Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Wenser (@wenser2010)
At the end of November, the airdrop of HYPE, the native token of Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives trading platform, which had been preheated for a month, finally came to an end. When the market opened, the price of HYPE token was about 3 US dollars. Then, in just a few days, it rose by more than 300% to nearly 10 US dollars, which attracted great attention from the market. Many people exclaimed: "I should have swiped more earlier!"
According to ASXN data, Hyperliquid airdropped a total of 274 million HYPEs, with 94,028 wallet addresses; the average airdrop amount for a single address was 2,915.66 HYPEs, and the median was 64.53 HYPEs. Calculated based on the historical high price of nearly $10, the return for a single airdrop was close to $30,000, which can be called "the largest airdrop this year."
Odaily Planet Daily will conduct an exploratory analysis in this article on Hyperliquid’s airdrop model, industry insiders’ opinions, and updates to the current coin issuance model for readers’ reference.
An unusual Genesis airdrop: Hyperliquid throws away 310 million HYPE tokens
As early as October 14, Hyperliquid officially announced the establishment of the Hyper Foundation, an organization aimed at supporting the development of the Hyperliquid blockchain and ecosystem and plans to launch the HYPE token TGE.
The official introduction at the time was, "Hyperliquid's native token HYPE is essential for the further development of the HyperBFT Proof-of-Stake consensus, HyperEVM, and the roadmap. As part of the Genesis distribution, eligible users can choose to receive HYPE and optional Hypurr NFTs."
As November approaches, Hyperliquid officials begin to prepare for the Genesis airdrop:
On November 27, Hyperliquid officials vigorously rectified the witch behavior on the eve of the airdrop. The official statement stated that more than 27,000 addresses held by about 100 entities were found to try to obtain disproportionate points through large-scale and systematic behavior. In response to this behavior, the points of these addresses will be multiplied by 2% or 20%, depending on the scale of the witch activity. The affected addresses will be marked "Witch behavior detected" on the points page. In addition, Hyperliquid allocated 8 million points for activities in May and 8.4 million points for activities in October and early November, bringing the total number of points to 57.9 million.
Subsequently, the Hyper Foundation issued an announcement to remind users who have recently started using Hyperliquid L1 and those who have missed it before that they must review and accept the Genesis Event terms and conditions before 23:59 UTC on November 28.
On November 28, Hyper Foundation officially announced that the creation event of Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE will be launched at 15:30 Beijing time on November 29, including:
The maximum supply of HYPE is 1 billion, distributed as follows:
38.888% for future emissions and community rewards;
31.0% is allocated to the Genesis allocation;
23.8% to current and future core contributors;
6.0% for the Superfund budget; 0.3% for community grants; and 0.012% for HIP-2.
Tokens will be issued over time, with 76.2% allocated to the community. Eligible participants in the genesis event will receive 310 million tokens, which will be fully unlocked. Unallocated tokens will be transferred to future issuance and community rewards. 60 million HYPE are allocated to the Hyper Foundation budget, 300 HYPE are allocated to grants, and 120,000 HYPE are allocated to Hyperliquidity (HIP-2). 388,880,000 unminted HYPE are reserved for future issuance and community rewards. Core Contributor tokens will be locked for 1 year after genesis. Most vesting plans will be completed between 2027-2028; some will continue after 2028. The genesis allocation strictly excludes core contributors. No allocations are provided for private investors, centralized exchanges, or market makers.
When the news came out, there was no shortage of doubts in the market, especially the last sentence of the rule, which made people exclaim: "Hyperliquid actually has no plans to actively attack CEX, and there is no private placement or market maker to allocate shares?"
But in retrospect, of the 310 million tokens in the Genesis Airdrop, over 274 million have been redeemed, and the 24-hour trading volume on Hyperliquid has reached $270 million. This has achieved the effect of using limited chips to boost the price of HYPE coins, which shows how smart this decision was.
Of course, the average airdrop amount does not mean that all users are "satisfied", and this HYPE token airdrop is still a "victory for big players."
According to ASXN statistics, only 18.9% of airdrop wallet addresses have more than 1,000 tokens (the peak value is about $10,000), of which:
The number of wallets with 1,000-4,100 HYPE tokens airdropped is 4,700, accounting for 9.1%;
The number of wallets for 4,100-16,400 HYPE token airdrops is 2,900, accounting for 5.6%;
The number of wallets airdropping HYPE tokens between 16,400 and 65,500 is 1,400, accounting for 2.8%;
The number of wallets airdropping 65,500-262,000 HYPE tokens is 570, accounting for 1.1%;
The number of wallets airdropping 262,000 to 1 million HYPE tokens is 147, accounting for only 0.3%.
In other words, the HYPE token airdrop is still more in line with the "80/20 rule", that is, about 20% of the addresses received nearly 80% of the total airdrop.
Wallet address analysis icon
But in any case, Hyperliquid has achieved a balance and consideration between the interests of community users and the distribution of token airdrops, and has therefore received high praise from the community.
Not only that, industry insiders have also given positive feedback to Hyperliquid and the Genesis Token airdrop, which was first seen months ago.
The "code for making wealth" that had been foreshadowed and was praised by industry insiders
In August, Su Zhu wrote that the “fat application” theory has become a reality. Both Pumpfun and Hyperliquid have adopted a high-efficiency, low-risk investment (VC) business model, and as a single application, they have dominated Solana and Arbitrum and controlled most of the value on the chain.
At the time, he predicted that more similar applications would emerge in the future and a new wave of cryptocurrency adoption was about to arrive.
In October, Kaito AI, a crypto data analysis platform, published an analysis saying, "The emergence of Hyperliquid is worth studying. In the past three months, its market share in derivatives trading has been 31%." According to the chart information, the second place is dydx with a market share of 16.76%; the third place is GMX with a market share of 11.16%.
Hyperliquid's product dominance and project operation capabilities were evident at the time, as it was able to occupy nearly one-third of the market share in the highly competitive derivatives trading sector.
This information was also agreed by many users in the community:
Chabusi, a core contributor to the community, said in a post: "Hyperliquid has proven with facts that the number of airdrop shares and the exchange listed have nothing to do with the market value. When you unite and will not betray your community, the community will also give you the greatest trust."
Community user Junzhu also expressed his affirmation of the Hyperliquid project's emphasis on the community in a post: "Hyperliquid is a very community driven project. Such a project will definitely reach the top!"
There is also a community user named Da Du Ge who posted: "The expenditure is only about 270U, and the contract trading surplus is 6000U+; the points airdrop is close to 200,000 U+ (plus HYPE token holdings) and 1 limited NFT." It is a typical example of "winning numbly".
Community user Da Du Ge shared his profit screenshots
Not only that, Hyperliquid's outstanding performance in the airdrop event also attracted the attention and recognition of Jesse Pollak, head of the Base protocol.
Previously, he wrote: "Hyperliquid shows that it's a good thing to build a product that people love before injecting price complexity. We saw the same thing with Base - starting with no tokens allowed us to focus on solving real problems, which meant we had to really work on it every day. To be clear: Hyperliquid is not the only data point in this regard. In fact, the entire history of startups shows this. There is no doubt that the most important thing is to build a world-class product that people love. That's it."
Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan also made an official statement on the project’s airdrop event, saying, “It’s inspiring to see tens of thousands of community members gain life-changing wealth in the Hyperliquid genesis event. Importantly, none of these people are insiders. Hyperliquid is a tribute to the original spirit of Bitcoin, and ownership belongs to believers and doers, not rent-seeking insiders.”
In addition, he added: "Finance is mankind's greatest invention and the only effective way to coordinate human efforts across time and space. However, the traditional financial system contradicts its fundamental goal of empowering individuals. For example, it is opaque and centralized; owned and operated by privileged insiders; and does not embrace technological innovation to better serve users. Hyperliquid is the evolution of finance, but Hyperliquid will only be successful if it encompasses all areas of finance." This move also reveals Hyperliquid's ambition to further transform and innovate the financial field.
In contrast, there is an updated discussion on Hyperliquid’s token airdrop model.
From CEX to DEX: The trend behind the Meme coin cycle
According to Coingecko data, the current price of HYPE tokens is stable at around $8.5, with a circulation of about 333 million; the market value is about $2.88 billion; the FDV is about $8.589 billion; at its previous high point, its FDV was close to $10 billion. The reason why such a project "without any allocation to private investors, centralized exchanges or market makers" has come to this point is mainly due to the following reasons:
1. Times have changed - the market environment provides the possibility for DEX to list coins
Looking back, the main advantage of listing on CEX lies in its sufficient liquidity and huge user base, making it the first choice for many projects. Countless projects have set "To Exchange" or even "To Binance" as their core goals at the beginning, hoping to complete the last link of token launch through CEX listing, so as to obtain the maximum exit liquidity.
In this cycle after 2024, the market environment has quietly changed.
First, with the passage of Bitcoin ETF and Ethereum ETF, the number of "novice traders" who previously entered the crypto industry through altcoin channels has dropped sharply. For ordinary investors, investing in BTC and ETH with the help of ETF funds has become an investment option with lower thresholds and more convenient operations, and the overall liquidity scale of the industry has decreased;
Second, with the Meme coin craze that started in March, more and more cryptocurrency players have flocked to the on-chain world. DEX listing has become the preferred choice for many crypto projects, including Meme coin projects. The liquidity on the chain is also growing, which is enough to support the development of token projects after DEX listing.
Third, the previous "high FDV, low circulation" VC coins have been cold in this cycle. The bull market was originally the "wishful thinking" of such projects to list a large number of coins, but the liquidity after being divided up by ETFs and on-chain projects is difficult to support more VC investment projects to continue to "suck blood" from CEX liquidity. "To CEX-style entrepreneurship" has gradually become an option with extremely low ROI.
To summarize, Hyperliquid’s development and airdrop first took advantage of the favorable factor of “time”.
2. The product has changed - Hyperliquid's strong product support
At the same time, Hyperliquid's own strong product strength also provides strong support for the entry of liquidity and the subsequent rise in token prices.
According to Cha Busi, a core contributor to the Hyperliquid community, “In simple terms, users can pledge their positions when opening contracts on Hyperliquid, and lending platforms can hedge risks through contracts.” At the same time, “HyperEVM can tokenize HLP/Vaults/Perp positions for use in a wider range of DeFi fields, for pledge and to improve capital utilization.”
In addition, crypto KOL Godot also introduced Hyperliquid in detail when the airdrop was issued, emphasizing its advantage of "providing a CEX-like experience on a DEX" and explaining its trading volume data. According to DefiLlama data, Hyperliquid's total trading volume has reached 437.9 billion US dollars, which is a "phenomenal performance" for a trading platform that has only been online for about a year.
Hyperliquid grasped the market demand and entered the trading market through the on-chain order book, which can be said to have a "geographical advantage".
DefiLlama Data
3. Community building - Hyperliquid says no to VC
In terms of "harmony among people", Hyperliquid has also made great efforts: this is not only reflected in the fact that no private placement, CEX, or MM are reserved for the token share allocation, but also in its community building. The fact that Hyperliquid has postponed the airdrop registration several times before shows that the project attaches great importance to the feelings of community users and has basically followed up and explained the feedback from community users in a timely manner. This can also be seen from the past industry perspective analysis of the project co-founder Jeff Yan.
Conclusion: Hyperliquid opens up new developments in DeFi 2.0
In May of this year, when Hyperliquid announced that "Hyperliquid L1 will support native EVM", it had already aimed at the development of DeFi 2.0. Now that the HYPE token Genesis airdrop has come to an end, what awaits its further development is not only the launch of various spot transactions, but also the optimization and resolution of DeFi 1.0 shortcomings, including unsustainable liquidity incentives and over-collateralization.
Although the development time is still short, in the long run, Hyperliquid is moving towards its vision of building "Binance on the chain".