What is Hyperliquid (HYPE)?

Hyperliquid has grown quickly into the most-used decentralised exchange for derivatives trading, and its native token, HYPE, has become one of the more talked-about assets in the market.

This guide explains what Hyperliquid is and how it differs from a centralised exchange, what HYPE actually does, and why tokens tied to financial infrastructure are worth understanding as their own category. We also look at the risks involved, and how to buy HYPE on Luno.

What is Hyperliquid?

Hyperliquid is a decentralised exchange, often shortened to DEX. It is built for trading derivatives, in particular perpetual futures – contracts that let traders bet on the price of an asset without owning it and with no expiry date. It runs on its own layer-1 blockchain, which the team built specifically for trading.

On a centralised exchange, the company holds your funds, matches trades on its own internal systems, and you trust it to manage everything behind the scenes. On Hyperliquid, you keep custody of your own assets, and the trading, matching, and settlement all happen on-chain where anyone can verify. There is no central company holding the funds in the middle of a trade.

Hyperliquid is known for its speed. The network processes around 200,000 orders per second with near-instant settlement, which is fast enough to feel like a centralised exchange while keeping the self-custody and transparency of a decentralised one. 

What HYPE does within the Hyperliquid ecosystem

HYPE is the native token of the network. It is the asset the blockchain itself runs on. It has a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, and it does a few specific jobs:

• Network fees: HYPE is used to pay transaction fees on the Hyperliquid blockchain, in the same way other networks use their own native coin for gas.
• Governance: Holders can take part in decisions about how the protocol develops.

The feature that gets the most attention is how the platform links its own success back to the token. Hyperliquid directs roughly 97% of its trading fee revenue into buying HYPE back from the open market, through a mechanism it calls the Assistance Fund. Those purchased tokens reduce the supply available to everyone else. In practice, the more the platform is used, the more fees it earns, and the more HYPE is bought back. 

The scale of this has been significant. In 2025 the protocol spent over $645 million on these buybacks, one of the largest such programmes in decentralised finance, and in the first quarter of 2026 it repurchased a further $192 million worth of HYPE. The idea behind it is to tie the value of the token to actual usage of the platform, more like a company using profits to buy back its own shares than a token that simply trades on sentiment. That link is the core of the investment case people make for HYPE, though, as with everything here, it depends on trading volumes holding up.

Why DeFi infrastructure tokens are a distinct category

It is easy to lump every crypto asset together, but HYPE sits in a unique category. Infrastructure crypto assets like HYPE are tied to a piece of financial plumbing that earns fees when people use it, and the asset is designed to capture some of that value. The Hyperliquid network is an exchange, and exchanges make money from trading activity. The argument for this category is that you are getting exposure to the growth of on-chain trading itself, rather than only speculating on whether the crypto will go up or down.

It doesn’t mean that the link between volume and value always holds, but it is closer to owning a stake in the activity of a trading venue, which is why some institutional research has started covering it in those terms.

Risks worth understanding before you buy

HYPE is a higher-risk asset, and it is important to be clear on the risks before investing.

Price volatility

HYPE can move sharply in both directions, and it has already had large swings in its short history. Crypto markets in general are volatile, and a relatively new token tied to one platform can be more volatile still. You could lose a significant part of what you put in.

Smart contract and protocol risk

Hyperliquid is software, and software can have bugs or be exploited. It is also a young protocol that has not been through a full market cycle, and it has faced stress events in the past that the team had to manage. Newer networks carry more of this risk than older, more battle-tested ones.

Concentration

Hyperliquid runs on a relatively small number of validators compared with older networks, and a large share of its trading activity comes from a limited group of high-volume traders. Its revenue is also tightly linked to derivatives trading volumes, so if that activity falls, the buyback mechanism that supports the asset weakens with it.

How to buy HYPE on Luno

Buying HYPE works the same way as buying any other asset on Instant Buy and Sell:

1. Open the Luno app and sign in. If you are new to Luno, create an account and complete the verification steps first.
2. Add funds to your Luno wallet using your usual deposit method.
3. Search for HYPE in the app.
4. Select Buy, enter the amount you want to spend, and review the order. You do not need to buy a whole token, so you can start with a small amount.
5. Confirm the purchase. HYPE will appear in your portfolio, where you can track it and sell whenever you choose.

Frequently asked questions