The man behind Hyperliquid was an apprentice in the Binance Labs incubator 7 years ago.

Author: David, Deep Tide TechFlow

What can change in 7 years?

In the world of cryptocurrency, 7 years can turn a young person who took a photo at the Binance Labs incubator into a competitor that Binance has to take seriously.

Recently, this long-forgotten photo was suddenly uncovered by archaeology, igniting a heated discussion on social media.

Just looking at the photo, you might think this is just a regular group photo released by YZi Labs( (formerly Binance Lab) in 2018, which roughly features Garry Tan, the head of the well-known venture incubator Y Combinator, giving lectures and guidance to the founders of new projects in the BUIDLers incubation program.

The person in the C position wearing black clothes is Garry, but the focus is on what is behind him:

The young man wearing glasses, dressed in a light-colored sweater, and with a slightly naive expression, looks very much like Jeff Yan, the founder of Hyperliquid. If you enlarge this photo a bit more and compare it with the recent public photos of Jeff, it is indeed highly similar in terms of features.

Given that Hyperliquid currently holds a significant position in the Perp DEX space with daily trading volumes reaching several billion dollars, it has, to some extent, become a direct competitor to Binance's futures business. Therefore, the significance of this photo is not just about “archaeology” in a simple sense.

The comment section quickly exploded.

Many people have asked if the account chameleon_jeff is the same person as Jeff, and there are also voices suggesting that Binance may have inadvertently fostered a competitor.

Regardless, if the photo is genuine, then a tech-savvy founder completing the transformation from an incubator learner to a giant challenger in 7 years is itself a case worth analyzing.

In the early years of doing prediction markets, Jeff led N versions.

The archaeological research on Jeff in the photo above is actually not baseless; stronger evidence comes from the official records of Binance Labs.

In their published Medium article, a project named Deaux appeared in the list of the Season 1 incubation projects in 2019, and the founder is Jeff Yan.

What is Deaux? Simply put, it is a decentralized prediction market platform.

From the description at the time, what Deaux wanted to do was:

Allow anyone to create prediction events on the blockchain, where users can place bets on these events, and the prices are determined by market supply and demand. It adopts a hybrid architecture, with order matching completed off-chain and final settlement executed on-chain.

This design was quite advanced in 2018, aiming for both performance and decentralization, providing a crypto infrastructure for prediction markets.

That's right, this is also what Polymarkets are doing today. From this perspective, Jeff is indeed ahead of N versions.

This is not a case of hindsight praise either. From the publicly available information that can still be found, Deaux's design philosophy focuses on on-chain/off-chain hybrid, high-performance order matching, and decentralized settlement, which also shares similarities with today's Hyperliquid.

Jeff saw the right direction and designed a reasonable plan, but Deaux couldn't take off. Its website is now inactive, and its social media accounts have remained in 2019.

The cost of being ten steps ahead may be simply being born at the wrong time.

In 2018, the Crypto market had just fallen from the peak of the bull market into a winter, and users were focused on when the coin prices would rebound, rather than how to make money by predicting the market on-chain. More importantly, the crypto infrastructure at that time, such as public chain performance, wallet experience, and user education, was not mature enough.

A product that requires frequent trading and is sensitive to delays is difficult to provide a smooth experience under the current technological conditions.

But the fact that the project didn't succeed doesn't mean failure. Around 2020, Jeff founded Chameleon Trading, which is the predecessor of Hyperliquid. Whether it's prediction markets or derivatives trading, it is essentially a game of “order matching + risk management.”

This time, he has set his sights on perpetual contract trading, a more mature market with more rigid demand and clearer users.

At the same time, the timing was just right. FTX collapsed in 2022, and trust in centralized exchanges plummeted, igniting a strong demand for decentralized trading.

But Jeff did not take the old path of copying Uniswap or dYdX, but chose a more difficult yet thorough path by creating his own L1 chain.

At the same time, it does not rely on external liquidity providers, but instead allows users to participate directly in market making through the HLP (Hyperliquid Liquidity Provider) mechanism. More aggressively, it adopts a zero-fee model, relying on token economics and ecological growth to support operations.

From Deaux to Hyperliquid, you can see the coherence of Jeff's projects: all are on-chain/off-chain hybrid, high-performance order books, and decentralized settlement.

This time, he chose the right track and timed it perfectly.

Invisible Founder

Interestingly, despite the increasingly lively discussion about that photo on X, Jeff himself has never commented on it.

Looking through Hyperliquid's Twitter account, you can hardly find any personal photos or life shares from Jeff, only product updates, technical documents, and occasional memes;

Jeff's personal account also rarely involves the creation of personal IP, focusing more on products and optimization, as well as his views on the market. His last tweet was on September 23.

This relatively low-key style does not seem to align well with the cryptocurrency industry's emphasis on strong marketing and creating attention. Most founders are keen on AMAs, podcasts, and conference appearances, turning their personal IP into a part of the project.

But Jeff seems to be taking another route, hiding behind the code and products, responding to doubts with trading volume and user growth. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons he has come this far from the Binance Labs incubation program, not really caring about external noise and focusing on creating coherent products.

From Apprentice to Competitor

From an apprentice at the incubator in 2018 to becoming a leading player in the perpetual contract DEX by 2025, the reason why Jeff's old photos spark discussion is simply that everyone is impressed by Jeff's perseverance, and the projects incubated by Binance Labs back then may have now become his competitors.

From the perspective of the onlookers, do you think this is Binance raising a tiger to trouble them?

The crypto industry has always advocated for disruptive innovation and open creativity. Previously, Binance Labs was more like an inclusive incubator, choosing openness over control.

Comparing the incubator to a martial arts gym might make it easier to understand this matter:

The master teaches you martial arts, but you cannot be required to follow the master forever. You can open your own school and even challenge the master. It is hard to say this is “betrayal”; it feels more like a kind of inheritance.

If Binance Labs only invests in “non-competing” projects, or is worried that the founders of the incubated projects will do bigger things, can it still be called an incubator?

Therefore, incubators cannot require loyalty.

On the other hand, Binance Labs may have invested in the right person, a promising founder, even if the products created by this founder later compete with those of the parent company.

From a longer-term perspective, Binance, as an industry giant, its value is not just how much money it makes for itself, but also includes promoting the prosperity of the entire crypto ecosystem. If Binance stops incubating because of “possibly nurturing competitors,” that would be truly shortsighted.

More importantly, competition may be beneficial for the industry and players.

The rise of Hyperliquid forces other exchanges to continuously improve in terms of product experience, fee structure, transparency, and even wealth effects.

Users have more choices and can vote with their feet.

In a way, what Jeff is doing is similar to the logic that Binance used to challenge traditional exchanges back in the day:

Redefine “what an exchange should look like” with better products. This time, however, the challenge is not against Coinbase or Bitfinex, but against Binance itself.

So what can we learn from this drama?

Perhaps the real insight of this story is not the superficial drama of “Binance nurturing its competitors,” but something deeper:

Knowledge can spread, talent can flow, competition can occur, and everyone is better off benefiting from the crypto ecosystem.