Interview with Hyperliquid Founder Jeff: Self-taught Programming After Entering the Crypto Space, Refuses VC Funding
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Interview with Hyperliquid Founder Jeff: Self-taught Programming After Entering the Crypto Space, Refuses VC Funding
From user needs, not catering to VCs.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsInterview: When Shift Happens
Translation: Yuliya, PANews
Previously, "When Shift Happens" invited Jeff, founder of Hyperliquid Labs. Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform and also a Layer 1 project. In the one-hour conversation, Jeff shared his entrepreneurial journey, project vision, and observations on the DeFi industry. PANews has compiled and translated the interview content, covering technological innovations, operational models, user experience improvements, as well as discussions on the development trends and challenges in the cryptocurrency industry.
Entrepreneurial Journey
Host: Jeff, can you tell us how you got started on your entrepreneurial path?
Jeff: It goes back to early 2020. That's when I began researching simple trading scripts, mainly focusing on centralized crypto exchanges (CEX). Although many large market makers were already active at that time, sometimes “ignorance is bliss” actually helped. I just thought—why not try to make some money?
The initial research results looked promising, so I decided to take it seriously. Honestly, I wasn’t much of a coder before, but to achieve my goals, I started teaching myself programming. By 2022, we had become one of the largest traders across multiple venues and possibly among the best in high-frequency market making.
Host: What prompted your shift from successful quantitative trading to building Hyperliquid?
Jeff: Two main reasons:
First, we started paying attention to the DeFi space and found many interesting protocol designs. There’s an interesting phenomenon in DeFi—many people who don’t understand finance are trying to build financial systems, which ironically creates great opportunities for quantitative strategies.
Second, the collapse of FTX was a major turning point. It made people truly realize they shouldn't blindly trust centralized exchanges. This wasn't just theoretical debate—it was real financial loss. For us, it was a clear signal—the world was finally ready for real DeFi.
Product Philosophy
Host: Can you explain in simple terms what exactly Hyperliquid does?
Jeff: From a historical perspective, society has been moving toward individualism. Every advancement toward individualism and human rights has turned out positively, whether measured by GDP or happiness.
Hyperliquid continues this trajectory: from having to protect your farm with weapons, to being able to store money in banks, to now—where you can fully control your funds through cryptographic technology.
Specifically, we’re building a system that can:
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Meet all the expectations users have from Web2 finance
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Offer low fees
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Enable fast transfers
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Provide instant settlement
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Deliver liquidity comparable to centralized exchanges
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Allow trustless integration with other applications
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Support borrowing against collateral
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Give users true freedom over their funds
Funding Strategy
Host: Why did you choose not to accept any investment? That’s rare in the industry.
Jeff: Indeed, this isn’t a traditional business model. It might be the first time in DeFi—or even the entire crypto space—that something like this is being done. But if you look at Amazon, Bezos didn’t profit from it for a long time either.
There are several deeper reasons behind our decision:
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The crypto industry places too much emphasis on short-term gains
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If you’re creating a new financial system, having VCs hold 50% of the network from day one becomes a permanent stain
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Our team has the capability to operate without external funding, which allows us to stick to this principle
Industry Perspective
Host: Do you have any criticisms of the current state of the cryptocurrency industry?
Jeff: Frankly, the most “successful” products in the industry today are often fraudulent tokens. Very few projects truly follow a user-first model because acquiring real users is genuinely difficult. Most take shortcuts—secure investments from big market makers first, then attract traders through incentive programs. This model is unsustainable in the long run.
Host: How do you view the current state of the crypto industry?
Jeff: While many see crypto as a failed experiment, I believe it’s humanity’s only hope to reinvent the financial system. Finance is one of mankind’s greatest inventions—it enables us to:
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Represent value in more abstract ways
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Achieve better capital allocation
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Build complete economic systems
Without these, many other advancements might not have been possible. Human society could still be stuck in agrarian or even hunter-gatherer stages.
Software should completely transform finance, yet in reality, finance (and perhaps healthcare) remains one of the few major industries that hasn’t undergone substantial innovation.
Technological Innovation
Host: Can you elaborate on the concept of Builder Codes?
Jeff: It’s a simple but powerful idea. It allows anyone to build financial applications on top of Hyperliquid, such as:
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Innovative mobile wallets
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Social trading platforms
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Regional exchanges
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Fiat on-ramps
Developers can:
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Build their own exchange business
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Use our neutral backend infrastructure
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Charge fees in a way that earns user trust
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Earn revenue directly at the protocol level, rather than relying on private agreements with centralized exchanges
This opens up entirely new ways to build businesses in DeFi, enabling specialization. People who understand the needs of specific regional users can focus on serving them, while Hyperliquid provides the backend support.
Future Outlook
Host: How do you see the project’s long-term development?
Jeff: I like to use the analogy of Go and chess. You don’t need to know exactly where you’ll end up, but you must ensure each move heads in the right direction. The key is making solid moves, not obsessing over a distant end goal. That’s why we focus on infrastructure rather than short-term market performance.
Host: What is Hyperliquid’s long-term vision?
Jeff: Our core beliefs are:
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Cryptocurrency will change how finance operates
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Traditional finance will eventually migrate to crypto
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Hyperliquid will become the foundational platform hosting these financial activities
The exact path is hard to predict—but that’s not the point. We focus on building infrastructure that will matter regardless of how the future unfolds:
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The Builder Codes system
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An EVM integrated with chain-native components
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Sustainable, high-quality liquidity
These are difficult-to-build yet essential infrastructures. I believe they will remain indispensable cornerstones no matter how cryptocurrency evolves over the next decade.
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