Hyperliquid has recently faced intense competitive pressure, losing its top spot among centralized derivatives exchanges to a new owner. Its daily trading volume has even surpassed competitor Aster by approximately ten times. Meanwhile, security incidents within the ecosystem are frequent, and its stablecoin initiative remains in its infancy. Amidst external and internal challenges, is Hyperliquid desperately trying to fight or is it accumulating strength for a major move? Winter is Coming: A Lost Throne and a "Data Black Hole" Hyperliquid's recent situation is besieged from all sides. Following the strong performance of the decentralized derivatives market and the HYPE token, the sector has seen a rapid influx of competitors. The most powerful of these is Aster on BNB Chain. Not only did it quickly dethrone Hyperliquid, long the leader in decentralized derivatives market share, it also surpassed it by approximately 10 times in terms of daily trading volume and other metrics. In July of this year, Hyperliquid held approximately 65% of the decentralized derivatives exchange market share, a position it has maintained since its mainnet launch in late 2024. However, as of September 22nd, data showed that Aster's market share had reached 70%, squeezing Hyperliquid's share to just 8.3%. However, this market share shift wasn't driven by a stock market with a large volume. Hyperliquid's trading volume remained relatively stable and even saw some growth. With Aster's entry into the market, trading incentives brought significant growth to the entire market. For example, from September 22nd to 29th, Hyperliquid's transaction volume reached $80 billion, still at a high level since its launch. However, it pales in comparison to Aster's exorbitant $270 billion in transaction volume during the same period. Furthermore, regarding user data, Aster's total user base has exceeded 3 million to date, while Hyperliquid has only reached 719,000 users after a year of development. In comparison, Aster's traffic volume is indeed far superior to Hyperliquid's. Data from October 1st shows that Aster's perpetual contract trading volume in the previous 24 hours was approximately $72.8 billion. Approximately 60,000 users participated in the transactions, with each address contributing an average of $1.21 million in trading volume. During the same period, Hyperliquid's per-user transaction volume was approximately $165,200. Furthermore, in addition to Aster, several competitors, such as Lighter and edgeX, have also recently performed strongly. Hyperliquiquit is facing challenges from all sides. A combined counterattack: culture, infrastructure, and ecosystem. Facing overwhelming challenges, Hyperliquiquit has not simply given in to data anxiety, but has also deployed a comprehensive approach to consolidate its long-term value. On September 28th, Hyperliquid airdropped 4,600 of its "Hypurr" NFTs to early users and contributors. This move quickly captured the community's attention. In just 24 hours, the NFT series saw trading volume exceeding $44.6 million, with the floor price reaching $68,700. The rarest piece even sold for a whopping $75,000. The release of the Hypurr NFT quickly sparked heated market discussion, rekindling speculation about Hyperliquid's potential for profiteering. On the same day that the NFT community exploded, Hyperliquid officially launched the "Permissionless Spot Quoted Asset" feature on its mainnet. This seemingly technical initiative actually holds profound strategic significance. This feature allows any stable asset that meets strict on-chain standards to become the platform's quote currency in a permissionless manner. It requires deployers to stake 200,000 HYPE tokens (locked for three years) and provide extremely deep liquidity for the stablecoin's trading pairs with USDC and HYPE. This initiative offers a new perspective on the recently heated Hyperliquid stablecoin competition. Native Markets' USDH issuance no longer represents a desperate gamble for Hyperliquid. This mechanism also allows several major players in the stablecoin competition to participate in Hyperliquid's stablecoin competition. The most crucial aspect is that it further weakens USDC's monopoly on its ecosystem. On October 1st, Ethena Labs founder Guy Young revealed that Ethena will partner with Liminal to launch a new stablecoin on Hyperliquid. Furthermore, with the recent surge in major crypto events around the world, Hyperliquid has also received significant exposure at these events. At an offline hackathon in Seoul, the three winning projects were Hyperliquid Copilot, Edgescan, and HODL Bot. These winning projects generally fall within the trading tool category. While this may reflect Hyperliquid's focus on ecosystem development, it also suggests that its diversity remains somewhat limited. The Moat Debate: After the hype, what remains of Hyperliquid? The traffic and data driven by Aster's airdrop expectations are undoubtedly astonishing, but this raises a more fundamental question: when this costly incentive frenzy subsides and trading volume returns to real demand, will the market return to Hyperliquid? Or will it completely reshape the landscape of decentralized derivatives trading? To answer this question, we must deeply compare the fundamental differences between the two and clarify Hyperliquid's true competitive advantage. First, in terms of operational thinking, the two represent completely different development philosophies. Hyperliquid is a "technological idealist," and its ecosystem development to date has been entirely centered around the ultimate trading experience. It can even be said that Hyperliquid, as a public chain, is essentially just supporting infrastructure for Hyperliquid services. Aster's operational foundation follows a different logic. As a key player in the decentralized derivatives market for Binance and the BSC chain, Aster's primary role is to represent the entire Binance ecosystem in combating the impact of decentralized derivatives exchanges like Hyperliquid. Therefore, since its inception, Aster has faced greater pressure and possessed more abundant resources, even being called Binance's "proxy war." In terms of product competition, Aster leads in multi-chain compatibility, economic model narrative, and ecosystem resources, which explains its rapid rise to prominence. Hyperliquid's primary advantage is likely its sub-second latency and 100,000 TPS performance. However, as the performance of the BSC chain improves, this advantage is gradually shrinking. On September 23rd, BNB Chain announced that it would accelerate the block interval from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds to maintain competitiveness with the fastest blockchains in the cryptocurrency space. So, what exactly is Hyperliquid's core moat? Putting aside these superficial technical and product features, it may still have significant advantages in the following aspects. 1. High-quality user accumulation. Although Aster's trading volume data is clearly ahead, there is a huge contrast between the two in terms of open interest (OI). On September 29th, Hyperliquid's open interest was US$12.9 billion, while Aster's data for the same period was only US$200 million, a difference of more than 60 times. The higher OI means that Hyperliquiquid has accumulated more real, long-term, and large-scale trading positions. Its user quality and stickiness are far beyond the reach of short-term users who mainly engage in volume arbitrage. 2. Higher locked-up value: Hyperliquid's TVL is approximately $5.77 billion, while Aster's is approximately $2.2 billion. The difference between the two appears to be just over double. However, this assumes that Aster's TVL was stimulated by airdrops, while Hyperliquid's data is relatively stable. Fundamentally, Aster currently represents more of a speculative force, while Hyperliquid has clearly accumulated a relatively long-term value investment force. 3. An independent ecosystem. Compared to Binance's powerful resources, Hyperliquid's independence, on the one hand, appears isolated, but on the other, it also represents a higher level of decision-making independence. Especially in crisis situations, the Hyperliquid system may make decisions solely for the sake of trading system stability, as exemplified by the numerous trading manipulation incidents that have occurred previously. Even facing external scrutiny, Hyperliquid remains committed to maintaining trading system stability. In contrast, Aster has yet to encounter such an incident. However, should a similar incident occur, would the BSC chain be able to implement emergency measures similar to Hyperliquid's to protect the interests of Aster's users or treasury? The likelihood is unlikely. Overall, while Hyperliquid maintains multiple defenses, the situation remains bleak. It faces more than just Aster in the market; challengers are now lining up, like six major sects sieging Guangmingding, each waiting to take their turn. At this time, Hyperliquiquit must not only innovate to address the crisis of declining traffic but also carefully make decisions. A major misstep could lead to a potentially disastrous situation. The ultimate outcome of this battle will depend on whether the market prioritizes "short-term excitement" or "long-term internal strength." For Hyperliquid, the real test has just begun.
JinseFinance
Catherine
Bernice