How does Hyperliquid, with a valuation of $25.9 billion, occupy both the infrastructure and application layers?

Original author | Charlie.hl（@0x Broze）/supermeow.hl（@supermeower）

Compile | Odaily Daily (@OdailyChina).

Translator | Dingdong (@XiaMiPP).

Editor's note: Recently, U.S.-listed companies Lion Group Holding and Eyenovia have successively announced that they will include Hyperliquid's native token HYPE on their balance sheets, which is the first time after BTC, ETH, BNB, SOL, TRX, XRP that the native token of an emerging DeFi project has been listed as a strategic reserve asset in the traditional capital market. This move marks the institution's recognition of the security, stability and economic model behind HYPE, and also means that Hyperliquid is no longer just an on-chain trading protocol, but is gradually becoming a mainstream candidate for "digital asset financial infrastructure".

This paper integrates the research results of Charlie.hl and supermeow.hl to analyze from two dimensions: first, how Builder Code drives protocol revenue and ecosystem expansion; 2. How the agreement repurchase mechanism can build a valuation model for HYPE.

With Hyperliquid Builder Code approaching $10 million in revenue, it's worth taking a deep dive into this emerging ecosystem and the applications behind it, and what it means for Hyperliquid to go in the future at the infrastructure level. It's not common for a protocol to dominate both the application and infrastructure layers, and Hyperliquid is steadily moving in this direction, and the philosophy behind its Builder Code is becoming clearer.

Builder Code: A revenue engine for the open trading ecosystem

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Hyperliquid ecosystem, what exactly is a Builder Code? How does it work?

As stated in the official documentation: "The Builder Code allows developers to charge a fee for filled orders placed on behalf of users. Each order can be individually set up with a Builder Code for maximum flexibility. Users are required to set an acceptable maximum fee for each developer, and the authorization can be revoked at any time. The Builder Code is handled entirely on-chain as part of the fee logic. ”

In layman's terms, Builder Code enables apps built on top of Hyperliquid to charge a fee based on the volume of transactions imported. Any platform can integrate the Builder Code, which requires users to sign an authorized trade to accept the fee mechanism before trading (the process can now be seen on the newly launched Felix Trade, which already supports calling Hyperliquid's spot buying and selling feature via @felixprotocol).

Builder Code Total Revenue: HypeBurn Data

How much does Builder Code benefit developers? The maximum fee allowed by the protocol is currently 0.1% for perpetual contracts and 1% for spot trading.

While a spot fee of 1% sounds high and is not yet widely adopted, this rate is likely to become the norm as more long-tail assets come live on Hyperliquid. For example, Axiom, which focuses on meme coin trading on Solana, generates more than $1 million a day for its 1% interface fee. While most of this revenue comes from Solana, it is expected to shift to Hyperliquid as the number of spot deployers on Hyperliquid increases.

Who is leading the way in Builder Code? Where is it headed?

While growing rapidly, Builder Code's overall revenue is still in its early stages, currently accumulating around $9.5 million. Among them, @pvp_dot_trade leads the way with about $7.2 million, making it the highest-grossing Builder in the current world. But that's just the beginning.

At present, more than 22 new developers have started to participate in the construction of the Builder Code ecosystem, driving more transaction traffic into Hyperliquid. The closest thing to a true consumer product is @okto_web3, and while its current revenue from Builder Code is only $662,000, that number could change significantly in the future due to its reach beyond Hyperliquid.

It's important to point out that Okto is still a typical crypto-native app, while the likes of Liquid and Lootbase are aimed at a broader general user market and offer a Robinhood-like trading experience, which may be more appealing. At first one might expect that the Builder Code would only be adopted by existing cryptographic interfaces (such as Axiom) to invoke the underlying infrastructure of HL. But judging by the trends in Liquid and Lootbase, this assumption may need to be revised.

Top 20 Builder Code App

However, Hyperliquid is not only a perpetual contract DEX, but also a trading infrastructure. This will become clearer as more large trading platforms choose to plug into Hyperliquid's Builder Code rather than compete head-to-head.

In this model, the platform no longer needs to build its own market or pull liquidity to launch new coins, but to achieve permissionless listing through Hyperliquid's spot deployment and upcoming HIP-3 proposals, and then integrate the Builder Code to build the optimal interface and user experience, which can create considerable income just like Axiom and PvP Trade.

The future of Builder Code will depend on the opt-in of large interface platforms that have strong distribution capabilities but want to avoid the costs and risks of building their own market.

Robinhood Vs Hyperliquid Builder Code: A Possibility

Robinhood, a more traditional, non-crypto-native fintech company, offers a viable path if it wants to accelerate in-app adoption of crypto assets and enable large-scale fee income capture. In January 2025 alone, Robinhood reported a whopping $144.7 billion in stock trading volume, 166.6 million options contracts, and $20.4 billion in crypto asset trading volume.

This part may be worth writing a separate article for in-depth analysis, but it is foreseeable that Robinhood will only need to invest about 1 million HYPE (a negligible amount of its funding) to start deploying its own marketplace based on Hyperliquid's battle-proven infrastructure optimized for perpetual contracts, and capture fee revenue at the interface layer through the interface integration Builder Code.

For Robinhood, this architectural decision could save it months or even years in development cycles, as well as millions of dollars in technology costs. The Hyperliquid community does the low-level work, and Robinhood sits back and relaxes.

HYPE Token Valuation Analysis

The Builder Code demonstrates Hyperliquid's monetization capabilities at the infrastructure layer, and if the Builder Code is the front-end "distribution layer" that drives the prosperity of the trading ecosystem, then the HYPE token is the core value carrier of this system. The analysis attempts to value the HYPE token by comparing the Hyperliquid protocol's fund-backed buybacks to those of traditional public companies.

Using payment processing companies such as Visa and Mastercard as a conservative reference group, the methodology yields an implied valuation of $25.9 billion for HYPE (or about $76/HYPE, up 72% from the current price of $44). Notably, the valuation does not yet include the broad use of HYPE as a Layer-1 native asset.

The methodology for this valuation is described in more detail below.

Quantify the return on capital

Based on on-chain data for the past 30 days as of June 16, 2025, the Hyperliquid protocol has an average daily buyback of $1.63 million. Based on this extrapolation, its quarterly buybacks totaled approximately $146.4 million.

Data from data.asxn.xyz

To assess the market's valuation of similar cash flows, we refer to the multiple metric of "market capitalization/quarterly repurchase amount" of listed companies. This multiple reflects how much market value the market is willing to give to each dollar of repurchases, which varies significantly from industry to industry, reflecting the market's confidence in its growth and stability.

Comparison of multiples by industry:

• Tech giants (average multiple: 296 x): Companies such as NVIDIA and Google are highly valued due to their high growth, technological innovation, and market dominance.

• Payment industry (average multiple: 177 x): For example, Visa and Mastercard, as high-profit, strong network effect financial infrastructure, the multiplier is stable and high.

• Banking sector (average multiple: 73.3 x): Mature institutions such as JPMorgan and Bank of America are mature institutions with slower growth and high regulatory pressures, resulting in lower valuation multiples.

Of the comparisons above, the one that best fits Hyperliquid's business model is the payments industry. Like Visa or Mastercard, Hyperliquid is a critical piece of infrastructure in the financial system: with high profit margins, its business model is directly tied to transaction volume, and the network effect continues to grow, with more users and liquidity, the greater the value of the platform.

While HYPE can be used as an analogy to tech companies in some ways, using valuation multiples for the tech sector can lead to exaggeration and lack practical reference. In contrast, the payments industry has more conservative valuation multiples and is more comparable.

Applying the payments industry multiple, HYPE's implied valuation is:

• Quarterly buyback estimate: $146.4 M

• Payments Industry Valuation Multiple: 177 x

• Implied Valuation: $ 146.4 M × 177 = $ 25.9 B

• HYPE Unit Price: Approximately $76 (up approximately 72% from the current $44).

Note: $44 is the value of HYPE at the time of publication

This valuation is not only sizable, but also highly conservative. It is based on a core metric and deliberately ignores the other multiple sources of value that HYPE possesses. Why is this valuation conservative?

• Focus on a single dimension: The model does not consider the value premium of HYPE as a high-performance Layer-1 native token, its role in the governance mechanism, or the utility of future staking rewards.

• Based on historical data: The data used is based on the performance of the last 30 days only and does not take into account the potential pull of Hyperliquid's subsequent revenue growth or market share increase on the repurchase amount.

The model uses the average valuation multiple of the payment industry to avoid the use of high multiples common in the technology industry, and further ensures the conservative valuation.

Summary: Buyback framework provides HYPE with a clear valuation "floor"

While no single approach can cover the full value of crypto assets, valuations anchored by strong protocol buybacks combined with real cash flows do provide HYPE with a data-backed benchmark for value. As the Hyperliquid ecosystem continues to grow, this valuation "floor" is expected to continue to rise.