By Frank, PANews

Hyperliquid has recently faced intense competitive pressure, not only losing its top spot as a centralized derivatives exchange, but also losing its daily trading volume by approximately ten times that of its competitor, Aster. Meanwhile, security incidents within the ecosystem are frequent, and the stablecoin initiative remains in its infancy. Amidst external and internal challenges, is Hyperliquid struggling to survive, or perhaps preparing for a major move?

Winter is coming: The lost throne and the "data black hole"

Hyperliquid has been under siege lately. Following the strong performance of the decentralized derivatives market and the HYPE token, a surge of competitors has emerged.

Among them, Aster on BNB Chain is the most powerful. It not only quickly took away Hyperliquid's long-held position in the decentralized derivatives market share, but also led by about 10 times in terms of daily trading volume and other data.

In July of this year, Hyperliquid held approximately 65% of the decentralized derivatives exchange market share, a position it has maintained since its mainnet launch at the end of 2024. However, as of September 22nd, data showed that Aster's market share had reached 70%, squeezing Hyperliquid's share to just 8.3%.

However, this market share shift wasn't driven by the existing market. Hyperliquid's trading volume remained relatively stable, and in fact saw some growth. With Aster's entry into the market, trading incentives brought significant growth to the entire market. For example, from September 22nd to 29th, Hyperliquid's trading volume reached $80 billion, still at a high level since its launch. However, it pales in comparison to Aster's impressive $270 billion in trading volume during the same period.

In terms of user data, Aster's total user base has exceeded 3 million to date, while Hyperliquid has only reached 719,000 users after a year of development. In comparison, Aster's traffic performance is indeed far superior to Hyperliquid's.

Data from October 1st shows that Aster's perpetual contract trading volume over the previous 24 hours was approximately $72.8 billion, with approximately 60,000 user addresses participating, with each address contributing an average of $1.21 million in trading volume. During the same period, Hyperliquid's perpetual contract trading volume was approximately $165,200 per user.

Besides Aster, several competitors such as Lighter and edgeX have also been performing strongly recently, leaving Hyperliquid facing a situation of being besieged from all sides.

Combination counterattack: culture, infrastructure and ecology

Faced with the fierce challenges, Hyperliquid did not fall into simple data anxiety, but also launched a "combination punch" to consolidate its long-term value.

On September 28th, Hyperliquid airdropped 4,600 units of its "Hypurr" NFT series to early users and contributors. This move quickly ignited the community. In just 24 hours, the NFT series saw trading volume exceeding $44.6 million, with the floor price reaching $68,700. The rarest unit even sold for a whopping $75,000.

The issuance of Hypurr NFT also quickly sparked heated discussions in the market, and the market once again began to explore Hyperliquid's potential for profiteering.

On the same day that NFTs took the community by storm, Hyperliquid officially launched the "Permissionless Spot Quoted Assets" feature on its mainnet. This seemingly technical move actually holds far-reaching strategic significance.

This feature allows any stable asset that meets strict on-chain standards to become the platform's quote currency in a permissionless manner. It requires the deployer to stake 200,000 HYPE tokens (locked for 3 years) and provide extremely deep liquidity for the stablecoin's trading pairs with USDC and HYPE.

This move offers a new perspective on the recently heated Hyperliquid stablecoin battle. Native Markets' USDH issuance is no longer considered a desperate gamble by Hyperliquid. This mechanism will allow several major players in the stablecoin race to compete with Hyperliquid. Crucially, it further weakens USDC's monopoly on the ecosystem. On October 1st, Ethena Labs founder Guy Young revealed that Ethena will collaborate with Liminal to launch a new stablecoin on Hyperliquid.

Furthermore, with the recent surge in major crypto events around the world, Hyperliquid has also received significant exposure. At an offline hackathon in Seoul, three winning projects were Hyperliquid Copilot, Edgescan, and HODL Bot. These winning projects generally fall within the trading tool category. While this may reflect Hyperliquid's focus on ecosystem development, it also suggests that its diversity remains somewhat limited.

The moat debate: After the hype, what's left of Hyperliquid?

The traffic and data driven by Aster's airdrop expectations are undoubtedly astonishing, but this raises a more fundamental question: when this costly incentive frenzy subsides and trading volume returns to real demand, will the market return to Hyperliquid? Or will it completely rewrite the landscape of decentralized derivatives trading?

To answer this question, we must deeply compare the fundamental differences between the two and clarify Hyperliquid's true moat.

First of all, in terms of operational thinking, the two represent completely different development philosophies.

Hyperliquid is a "technological idealist" and its ecosystem construction so far has been centered around the ultimate trading experience. It can even be said that Hyperliquid, as a public chain, is essentially just a supporting infrastructure for Hyperliquid services.

Aster's operations, however, follow a different logic. As a key player in the decentralized derivatives market for Binance and the BSC chain, Aster's primary role is to represent the entire Binance ecosystem in combating the impact of decentralized derivatives exchanges like Hyperliquid. Consequently, Aster has faced greater pressure and resources since its inception, even being called Binance's "proxy war."

In terms of product competition, Aster leads the way in multi-chain compatibility, economic model narrative, and ecosystem resources, which explains its rapid rise to prominence. Hyperliquid's primary advantage may be its sub-second latency and 100,000 TPS performance. However, as BSC chain performance improves, this advantage is gradually shrinking. On September 23rd, BNB Chain announced that it would accelerate the block interval from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds to maintain competitiveness with the fastest blockchains in the cryptocurrency space.

So, what exactly is Hyperliquid's core moat? Beyond these superficial technologies and product features, it likely has significant advantages in the following areas.

1. High-quality user retention. While Aster's trading volume data clearly leads, there's a stark contrast between the two platforms in terms of open interest (OI). On September 29th, Hyperliquid's open interest reached $12.9 billion, while Aster's was only $200 million, a difference of over 60 times. This higher OI indicates that Hyperliquid hosts more genuine, long-term, and large-cap trading positions. Its user quality and stickiness far surpass those of short-term users primarily engaged in volume manipulation and arbitrage.

2. Higher locked-in value. Hyperliquid's TVL is approximately $5.77 billion, while Aster's is approximately $2.2 billion. While the difference between the two appears to be just over double, this is predicated on the assumption that Aster's TVL was stimulated by airdrops, while Hyperliquiqui's figures are relatively stable. Ultimately, Aster currently represents more speculative investment, while Hyperliquiquit has clearly accumulated a wealth of long-term value investment.

3. An independent ecosystem. While Hyperliquid's independence may seem isolated compared to Binance's vast resources, it also represents a greater degree of decision-making independence. Especially in crisis situations, the Hyperliquid ecosystem is likely to make decisions solely based on the stability of the trading system, as exemplified by the numerous trading manipulation incidents that have occurred in the past. Even in the face of external scrutiny, Hyperliquid remains resolute in maintaining trading stability. In contrast, Aster has not yet encountered such incidents. However, if a similar incident were to occur, would the BSC chain be able to implement similar emergency measures as Hyperliquid to safeguard the interests of Aster's users or treasury? The likelihood is low.

Overall, even though Hyperliquid still possesses multiple defenses, the situation remains bleak. It faces more than just Aster in the market; challengers are now lining up, like six major sects sieging Bright Summit, each waiting to take their turn. At this juncture, Hyperliquid not only needs to innovate to cope with declining traffic but also must carefully make decisions, as a major misstep could lead to a potentially disastrous situation.

The ultimate outcome of this battle will depend on whether the market prioritizes "short-term excitement" or "long-term internal strength." For Hyperliquid, the real test has just begun.