Hyperliquid Launches USDH Stablecoin to Boost Liquidity, Market Share

Hyperliquid's latest price was $45.70, up 1.897% in the last 24 hours. Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange specializing in perpetual futures trading, has recently launched its USDH stablecoin via HyperEVM. This move is part of a broader strategy to enhance ecosystem autonomy and respond to competitive pressures in the decentralized exchange sector. The launch of USDH aims to reduce reliance on external stablecoins like USDC, thereby increasing liquidity and market share. This initiative is a significant step towards internalizing liquidity and strengthening the platform's financial structure.

Hyperliquid, in collaboration with Native Markets, initiated the USDH launch following a multilateral bidding process. The stablecoin is backed by cash and U.S. Treasuries, offering dual-yield incentives through HYPE token buybacks and ecosystem growth. The governance process is run via Hyperliquid’s validator community, ensuring decentralized decision-making. This approach aims to reinforce platform autonomy, similar to successful precedents like MakerDAO. The competition has pressured Hyperliquid, reducing its market share from 70% to approximately 35%. The USDH introduction is poised to counteract this by internalizing liquidity previously reliant on USDC. The launch has resulted in significant market activity, indicating a strong response from the community. The stablecoin is designed to offer a stable unit of account directly integrated into the platform, with traders able to pair the asset against HYPE and USDC.

Native Markets, the team behind the USDH initiative, has locked 200,000 HYPE tokens for three years to activate the listing. This move is intended to anchor liquidity and governance alignment. Ahead of the launch, Native Markets pre-minted $15 million USDH through HyperEVM, coordinating with the network’s Assistance Fund to support initial liquidity. The issuer manages reserves through a mix of off-chain holdings and on-chain transparency tools, including oracle feeds that verify real-time balances. Additionally, a share of returns from these reserves will fund periodic HYPE buybacks, strengthening the token’s economic foundation.

Hyperliquid has faced growing competitive and operational pressure, with rival exchange Aster, backed by YZi Labs, the family office of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, surging in trading activity. Data from DeFiLlama shows Aster generated significant perpetual volume, outpacing Hyperliquid in recent weeks. However, Hyperliquid remains the larger platform on a 30-day basis, recording higher cumulative volume. Analysts warn that this lead could narrow as a significant token unlock approaches, which could impact the market performance of the digital asset.

Hyperliquid has taken a decisive step toward expanding its on-chain ecosystem with the launch of USDH. The new token is live for trading following its debut by Native Markets. The team also locked 200,000 HYPE for three years to activate the listing, a move intended to anchor liquidity and governance alignment. Ahead of the launch, Native Markets pre-minted $15 million USDH through HyperEVM, coordinating with the network’s Assistance Fund to support initial liquidity. The issuer manages reserves through a mix of off-chain holdings and on-chain transparency tools, including oracle feeds that verify real-time balances. Additionally, a share of returns from these reserves will fund periodic HYPE buybacks, strengthening the token’s economic foundation.

Hyperliquid has processed trillions of dollars in volume in its lifespan and is now the third-largest decentralized exchange in crypto. It has been the talk of the town in 2025, but what exactly is Hyperliquid? Why do people care so much about it? And how did it grow to be one of the biggest projects in crypto? Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange specializing in perpetual futures trading, built atop its own dedicated layer-1 network. Its native token HYPE has been a roaring success, rising to become a top 20 cryptocurrency by market capitalization less than a year after launching. Hyperliquid makes it easier for traders to speculate on the price fluctuations of cryptocurrencies, thanks to low fees, a large amount of available assets—and, of course, degenerate levels of leverage. Fees on Hyperliquid range from 0.07% for low-volume taker spot trades, all the way down to 0% for high-volume perp maker fees. Taker traders are when liquidity is removed from the market, while makers add liquidity to the market. For comparison, Uniswap applies a 0.3% fee on trades. Much like a centralized exchange, users can place trades on most of the major coins regardless of what chain they are on. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, TRUMP—all tradable in one place. Hyperliquid allows traders to use leverage of up to 40x. For comparison, the maximum leverage that Binance offers is 20x, and you have to meet certain requirements to access this tier. As a result, it has become a battleground for degenerate wars between whales and the crypto community. Notably, in March 2025, a whale opened a 40x leveraged short position worth $521 million against Bitcoin, which led to everyday traders teaming up in an attempt to liquidate the whale. Spectators were able to watch every movement on the Hyperliquid block explorer, which openly shows a wallet’s held positions, whether it's in profit, and its liquidation price. The whale won in this instance, dumping the position for a $3.9 million profit. All of these factors combined have led to Hyperliquid attracting over 700,000 total users since its 2023 launch and amassing a total volume of $2.7 trillion, according to its statistics dashboard.

Hyperliquid was entirely self-funded and was built by a team of just 11 people, founder Jeff Yan told WuBlockchain in August 2025. He said the project rejected venture capital funding because it gives a fake sense of progression; instead, the team wanted to focus on “real progress” by giving value to users—not investors. In 2020, Yan started to trade crypto and founded a market-making company, the earliest form of Hyperliquid. Two years later, he told the When Shift Happens podcast, its high-frequency market-making offering had effectively “capped out,” as he looked to grow the project. That’s when Sam Bankman-Fried’s centralized exchange FTX imploded by using customer funds to cover losses at his trading firm Alameda Research. When a critical mass of users sought to withdraw their funds, their money wasn’t there, and the exchange was caught with its pants down. Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy, resulting in a 25-year prison sentence. “All of a sudden, people had a real reason not to trust centralized exchanges—and it wasn’t just mumbo jumbo intellectual stuff, they literally lost all this money, and it was because of centralized exchanges,” Yan told the podcast, calling it a “light bulb moment” indicating that the world was ready for decentralized finance. The collapse of FTX, Yan said, was the catalyst that made Hyperliquid “go all in” on building a decentralized exchange. In February 2023, Hyperliquid’s mainnet closed alpha went live. In its first five months, it claimed to have attracted 4,000 users, with 28 different assets available to trade. It hit full mainnet in August of that same year. Hyperliquid experienced explosive growth following its $1.6 billion airdrop in November 2024—one of the biggest crypto airdrops of all time. Armed with goodwill among traders, Hyperliquid became the talk of the town going into 2025. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the platform. In December 2024, Hyperliquid attracted unwanted attention from North Korean hackers snooping for vulnerabilities. A few months later, it faced a liquidation crisis and was forced to delist a Solana meme coin when a trader made a bet so bad that the Hyperliquid Foundation would’ve been forced to cover some losses. The incident raised concerns around how the exchange handled heavily leveraged positions—with Gracy Chen, CEO of centralized exchange Bitget, claiming it could become “FTX 2.0.” Hyperliquid has proven to be relatively drama-free since these early growing pains, and has quickly established itself as a player in the crypto space. As of this writing, according to DefiLlama, it has the eighth largest DeFi total value locked of any layer-1 network—ahead of chains like Aptos, Avalanche, and Linea. It also processes the third-highest monthly trading volume of any decentralized exchange. With stablecoins becoming one of the dominant narratives in 2025, the question of whether Hyperliquid would issue its own stablecoin has inevitably been the subject of intense speculation. Hyperliquid founder Yan said in the WuBlockchain interview that the Hyperliquid Foundation, the entity that supports the development of the Hyperliquid blockchain and its ecosystem, wouldn’t issue its own stablecoin. However, in September 2025, the foundation opened submissions for teams to issue a “Hyperliquid-aligned” stablecoin, USDH. It attracted proposals from big-name players like Ethena, Paxos, and Sky, but ultimately went to a newly formed company in Native Markets. With USDH now live and trading, Hyperliquid now has a stablecoin that has dedicated half of its revenues to a protocol-driven buy back scheme. Now, Hyperliquid faces direct competition from the emerging Aster decentralized exchange, which is offering higher levels of leverage and has the backing of Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. At the time of publication, Hyperliquid is ahead in terms of token valuation and trading volume—but how long will that last? Hyperliquid has taken a decisive step toward expanding its on-chain ecosystem with the launch of USDH, a native stablecoin designed to serve the decentralized exchange. The new token is live for trading following its debut this week by Native Markets, the Hyperliquid-based team behind the initiative. On September 27, Native Markets confirmed that USDH is now available on the exchange’s decentralized spot and derivatives markets. According to the firm, traders can pair the asset against HYPE — Hyperliquid’s governance token — and USDC, giving users a stable unit of account directly integrated into the platform. The team also locked 200,000 HYPE for three years to activate the listing, a move intended to anchor liquidity and governance alignment. Ahead of the launch, Native Markets pre-minted $15 million USDH through HyperEVM, coordinating with the network’s Assistance Fund to support initial liquidity. According to Native Markets, USDH is backed by cash and short-term US Treasuries. The issuer manages reserves through a mix of off-chain holdings and on-chain transparency tools, including oracle feeds that verify real-time balances. Additionally, a share of returns from these reserves will fund periodic HYPE buybacks, strengthening the token’s economic foundation. The release follows a governance contest earlier this month in which Native Markets won community approval to issue Hyperliquid’s first stablecoin. The project outperformed proposals from competitors and major issuers like Paxos and Agora. USDH’s arrival comes at a time when Hyperliquid is under growing competitive and operational pressure. In recent weeks, rival exchange Aster — backed by YZi Labs, the family office of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao— has surged in trading activity. Data from DeFiLlama shows Aster generated significant perpetual volume, outpacing Hyperliquid in recent weeks. Still, Hyperliquid remains the larger platform on a 30-day basis, recording higher cumulative volume. However, analysts warn that this lead could narrow as a significant token unlock approaches, which could impact the market performance of the digital asset. Hyperliquid has advanced its ecosystem with the introduction of a new stablecoin and associated trading pair. The decentralized exchange officially launched USDH on September 27th, a stablecoin specifically designed to enhance liquidity within its platform. This release aims to provide users with a dedicated asset for seamless trading operations on the decentralized exchange. Following the stablecoin deployment, Hyperliquid expanded market accessibility by introducing the HYPE/USDH spot trading pair, broadening options for participants within its native markets.

A significant security breach impacting the Hyperliquid ecosystem emerged with accusations against Hypervault. Built upon Hyperliquid's layer-1 blockchain, Hypervault was a decentralized finance project allowing user deposits deployed across protocols for yield generation. On the morning of September 27th, blockchain security firm PeckShield flagged abnormal withdrawals totaling approximately $3.6 million in cryptocurrency and stablecoins from the project. Analysis indicated these funds were transferred via a bridge from Hyperliquid to Ethereum, converted into ETH, and subsequently routed through Tornado Cash, a platform known for obfuscating transaction trails. The deletion of HyperVault's official social media account and the shutdown of its website further supported conclusions by PeckShield and data aggregator DeFi Llama that the project executed a rug pull, a deceptive exit scam where developers abandon the project after collecting user funds.

Further security concerns surfaced regarding Hyperdrive on the same day. Hyperdrive confirmed a vulnerability exploit within its market structure, resulting in substantial losses approaching $1 million. In immediate response to safeguard user assets and mitigate potential further damage, the project's operators implemented a freeze on all market operations pending a comprehensive investigation and resolution.

These developments underscore a period of notable expansion for the Hyperliquid platform alongside persistent challenges within the decentralized finance space. The launch of the USDH stablecoin and the HYPE/USDH trading pair demonstrates continued development focus. However, the Hypervault incident highlights significant security risks associated with third-party projects operating atop the Hyperliquid infrastructure, while the Hyperdrive exploit emphasizes ongoing operational vulnerabilities needing robust security measures.