Hyperliquid
Ranked 5 of 5 crypto exchanges by recommenders
Non-custodial on-chain perpetuals exchange where you keep USDC in your own wallet and it handles heavy volume. Critics say its closed-source validators are centralized.
Non-custodial on-chain perpetuals exchange where you keep USDC in your own wallet and it handles heavy volume. Critics say its closed-source validators are centralized.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 46%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Non-custodial, you keep your own USDC
“HyperLiquid is also non-custodial, you keep USDC in a self-owned wallet on the Arbitrum network”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Microsoft and others tell crypto platform not to tokenize their stocks” “they are non-custodial which is great”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Microsoft and others tell crypto platform not to tokenize their stocks” On-chain and proven at high volume
“today Hyperliquid does it on chain and very popular”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained” “HL has been tested up to $8bn/day in volume”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Production engineering when trading billions of dollars a day [video]”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Closed-source validators run by affiliates
“They handed out a closed source binary and the validators ran it immediately, closing out the market at an arbitrary price.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained” “closed source piece of software run by closely controlled "validators" with additionally centralised components”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained” “They have like 5 validating nodes and all operated by HyperLiquid affiliates.”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Microsoft and others tell crypto platform not to tokenize their stocks” Not truly decentralized
“There are other exchanges that are much more centralised, like Hyperliquid, and it is incorrect to call these decentralised.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained” “This experience raised concerns about the true decentralization and automation of the exchange.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Reverse Engineering Hyperliquid” “Decentralization means to run all of the closed-source nodes in the same AWS datacenter!”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained” - Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Perpetual futures, explained”
Other crypto exchanges people recommend
The four most recommended other crypto exchanges, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CZR Exchange | 22 | 2 | 92% | 1 | — | — |
| Coinbase | 12 | 51 | 19% | 6 | — | — |
| Binance | 10 | 39 | 20% | 3 | — | — |
| Kraken | 7 | 5 | 58% | 8 | — | — |
| HyperliquidThis page | 6 | 7 | 46% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they are non-custodial which is great”
“HyperLiquid is also non-custodial, you keep USDC in a self-owned wallet on the Arbitrum network”
“They have like 5 validating nodes and all operated by HyperLiquid affiliates.”
“Order sequencing is not opaque, that is one of the primary benefits of DEX”
“HL has been tested up to $8bn/day in volume”
“sequencing of orders is opaque and not opensource”
“delivering features faster”
“This experience raised concerns about the true decentralization and automation of the exchange.”
“There are other exchanges that are much more centralised, like Hyperliquid, and it is incorrect to call these decentralised.”
“They handed out a closed source binary and the validators ran it immediately, closing out the market at an arbitrary price.”
“closed source piece of software run by closely controlled "validators" with additionally centralised components”
“Decentralization means to run all of the closed-source nodes in the same AWS datacenter!”
“today Hyperliquid does it on chain and very popular”
“fairly detailed documentation about how they implement perps”
“Hyperliquid and similar exchanges aren't decentralized.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.