Hyperliquid's Ambitious Plans Face Skepticism from Ark Invest

Ark Invest has expressed doubts about Hyperliquid's ability to achieve its 'house of all finance' vision, particularly in regards to its U.S. market plans. The platform has been working with Kraken to gain access to the U.S. market, but Ark Invest's head of crypto research, Lorenzo Valente, believes this will result in a product that is worse than what Binance offers in the U.S.

Valente pointed out that Hyperliquid's liquidity cannot be commingled with its broader permissionless market when it comes to the U.S., which would likely result in a less competitive product. He also noted that spot trading on Hyperliquid is nearly nonexistent, despite the platform's claims of being an 'everything exchange'. In fact, the majority of Hyperliquid's volume comes from its real-world asset perps (RWA perps) segment.

However, Valente did acknowledge that Hyperliquid has been making progress in other areas, such as native borrowing and prediction markets. The platform has also seen significant growth in its RWA perps market, with an a16z report finding that it has grown 44x this year to over $117B in volume.

Despite these efforts, Ark Invest remains skeptical about Hyperliquid's ability to achieve its vision without addressing its decentralization and anonymity issues. Whether the platform can overcome these concerns and continue to grow remains to be seen.