HyperEVM launching in the chaotic world, Is this the "Pathfinder Master" making a winning move?

The cryptocurrency market has been extremely volatile this month, with one wave after another. First, TRUMP sent the market into a frenzy, then CZ's pet dog sparked a PvP craze, followed by the exposure of explosive scandals involving the "First Lady Coin" and the "Argentina Coin." The entire market's attention has been dominated by meme coins endorsed by celebrities and governments, but retail investors ultimately found themselves facing repeated rug pulls, leaving them exhausted.

Just at this moment, Perp DEX, which has been on a path of continuous growth since last year's TGE, suddenly announced the launch of the HyperEVM mainnet at this delicate timing. It must be said that after a month of market weakness, there is a strong need for a high-quality project that can truly build the crypto world. HyperEVM chose to go live at this critical moment like a "dip-buying master," rapidly sparking intense discussions and attention.

What Market Sweet Spots Has Hyperliquid Hit?

Over the past month, the crypto world has entered an era of "gift collapses and joyous chaos." With "Rug Pull Schemes," rug pulls, and PvP casinos, almost all retail investors have been battered in the hellishly difficult bull market zero-sum games. Amid this chaotic world, Hyperliquid sensed an opportunity and skillfully hit almost every market turning point.

Ecosystem Expansion, Seizing the Initiative

As the center of one vortex after another, Solana has seen the community's narrative of "born from meme, die by meme" gaining momentum, and with the large unlocking event expected in March bringing greater market uncertainty, SOL's price has already dropped by 30% in a month.

Upon the announcement of the HyperEVM launch, Hyperliquid quickly became a new market hotspot. According to deBridge statistics, a large amount of capital has flowed from Solana to Hyperliquid; CoinMarketCap market data shows that HYPE's trading volume surged by 261% in the past 24 hours. It seems that degens have indeed been driven to the brink of mental collapse by various insider trading activities, and even without the promise of tenfold or hundredfold opportunities, they are more willing to trade on blockchains that are actually building for crypto development.

As the meme frenzy fades and Solana experiences a downturn, degens are starting to look around, seeking new gold-mining opportunities, collectively turning their attention to the BNB Chain with CZ's return and high-frequency shilling. However, reality falls short, with numerous investors experiencing the embarrassment of being unable to buy in, unable to sell out during the PvP battle, network congestion, page lagging, getting rugged, encountering numerous rug pull schemes... Users found that the BNB Chain was far from providing the smooth user experience typically seen on Solana. The launch of HyperEVM aptly filled the investors' thirst for new ecosystems.

Related reading: "CZ No Longer Shilling Memes, Can BNB Chain Still Become the 'Next Solana'?"

In the DeFi sector where Hyperliquid is located, the real-time performance requirements for high-frequency trading pairs on the blockchain are becoming increasingly apparent. In this race, Monad has always been seen as Hyperliquid's competitor. This time, Hyperliquid launched its EVM even before Monad released its testnet. And Monad? Despite high market demand, it has not even launched its token yet. Faced with Hyperliquid's move, Monad had no chance to counterattack and instead early on absorbed a wave of market attention and liquidity.

Related reading: "Blockchain Triumvirate: MegaETH, Hyperliquid, and Monad - Who Will Lead the Future?"

Sector Rotation, Timing, and Location

After a significant pullback in SOL, the price of ETH is gradually rising. As many DeFi protocols (such as Uniswap, Aave, Compound, etc.) require ETH as the base asset for trading pairs, collateral, or liquidity providers, the rising ETH price means that the ETH assets in these protocols are also appreciating, boosting investor confidence and attracting more funds into the DeFi sector, thus increasing the overall activity and trading volume in the DeFi market. Additionally, the entire DeFi market is transitioning towards stable yield farming, and this time, the Hyperliquid upgrade is likely to bring more opportunities to earn liquidity rewards.

On the afternoon of February 18, when the HyperEVM launch announcement was made, according to CoinGecko data, Hyperliquid's native token HYPE's price quickly surged from $1.25 to $1.45 within the first hour, with the trading volume spiking to 2.3 million HYDRA tokens during that period. Additionally, other DeFi tokens saw similar price spikes, such as AAVE rising from $105 to $112 and Compound (COMP) rising from $75 to $82. HYPE's market cap also increased by 15.2% in the first hour after the announcement, reaching $345 million. The rapid price fluctuation and market cap growth indicate market confidence in Hyperliquid's development and its potential impact on the DeFi ecosystem.

On the other hand, the AI sector, which has been hot since the end of last year, has been lukewarm ever since being drained by TRUMP. However, the newly launched HyperEVM, with its high throughput and low latency characteristics, is very suitable to become an ideal platform for AI-driven trading strategies. In the narrative cycle of AI + Crypto, Hyperliquid's EVM launch may indirectly affect AI-related tokens, especially DeFAI projects with practical applications in the AI sector, which are likely to start a new round of deployment in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. In addition, AI projects in the Hyperliquid ecosystem may take advantage of this wave of attention to achieve a counter-trend rise, making it a good opportunity to buy the dip.

Related Reading: "Hyperliquid Ecosystem AI Game Project Token FARM Goes Live for 1 Hour, Market Cap Breaks $10 Million"

HyperEVM Launch: What Projects in the Ecosystem Are Worth Paying Attention To?

HyperEVM is a general-purpose EVM-compatible chain that supports Ethereum's common tools. The EVM is permissionless, allowing anyone to deploy smart contracts, and these smart contracts can directly access on-chain perpetual contracts and spot liquidity on L1.

How Beginners Can Use HyperEVM

If you want to add the Hyperliquid Network to your wallet, first go to settings and select "Add Custom Network." Next, fill in the following information: Chain ID is 999, Network Name is Hyperliquid, input the RPC URL, and choose $HYPE as the Currency Symbol. After filling out the information, click Confirm, and you will see the Hyperliquid Network appear in the EVM Network list.

To bridge to HyperEVM, you can follow the steps below. First, go to the website, then click on "Spot" and select $HYPE.

Next, click the "Send" button, enter the following address in the address field: 0x2222222222222222222222222222222222222222. Finally, enter the amount and click "Send" to complete the transaction.

Currently, Hyperliquid's yield is very attractive. According to X User @0xDeFiDevin, Hyperliquid users can currently achieve up to a 50% Delta Neutral yield by combining GammaSwap. By providing liquidity to the weETH/USDC pool on GammaSwap to earn 80% yield, then using half of that liquidity position to short ETH with 1x leverage on Hyperliquid to gain a 10% funding rate. Through this combination strategy, one can effectively maximize returns, diversify risks, and ultimately achieve a net yield of 56%.

Potential Ecosystem Projects

Many DeFi teams have previously prepared to launch alongside EVM. Most "well-known" DeFi protocol types (AMMs, lending, liquidity staking, CDPs) are expected to go live with the EVM launch. These projects will enhance overall capital efficiency by allowing HYPE holders to use HYPE as collateral in lending and market protocols. Here are some of the projects that have already launched on the mainnet:

Parsec (@parsec_finance)

Purrsec is a full-featured EVM explorer with extensive contract tagging and ecosystem integration, supporting custom layouts for different address types and providing contract verification capabilities. Additionally, Purrsec enables users to monitor cross-chain deposits, addresses (integrating EVM and L1 portfolios), hot contracts, ecosystem tags, and L1 perpetual contract metrics. Furthermore, more features are to be released, highlighting the unique connection between HyperEVM and Hyperliquid L1.

HyperSwap (@HyperSwapX)

HyperSwap is the native DEX of HyperEVM. HyperEVM allows users to deposit tokens into the treasury to earn yield, borrow stablecoins against collateral, or provide instant liquidity on HyperSwap as LP. These features seamlessly integrate. Moreover, some developers have already started building protocols on HyperEVM, including lending their Hyperliquid perpetual contract positions, borrowing stablecoins against Hyperliquid Vault (HLP) collateral, launching meme coins with one click, and utilizing the LST protocol for asset recycling.

Kittenswap (@KittenswapHype)

Kittenswap offers a fork of Velodrome v1, introducing Velodrome's VE model and incentive mechanism. The project's TGE allocated 15,000 tokens, accounting for 15% of the total supply; an airdrop allocated 20,000 tokens, representing 20% of the total supply. Currently, liquidity can be provided for tokens, exchanges between different tokens can be made, and participation in veKITTEN airdrops can be earned through points. Voting and metric features will be released simultaneously with the launch of the $KITTEN token.

In addition, after the launch of HyperEVM, several projects will gradually go live on the mainnet. Among them, lending projects include @felixprotocol, @hypurrfi, @sentimentxyz, @HyperYieldx, @hyperlendx, @KeikoFinance, @HyperstableX, @hyperdrivedefi, and @kiblprotocol. The main liquidity staking tokens on HyperEVM include Kinetiq and Thunderhead. Apart from HyperSwap and KittenSwap mentioned above, other AMM projects such as Curve will also provide incentives upon mainnet launch.

Further Reading: "HyperEVM DeFi: A Future Guide"

Since its launch, Hyperliquid first broke the listing black box of centralized exchanges and has now returned to the spotlight with a more complete L1 ecosystem. How will the future of the crypto world evolve? The only certainty is that there is always significant uncertainty in the specific path of evolution.

Perhaps as Hyperliquid's founder Jeff said, cryptocurrency will reshape the operational paradigm of the financial system, and traditional finance will ultimately migrate to the crypto ecosystem. The focus should always be on building the foundational infrastructure with enduring value, establishing it as an indispensable cornerstone of the future financial infrastructure. "Regardless of how the industry evolves in the next decade, these modules we build will continue to create value."