyperliquid’s share of the perpetual DEX market fell from 48.2% in August to 38.1% in September, mainly lost to competitors adopting multi-chain strategies and incentive mechanisms.

The launch of HIP-3 (permissionless perpetual market) will be an important turning point, allowing anyone to deploy custom perpetual contracts and expected to bring innovative products such as RWA perpetuals and AI computing power futures. The native stablecoin USDH is expected to manage $5.5 billion in funds, with 95% of the yield used for HYPE buyback and an annualized yield of $150-220 million, significantly enhancing token value support.

The value capture mechanism of the HYPE token is well designed: 99% of protocol revenue is used for buyback and burn, with the current annualized buyback rate at about 8.7%. However, the linear release starting November 29 will increase supply by 71%, requiring strong fundamentals to offset supply pressure.

The Hyperliquid ecosystem stands at a critical development juncture. Its success will depend on the combination of technological innovation and user experience, the balance between ecosystem openness and quality control, and the coordination between technological focus and diversified demand. The launches of HIP-3 and USDH will be important tests of its adaptability.

For investors, the ecosystem offers a wealth of investment opportunities, from stable-yield LST protocols to high-risk early-stage projects. The key is to understand the business models and risk factors of each protocol and develop reasonable strategies based on one’s own situation. The value of Hyperliquid lies not only in the success of individual protocols but also in the formation of the entire ecosystem’s network effect. In this era full of opportunities and challenges, its continuous innovation and ability to create value for users will determine its long-term development prospects.

This article is a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.