Original title: The largest airdrop of the year? Hyperliquid sees an average airdrop of $28,500, with HYPE's popularity leading to a new gold rush.

Original author: Frank, PANews

Reposted: Luke, Mars Finance

After much anticipation, it finally arrived. On November 29, the decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid announced the Genesis event for its native token HYPE. After the token went live, the price of HYPE soared from an opening price of $2 on November 29 to a peak of $9.8 on December 1, increasing nearly 5 times in less than 3 days.

Compared to other major airdrop projects this year, HYPE's market performance has indeed been stunning. In this airdrop, Hyperliquid distributed a total of 310 million tokens, and even at an opening price of $2, the airdrop scale reached $620 million. It can absolutely be considered one of the largest airdrop projects of the year.

However, strangely, in the early days leading up to Hyperliquid's airdrop, there were few Chinese KOLs discussing it on social media, and there were also not many Chinese bloggers who subsequently 'shared their gains'. It seems that those focused on getting airdrops collectively missed out on this major opportunity.

Airdrops were sent to 94,000 addresses, with the highest airdrop amount nearing $10 million.

According to data from ASXN Data, the actual airdrop amount for Hyperliquid was approximately 274 million tokens (some users missed the opportunity to claim due to not signing the Genesis Event terms). A total of 94,000 addresses received the airdrop, with an average of 2915 HYPE per address. Calculated at $9.8 on December 1, this amounts to approximately $28,500. From this perspective, Hyperliquid is indeed one of the largest airdrops of the year.

However, the average of 2915 tokens hides the 80/20 rule, with the average being inflated by large airdrop recipients; the median airdrop amount is only 64.53 tokens. In terms of overall ratios, about 38.7% of users received between 10 and 100 tokens, and 17.9% of users received 10 tokens or less. Therefore, about 56.6% of users received no more than 100 tokens. The percentage of accounts receiving fewer than 1000 tokens is 83.9%. From this perspective, most people did not meet the average of 2915 tokens, but even at a few hundred dollars, Hyperliquid's airdrop can still buy an Apple phone.

On a single address, the highest amount claimed was 970,000 tokens, which, at $9.8, translates to an airdrop scale of $9.56 million. It should become the highest claimed single address value among airdrop projects in 2024 (Starknet's largest single address is $360,000, Jupiter's largest single address is $130,000).

Two days after the airdrop brought in 10,000 new users.

Although there wasn’t much promotion on social media, the luxurious airdrop results still brought a significant number of new users to Hyperliquid. According to historical data, before the airdrop was announced, Hyperliquid's daily new users remained below 500, most of the time around 150 new users. However, on November 29 and 30, a total of 10,993 new users were added, even surpassing the total number of new users in the past month. On November 30, the total number of trading transactions exceeded 3.44 million, increasing more than 10 times compared to before the airdrop.

However, the surge in user activity does not seem to have brought about a change in trading volume. The total trading volume for the two days from November 29 to November 30 was approximately $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion, without significant growth. However, compared to other projects where user numbers plummeted after airdrops, Hyperliquid's performance is indeed somewhat unique.

The growth trend of Hyperliquid has already taken shape. According to data from defillama, Hyperliquid Perp ranks second among all derivatives protocols, slightly below Jupiter Perpetual. On November 17, Hyperliquid briefly led Jupiter to become number one. In July of this year, Hyperliquid was ranked fourth, after GMX and DYDX. As a rising star among decentralized derivatives exchanges, the rise of Hyperliquid has already begun.

Hyperliquid's ecosystem tokens have collectively surged.

As of December 1, HYPE's market capitalization exceeded $3.3 billion at its peak, ranking about 44th among all tokens, comparable to OKB. The market capitalization of ARB is currently around $4 billion, and if HYPE's price continues to rise, it could potentially surpass ARB directly.

For those who received the airdrop, the significant rise of HYPE is undoubtedly the best booster. On social media, many KOLs have stated that compared to those who raised a lot of money but designed complex rules and user gaming, Hyperliquid’s airdrop is simply the best of the year. Some users also noted that HYPE is currently just a standalone coin, only tradable on Hyperliquid.

With the popularity of HYPE, Hyperliquid seems to have become a new gold mine. In addition to HYPE, other tokens on Hyperliquid have also rapidly surged during this wave of excitement. From November 29 to December 1, native trading tokens on Hyperliquid such as PURR, JEFF, HFUN, etc., experienced significant rises. Especially JEFF (a MEME coin themed around Hyperliquid founder Jeff), which saw a peak increase of nearly 10 times within three days. OMNIX, OMNIX, OMNIX have also seen exponential growth in recent days.

However, how long this strong upward trend can be maintained remains an unknown.

So far, Hyperliquid's on-chain deposits and withdrawals still need to be bridged via Arbitrum. Over 60% of USDC tokens on the Arbitrum chain are held by Hyperliquid addresses. This seems to be a mutually beneficial process; Hyperliquid brings sufficient active addresses and funds to Arbitrum, while Arbitrum provides Hyperliquid with stable and low-cost infrastructure before its mainnet launch.

So far, Hyperliquid has not accepted any investments. The Hyperliquid Foundation stated in the announcement of the Genesis event that there was "no allocation for private investors, centralized exchanges, or market makers". Previously, PANews conducted in-depth research on Hyperliquid's development philosophy and other details. (Related reading: Are major MEME coins with market values in the hundreds of millions, and the L1 public chain Hyperliquid focusing on derivatives trading, the new MEME gold mine?)

According to official information from Hyperliquid, the Hyperliquid EVM has currently launched on the testnet, but integration with other L1 states has not yet been completed. In the short term, it seems that asset transfers through cross-chain bridges cannot be utilized like other L1s. Additionally, as an L1, Hyperliquid's ecosystem is not yet well-developed, with everything from the browser to the DEX being in a self-operated model. This approach has its pros and cons; the benefit is that all technological innovations and developmental focuses revolve around improving the performance of decentralized derivatives exchanges, aiming to build a decentralized Binance. The downside is that it may be difficult to expand brand influence through ecosystem expansion.

From the perspective of Hyperliquid's official social media operations, besides announcements, there is almost no other content being released. This is a kind of persistent simplicity, but in the crypto field, which is keen on hype and momentum, it is indeed quite unique.

However, the recent heat surrounding Hyperliquid once again confirms that any marketing gimmicks pale in comparison to price increases.