Zero Cost vs. Zero Fees

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Over the last month, builder codes have generated around $23B in volume, which annualizes to roughly $300B, or about 10% of $HYPE annualized volume.

Over the past few days, many people have been discussing HL fees being “too high”, or that 0-fee DEXs like Lighter might be more attractive for certain traders.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are the author’s personal views and should not be relied upon as investment advice.

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It is a perfect snowball effect: people plug into Hyperliquid because liquidity is the moat, and as more front-ends integrate, liquidity deepens even further, pushing more and more front-ends to follow.

Regarding Lighter, they’re a strong team with a great product, and they’ve been executing well. That said, it remains to be seen what percentage of their volume is truly organic: we’ll get clarity after TGE.

As of now, Hyperliquid benefits from competitive advantages in scalability.

If competitors want to play the “0-fee” game to grab market share, Hyperliquid feels actually better positioned to sustain that fight. Most competitors have VC backing, bigger teams, higher OpEx, higher marginal costs, and weaker distribution.

If they keep pushing 0-fees + points incentives to grab market share, Hyperliquid can adjust fees downward until competitors start feeling monetary pressure.

Ultimately, this should come down to distribution. A single major integration, for example with a player like Revolut, could significantly shift the competitive landscape.

For now, we still see Hyperliquid as the leader and the best positioned to remain the leader. Competition is healthy, and the market should be large enough for multiple players, but the next real checkpoint is Lighter’s TGE.

More about Hyperliquid's scalability in this article.

Data from ASXN dashboard.

Hyperliquid.

Just some thoughts .

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