Hyperliquid Founder Doubles Down: ’No Insiders Allowed’ in Defiant Crypto Manifesto

Another day, another crypto founder preaching purity. This time, it's Hyperliquid's architect drawing a line in the digital sand—a hardline stance against insider advantages that's either revolutionary or just good marketing.

The Ethos, Uncompromised

Forget backroom deals and preferential treatment. The message cuts through the typical decentralized finance noise: build a system where access and opportunity aren't gated by who you know. It's a direct challenge to the old financial guard, where information asymmetry wasn't a bug—it was the business model.

Why This Stance Bites Now

In a landscape still shaking off scandals and 'rug pulls,' a public commitment to fairness isn't just philosophy—it's a survival tactic. It builds trust in a sector where trust is the scarcest asset of all. Users flock to platforms that promise a level playing field, even if that promise sometimes feels more like a speculative bet than a guarantee.

The Cynic's Corner

Let's be real—in finance, whether traditional or crypto, someone always seems to have a faster horse. Proclaiming 'no insiders' is a powerful narrative, the kind that gets retweeted by purists. But watch what they do, not what they say. The real test isn't the manifesto; it's the mechanics of the protocol itself when the next market frenzy hits and fortunes are made in minutes.

The closer? A transparent, merit-based system remains the holy grail. Achieving it would be a genuine breakthrough. Until then, consider every 'ethos' a work in progress—funded, of course, by your speculative deposits.

Hyperliquid Reaffirms ‘No Insiders’ Ethos

“Integrity has always been one of Hyperliquid’s core values. The house of all finance must be credibly neutral. This means no private investors, no market Maker deals, and no protocol fees to any company,” he wrote, drawing a straight line between governance legitimacy and the absence of paid counterparties.

That posture also extends to the origin story. “The initial state of any blockchain is a crucial part of its story that can never be erased. The original ethos of Bitcoin was a permissionless network accessible to all. Hyperliquid’s genesis distribution followed this spirit, going entirely to early users with core contributors excluded,” the post continued, adding that “the full distribution is verifiable onchain without obfuscation.”

The founder acknowledged that this approach is not always convenient for would-be partners or ecosystem builders accustomed to preferential terms. “This principle of fairness frustrates a few users and builders who are used to special treatment,” he said, arguing it forces the community to “do things the hard way”, including “zero tolerance” for “integrity yellow flags” among team members.

It is not the first time he has put the stance in blunt terms. In a January 2024 post, he summarized the policy as: “No investors. No paid market makers. No fees to the dev team… No insiders @HyperliquidX.”

Lighter Debut Sparks Controversy

The timing matters because the on-chain perpetuals category is now fighting not just over latency and liquidity, but over distribution optics, and Hyperliquid’s most visible new rival has become a live case study.

Lighter, an Ethereum-based perpetual futures exchange that also operates as an ethereum layer-2, launched earlier this week and has climbed quickly in the rankings. On Dec. 30, it airdropped 250 million LIT tokens, 25% of its 1 billion total supply, to early users, with another 25% set aside for future growth programs.

The controversy is the other half. Lighter allocated 50% of supply to employees and investors, subject to a one-year lockup and three-year vesting, a structure that has triggered debate across DeFi about whether “community-first” narratives still hold when insiders retain an equal share of the cap table.

In other words, Lighter’s launch has intensified the same ideological fault line Hyperliquid is trying to own: whether the cleanest on-chain market structure is primarily about product performance or about refusing the incentives that come with investors, paid liquidity, and insider allocations.

At press time, HYPE traded at $24,51.