Raised $40 million in three days—can Project X with its grassroots background replicate Hyperliquid's growth trajectory?
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Raised $40 million in three days—can Project X with its grassroots background replicate Hyperliquid's growth trajectory?
TVL reaches $40 million in three days, the founder of the former top-market-cap Meme on Blast arrives at Hyperliquid's fertile ground.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Nicky, Foresight News
As one of the most outstanding trading platforms this cycle, Hyperliquid has a daily trading volume exceeding $15 billion and holds over 74% of on-chain Perps market share. Its native token HYPE currently ranks 12th in cryptocurrency market capitalization. Hyperliquid's ambition extends beyond being just a single on-chain trading platform—it aims to build an ecosystem network centered around itself called Hyper EVM.
Recently, a new project within the Hyper EVM ecosystem, Project X, has drawn community attention. The DEX has surpassed $40 million in TVL within just three days of launch. As an emerging project, both the ecosystem positioning and team background of Project X are worth noting.
To understand the emergence of Project X, one cannot overlook its founding team’s previous work—Pacmoon.
As a social Meme project on Blast chain, Pacmoon leveraged the "Yap model" (driving token value through social virality and community consensus) to achieve a peak FDV exceeding $200 million, becoming a representative project in the Blast ecosystem at that time. However, the current FDV of its token PAC stands at only $35,000, nearly approaching zero. This decline is partly due to the gradual dormancy of the Blast network, but also reflects the ephemeral nature of the project.
According to official documentation, the identity of the project founder has not yet been clearly disclosed. The core team consists of seven members: Lamboland oversees growth, BOBBY handles product operations, hisho leads product design, and Ali serves as creative director. Additionally, the team includes a CTO with YC background and two DeFi-native backend developers.
Among the four individuals who have publicly revealed their nicknames, analysis of their published tweets indicates varying degrees of prior involvement in either Pacmoon or the Blast network. Notably, Lamboland and BOBBY were co-founders of Pacmoon.
Now, the team has shifted focus toward DeFi infrastructure: AMM DEX (Automated Market Maker Decentralized Exchange). In Project X’s vision, the team aims to move beyond simply imitating Uniswap by reshaping the competitive dynamics of trading platforms through “distribution mechanisms, incentive design, and user experience.” As stated on the official website: “Technology is converging; the next round of DeFi competition will be won by those who can allocate value more efficiently, design better incentives, and retain users.”
Project X adopts a phased development strategy. Currently focused on Phase One—the "HyperEVM DEX"—the roadmap includes future expansion into an "EVM Aggregator" and a third, undisclosed phase, with the ultimate goal of becoming the "preferred trading platform for crypto traders."
The current core product is positioned as a "Uniswap-style AMM DEX," but features differentiated designs in user experience and incentive mechanisms:
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Fee Distribution: In version V3, 86% of trading fees are directly allocated to liquidity providers (LPs), while the remainder supports protocol operations. This ratio places it among the high-LP-return tier of AMMs. The official site explicitly states, “We want LPs to earn more on Project X”;
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V2 Pool Preparation: Although V2 has not launched, the team has signaled plans to further boost LP returns using more sophisticated market-making strategies such as dynamic fees and cross-chain liquidity aggregation.
After completing the first phase of the HyperEVM DEX, the second phase—"EVM Aggregator"—will focus on cross-chain transaction aggregation. Users will be able to access liquidity across multiple EVM chains via a single interface on Project X, addressing the current fragmentation issue among multi-chain DEXs.
Participation Methods
The points system is currently the key driver of user growth for Project X. At present, points serve as the core credential for participating in the ecosystem and may be directly linked to future token airdrops or ecosystem benefits.
Points acquisition paths are clearly tied to "user contributions":
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Liquidity Provision (LP): Users can deposit assets into liquidity pools on the HyperEVM DEX (such as the currently promoted kHYPE pool) and earn points based on generated trading fees. The official site emphasizes that “the majority of points will go to LPs,” and point calculation is strongly correlated with fee generation—for example, a user who deposits $1 million and generates $100 in fees will receive fewer points than a user who deposits $10,000 but generates $1,000 in fees;
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Trading: Users earn points based on trade volume and frequency by completing spot trades on the platform (which require paying fees);
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Referral Program: By sharing a unique referral code, users can earn dual rewards: first, earning 10% of the points generated by referred friends as a referral bonus; second, increasing the base point earning efficiency of the referred friend by 10% (e.g., if a friend originally earns 100 points per day, they will earn 110 points after referral).
To rapidly bootstrap the ecosystem, Project X has implemented short-term incentives:
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Daily 1 Million Points Pool: During this phase, the platform releases a fixed 1 million points daily, with all user point accruals drawn from this pool;
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First-Month Points Multiplier: Within the first 30 days, users ranked in the top 100 daily for points accumulation will receive a minimum 1x multiplier reward.
It should be noted that the project recently updated the points system UI, and points accrual is now reflected in real-time on the user interface. However, specific airdrop rules—such as the conversion rate between points and tokens, and the timing of the airdrop—have not yet been announced and should be confirmed through official future announcements.
Risk Disclaimer
Unlike most DeFi projects reliant on VC funding, Project X’s funding source appears more grassroots: the official site clearly states “100% self-funded, no VC, no angel investors, no private sale.” This model strengthens the team’s control over the project and aligns more closely with a long-term orientation.
However, there are inherent risks. The absence of external financing means the project has weaker resilience against risks. In the event of extreme market conditions or smart contract vulnerabilities, the project may face challenges in compensating user losses.
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