Hyperliquid's Application Layer Struggles Despite Dominance in Perpetual Trading
Hyperliquid is an independent public chain that operates on a self-developed high-speed mechanism, focusing on on-chain trading. It has two engines - HyperCore and HyperEVM - which share the same set of validators but have different functions.
HyperCore is the trading engine, where perpetual contracts and spot trading are completed. It's not open to the public, and others can't build applications on it; all trading logic is hardcoded inside. On the other hand, HyperEVM is the application engine, launched in February 2025, which is compatible with Ethereum.
The performance gap between the two engines is significant. While Hyperliquid captured more than half of the on-chain perpetual trading volume on most trading days in 2026, the total fees from all DeFi protocols on HyperEVM add up to less than $6 million - nearly a tenfold difference between the two.
The divergence in capital scale is also evident. According to the HRC report for Q2 2026, the total locked amount on the entire Hyperliquid chain was about $1.44 billion at the end of Q2, further dropping to around $1.2 billion by early August (including the trading side).
According to public data, the average daily active sending addresses on HyperEVM are only about 8,000, while Base exceeds 250,000 and Arbitrum over 110,000 during the same period.