How does Hyperliquid, valued at $25.9 billion, simultaneously occupy both the infrastructure and Application Layer?

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

Compiled | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Translator | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

Editor’s Note: Recently, the US-listed companies Lion Group Holding and Eyenovia announced that they will include Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE in their balance sheets. This is the first time that traditional capital markets have listed the native tokens of emerging DeFi projects as strategic reserve assets, following BTC, ETH, BNB, SOL, TRX, and XRP. This move signifies institutional recognition of the safety, stability, and economic model behind HYPE, and it 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 article integrates the research findings of Charlie.hl and supermeow.hl, analyzing from two dimensions: first, how Builder Code drives protocol revenue and ecological expansion; second, how the protocol repurchase mechanism constructs a valuation model for HYPE.

As the revenue from Hyperliquid’s Builder Code approaches 10 million dollars, it is necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis of this emerging ecosystem and the applications behind it, and to explore its far-reaching implications for Hyperliquid’s future direction at the infrastructure level. It is rare for a protocol to dominate both the application layer and the infrastructure layer simultaneously, and Hyperliquid is steadily moving in that direction, with the concept behind its Builder Code becoming increasingly clear.

Builder Code: Revenue engine for an open trading ecosystem

For readers who are not yet familiar with the Hyperliquid ecosystem, what exactly is Builder Code? How does it work?

As stated in the official documentation: “Builder Code allows developers to charge a fee for executed orders placed on behalf of users. Each order can have a separate Builder Code set for maximum flexibility. Users need to set a maximum acceptable fee for each developer and can revoke authorization at any time. Builder Code is fully processed on-chain as part of the fee logic.”

In simple terms, the Builder Code allows applications built on Hyperliquid to charge fees based on the imported trading volume. Any platform can integrate the Builder Code, and users need to authorize the transaction before trading to accept this fee mechanism (this process can currently be seen on the newly launched Felix Trade, which supports calling Hyperliquid’s spot trading functionality through @felixprotocol).

Builder Code Total Revenue: HypeBurn Data

How much profit can Builder Code bring to developers? The current maximum fee standard allowed by the protocol is: perpetual contracts 0.1%, spot trading 1%.

Although a 1% spot trading fee may sound high and is not widely adopted yet, this rate could become the norm as more long-tail assets launch on Hyperliquid. For example, Axiom, which focuses on meme coin trading on Solana, generates over $1 million daily from a 1% interface fee. While most of this revenue comes from Solana, as more spot deployers gradually increase on Hyperliquid, such income is expected to shift to Hyperliquid.

Who is leading the Builder Code? Where will it go next?

Although it has grown rapidly, the overall revenue of Builder Code is still in its early stages, currently totaling about 9.5 million dollars. Among them, @pvp_dot_trade leads by a wide margin with about 7.2 million dollars, making it the highest-earning Builder at present. But this is just the beginning.

Currently, more than 22 new developers have started participating in the ecological construction of Builder Code, driving more trading traffic into Hyperliquid. Among them, the one closest to a true consumer-grade product is @okto_web3. Although its revenue from Builder Code currently stands at only $662,000, this number may change significantly in the future due to its business coverage extending beyond just Hyperliquid.

It should be noted that Okto is still a typical crypto-native application, while platforms like Liquid and Lootbase are aimed at a broader ordinary user market, providing a trading experience similar to Robinhood, which may be more attractive. Initially, it was expected that Builder Code would only be adopted by existing crypto interfaces (such as Axiom) for calling the underlying infrastructure of HL. However, based on the trends of Liquid and Lootbase, this assumption may need to be revised.

Top 20 Builder Code Apps

However, Hyperliquid is not just a perpetual contract DEX, but also a trading infrastructure. This will become increasingly clear as more large trading platforms choose to integrate Hyperliquid’s Builder Code rather than compete with it directly.

In this model, the platform no longer needs to build its own market or pull liquidity to launch new tokens; instead, it achieves permissionless token listing through Hyperliquid’s spot deployment and the upcoming HIP-3 proposal, then integrates Builder Code to create the optimal interface and user experience, thus generating significant profits like Axiom and PvP Trade.

The future of Builder Code will depend on whether those large interface platforms with strong distribution capabilities, but wish to avoid the costs and risks of building their own markets, choose to join in.

Robinhood and Hyperliquid Builder Code: A Possibility

Taking Robinhood as an example, this is a more traditional financial technology company that is not crypto-native. If it wishes to accelerate the adoption of crypto assets within its app and achieve large-scale fee income generation, Hyperliquid provides a viable path. In just January 2025, Robinhood reported up to $144.7 billion in stock trading volume, 166.6 million options contracts, and $20.4 billion in crypto asset trading volume.

This section might be worth writing a separate article for an in-depth analysis, but it can be anticipated that Robinhood only needs to invest about 1 million HYPE (which is negligible for its funding scale) to start deploying its own market based on Hyperliquid’s infrastructure optimized for perpetual contracts and validated in practice, and to capture interface layer fee income through interface integration with Builder Code.

For Robinhood, this architectural decision could not only save months or even years of development time but also reduce millions of dollars in technical investment costs. With the underlying work completed by the Hyperliquid community, Robinhood reaps the benefits.

HYPE Token Valuation Analysis

The Builder Code demonstrates Hyperliquid’s monetization capability at the infrastructure layer. 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 in this system. This analysis attempts to value the HYPE token by comparing the repurchase actions supported by Hyperliquid protocol funds with stock buybacks of traditional listed companies.

Using payment processing companies such as Visa and Mastercard as a conservative reference group, this method derives an implied valuation of HYPE at $25.9 billion (i.e., about $76 per HYPE, a 72% increase from the current price of $44). It is worth noting that this valuation does not yet include the extensive use of HYPE as a Layer-1 native asset.

The following elaborates on the valuation method in detail.

Quantitative Capital Return

According to the on-chain data from the past 30 days up to June 16, 2025, the Hyperliquid protocol’s average daily repurchase amount is 1.63 million USD. Based on this calculation, its total quarterly repurchase amount is approximately 146.4 million USD.

Data comes from data.asxn.xyz

In order to assess the market’s valuation of cash flow equivalents, we referred to the ratio of “market capitalization / quarterly buyback amount” for publicly listed companies. This ratio reflects how much market value investors are willing to assign for each dollar of buyback activity, which varies significantly across different industries, reflecting the market’s confidence in their growth and stability.

Comparison of multiples across industries:

• Tech Giants (Average Multiple: 296 x): Companies such as NVIDIA and Google are assigned extremely high valuations due to their rapid growth, technological innovation, and market dominance.
• Payment Industry (Average Multiple: 177 x): Companies like Visa and Mastercard, as high-profit financial infrastructures with strong network effects, have stable and relatively high multiples.
• Banking Industry (Average Multiple: 73.3 x): Institutions like JPMorgan and Bank of America are mature entities with slowing growth and significant regulatory pressure, resulting in lower valuation multiples.

In the above comparison, the payment industry is the most aligned with Hyperliquid’s business model. Like Visa or Mastercard, Hyperliquid is a key infrastructure in the financial system: it has high profit margins, its business model is directly linked to transaction volume, and the network effects continue to enhance, with more users and liquidity increasing the platform’s value.

Although HYPE can be compared to technology companies in some aspects, using the valuation multiples of the tech industry can lead to exaggeration and a lack of practical reference meaning. In contrast, the valuation multiples of the payment industry are more conservative and more comparable.

After applying the payment industry’s multiples, HYPE’s implied valuation is:

• Quarterly Buyback Estimate: $ 146.4 M
• Valuation multiple in the payment industry: 177 x
• Implied Valuation: $ 146.4 M × 177 = $ 25.9 B
• HYPE Unit Price: Approximately $ 76 (up about 72% from the current $ 44)

Note: $44 is the value of HYPE at the time this article was published

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

• Focus on a Single Dimension: This model completely disregards 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 only reflects the performance of the past 30 days and does not account for the potential impact of Hyperliquid’s subsequent revenue growth or market share increase on the repurchase amount.

The model used the average valuation multiples of the payment industry, avoiding the high multiples commonly found in the technology sector, further ensuring the conservativeness of the valuation.

Summary: The buyback framework provides a clear valuation “bottom line” for HYPE.

Although no single approach can fully capture the value of crypto assets, using a strong protocol buyback as an anchor combined with real cash flow for valuation does provide a data-supported value benchmark for HYPE. As the Hyperliquid ecosystem continues to evolve, this valuation “floor” is also expected to rise continuously.