Crypto Banter founder warns regulation is biggest risk to Hyperliquid

Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner said regulation poses the biggest risk to Hyperliquid, warning that decentralized exchanges could eventually face greater government scrutiny.

Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast, Neuner said regulators have begun establishing rules for centralized crypto exchanges and predicted decentralized platforms would be next.

“The biggest issue is that we don’t know how regulators are going to treat the decentralized exchanges,” Neuner said. He added:

The governments have just started to regulate centralized exchanges. There’s MiCA licensing, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that when that’s done, they come in for the decentralized exchanges.

Hyperliquid is a layer-1 blockchain best known for its decentralized perpetual futures exchange, which leads the sector with about $223 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days, according to DeFiLlama data.

Hyperliquid leads perpetual DEXs by 30-day volume. Source: DeFiLlama

While Neuner identified regulation as Hyperliquid’s biggest vulnerability, he was more bullish on its ability to withstand competition.

Neuner argued that Hyperliquid’s network effects make it difficult for competitors to challenge the platform simply by replicating its technology. “You can’t copy a network,” he said. “There can be a thousand competitors to Uber. How many of them are going to succeed? Hardly any.”

Neuner said the same dynamic applies to trading platforms, where users tend to gravitate toward exchanges with deeper liquidity because it allows them to enter and exit positions more easily. “When something is a network, naturally users will flock to the busiest or the best node,” he said.

Related: HYPE treasury firm Hyperliquid Strategies boosts equity facility to $2.5B

Hyperliquid eyes compliant US path amid HYPE rally

Despite Neuner’s concerns over regulation, US officials have signaled that Hyperliquid could gain a compliant pathway into the country.

President Donald Trump said in August that CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.” HYPE jumped about 20% over the 24-hour period surrounding the remarks, trading around $70.

As of the August announcement, neither the CFTC nor Hyperliquid had released a formal proposal explaining how US access would work, whether an application had been submitted or when a compliant service could launch.

On Friday, HYPE was trading around $82, up more than 220% year-to-date, according to CoinGecko. The token had a market capitalization of about $18.2 billion and a fully diluted valuation of roughly $78.4 billion.

HYPE token price year-to-date. Source: CoinGecko