a year ago, we had a crazy idea — what if you built perps for private companies?
many people told us it would never work, but we thought it was worth trying anyways.
and over the course of the past year, we proved it could be done.
it was by no means a perfect system. but for much of this year, Ventuals became the go-to venue for realtime pricing information on the most important private companies well before their IPOs.
and most importantly, for the first time ever, exposure to private companies was open to everyone — with instant execution, no paperwork, no management fees, and no performance fees.
since our mainnet launch, over 11,000 traders have done over $1B in annualized volume across our markets, and Ventuals has ranked in the top 10 RWA perps DEXs measured by open interest.
and for me, the personal anecdotes made it all the more fun. several traders have put on multi-million dollar positions in our pre-IPO markets. employees at SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, along with several late-stage VC funds, have reached out to tell us they have been using Ventuals to price their own shares.
but all good things come to an end, and this ending is making room for what’s next.
today we announced that we’re winding down Ventuals, and will be joining another team building in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. we’re really excited to share more on that soon, but today’s announcement is focused on the wind down.
over the next few days, all Ventuals deployed HIP-3 markets will be settled and halted for trading. please read the full article for details.
starting on June 19, all vHYPE holders will be able to withdraw their deposited HYPE. users can expect to get their HYPE back 1:1, plus any accrued native staking yield since their deposit. since inception, Ventuals has never earned any fees from vHYPE.
thank you to all of the traders, stakers, and market makers who gave us a shot. thank you also to the Hyperliquid team, and all the other ecosystem builders who we’ve partnered with over the last year.
while it’s bittersweet that this part of the journey is coming to an end, i am incredibly proud of what our small team pulled off, and we couldn’t have done it without your support.
more to share soon on what’s next. onwards!