How Two Things Can Be True At Once - Hyperliquid
I find myself in a weird place with Hyperliquid.
I am incredibly bullish on the hyperliquid:native token.
But I am becoming increasingly bearish on Hyperliquid as a trader-facing exchange.
For many months now, Iโve talked about how much I wish Hyperliquid would spend real time improving its user interface and overall user experience.
Because traders live and work inside these products.
The interface matters. The flow matters. Intuitive design matters. The small things that reduce friction matter a lot when real money is on the line.
And yet, for over a year, Hyperliquid has failed to ship any meaningful improvements in those areas.
As one of the largest revenue-generating protocols in all of crypto, at some point you have to ask: why?
The answer seems pretty clear.
They chose to be an infrastructure company.
They chose to build the rails. The engine. The backend. The liquidity layer. The thing other people can build on top of.
And to be fair, they have done that incredibly well.
For a while, I wondered if I was just a lone voice in the wilderness. Maybe the things I wanted only mattered to me. Maybe most traders were perfectly happy with the experience as-is.
But $82 million generated by builder codes tells me Iโm not alone.
Over 20,000 unique traders connect to Hyperliquid through another interface every single day.
That is not a rounding error.
That is the market speaking.
That is traders saying, โWe like the liquidity. We like the engine. But we want a better cockpit.โ
Companies like Based, Insilico, and even wallet apps have listened to what active traders actually want. They have focused on smoother trading interfaces, better workflows, simpler execution, and features that make the experience feel less like you're fighting the product and more like using it.
That revenue exists only because the demand exists.
And thatโs the part I donโt think should be ignored.
It is entirely possible to focus on infrastructure while also improving the customer experience. I understand Hyperliquid runs an incredibly lean team. I understand the desire to pick a lane and stay focused. A lot of infrastructure companies donโt try to be everything to everyone. They focus on becoming the best infrastructure layer possible.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that.
But that is much closer to a B2B business model.
And my personal passion is B2C. It's where I've spent much of my adult life.
And I am a consumer of these products, after all. I am a trader. I care about what it actually feels like to use them every day.
And from that perspective, Hyperliquid has become a strange contradiction inside my own mind.
As infrastructure, I think Hyperliquid will continue to dominate.
As the "AWS of perps", it may become one of the most important companies in the entire industry.
And because so much revenue flows back toward HYPE, I believe the token has some of the best potential in crypto. I fully expect HYPE to be one of the darling runners of the next cycle. In fact, it already has been - in a bear market no less.
But as a trader?
I keep feeling disappointed.
Because it could be so much better.
That is the frustrating part.
The trader experience still feels like an afterthought.
And the data shows I'm not alone in feeling that.
So yes, two things can be true at once.
HYPE can be one of the best tokens in crypto.
And Hyperliquid can still be leaving a massive amount of trader love, loyalty, and user experience on the table.
๐ซก From the depths โ
The White Whale ๐