How did I achieve a turnaround with a $50 million valuation in one month by exploring a new track?
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How did I achieve a turnaround with a $50 million valuation in one month by exploring a new track?
Find market gaps and take immediate action.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: PerpetualCow.hl
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
This is my startup story. A month ago, I arrived on the X platform as an anonymous user, penniless, with no followers, no connections, and no capital.
Building something from nothing was a long shot, but I did it. Now, I want to share my success story and tell you: you can do it too.
My Starting Point
My initial reason for creating this account stemmed from the price crash of the HYPE token, in which I was heavily invested and had placed all my savings.
I thought, at the very least, I could open an account on X and write about my views and investment logic for HYPE, arguing to everyone why this cryptocurrency was severely undervalued, hoping to boost its price.
So, I wrote an in-depth analysis article and posted it on this newly created account, hoping to reach more people. To my surprise, the article went viral.
If you're not a player in the cryptocurrency space, you might not have heard of the Hyperliquid platform. That's okay; it's not the focus of this article.
But from the very beginning, I firmly believed this ecosystem held immense potential.
I started thinking, besides posting bullish content, what else could I do to personally contribute to increasing HYPE's trading volume and market capitalization, thereby driving token buybacks and boosting its market attention and influence.
The First Failed Attempt
I decided to develop a product on the Hyperliquid platform to generate more trading volume and revenue for the platform. This way, the platform would not only increase its buybacks of the HYPE token but also enhance the token's exposure and market consensus.
At that time, the Hyperliquid ecosystem was already quite mature. Developers had built many impressive financial tools, such as Ventuals, a platform for trading shares of unlisted companies, and trade.xyz, a tool offering leveraged trading of stock futures.
But one thing was overlooked: forex trading pairs. As one of the largest derivatives in traditional financial markets, no one had yet brought it to the Hyperliquid platform.
First, a quick primer: Hyperliquid is a permissionless exchange where anyone can issue their own trading products.
The daily trading volume of the forex market is a staggering $7.5 trillion, a full 10 times the size of the global stock market. Drawing on my experience in traditional derivatives, I keenly sensed the enormous opportunity here.
I was certain other developers hadn't realized how big this pie was. If I could be the first to launch forex trading pairs on Hyperliquid, I could make a fortune from fee sharing alone in the future.
I couldn't believe such a great opportunity had been ignored for so long.
I knew I had to act immediately, racing against time. It wouldn't be long before other developers discovered this hidden opportunity.
I swallowed 20mg of instant-release Adderall (a central nervous system stimulant), ordered a few bottles of Red Bull via a delivery app, and dove into development.
I coded through the night, and by the next morning, a product prototype was complete.
I registered the domain Hyperfx.xyz and even prepared about 500,000 HYPE tokens worth roughly $15 million to pay the platform's deployment fee.
I felt my moment had finally arrived.
However, I made a fatal mistake.
Before the stimulant wore off and I became drowsy, I followed standard procedure and deployed the product to the testnet, then crashed.
It was the biggest mistake of my life.
I never expected anyone to closely monitor new deployments on the testnet. When I woke up, I found that news of my forex trading pair deployment on the testnet had spread through Hyperliquid's private developer community.
The entire Hyperliquid ecosystem was buzzing. Everyone knew a new developer was about to launch forex trading pairs on the platform. Only then did they belatedly realize such a massive gap existed in the market. Before me, no one had actually thought of doing forex trading pairs.
The news quickly reached trade.xyz. The company reacted swiftly, immediately claiming the Japanese Yen to US Dollar (JPYUSD) trading pair and announcing they would be the first to launch forex trading products on Hyperliquid.
Remember, trade.xyz's platform handles billions in daily volume, with trading pairs backed by hundreds of millions in capital.
I knew full well I couldn't compete with such a giant.
What's the point of being a second-rate forex trading service provider on Hyperliquid?
One wrong move, and the whole game was lost. I had single-handedly ruined my own bright future.
Rather than launching a me-too competitor that would fragment the platform's liquidity, it was better to simply abandon the project. After all, contributing to the Hyperliquid ecosystem was my original intention.
Sure enough, not long after, trade.xyz officially launched the Euro to US Dollar (EURUSD) trading pair.
I was shaking with anger, a fury almost indescribable. If I hadn't already been submerged in despair, I might have smashed my computer to pieces. I never knew I could be so consumed by rage.
But I was mostly angry at myself. How could I make such a rookie mistake, exposing my brainchild like that?
This was Entrepreneurship 101, and I had stumbled. This time, I lost completely, potentially missing out on a chance to make billions in fees over the next few years.
One stupid mistake killed my entire plan. I couldn't believe my eyes. I've made plenty of mistakes before, but never one as absurd as this.
I swore to myself I would never deploy any product to a public testnet again.
The frustration, combined with the post-Adderall crash, plunged me into severe acute depression. I was a dejected bull.
Until one day, I finally couldn't take it anymore...
I had to pick myself up.
I racked my brains, thinking of other possibilities. If everyone missed forex trading pairs, there must be other overlooked opportunities.
Although temporarily set back, I wouldn't stop there. I was determined to find a new breakthrough.
After all, the financial system is so vast; I was sure I could find some unknown market gap. This time, however, I wouldn't repeat my mistake.
I noticed a serious problem in the Hyperliquid ecosystem: a few top developers were copying each other, a rather short-sighted behavior that only led to severe fragmentation of the platform's liquidity.
For example, trading pairs for hot stocks like Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA) were repeatedly deployed by multiple developers.
No one wanted to innovate; everyone was copying, launching products that were largely the same. Sure, this approach could generate some volume and revenue, but it wasn't sustainable in the long run.
The Comeback: My Moment of Success
Then, I noticed that the needs of the Monero (XMR) community had been severely neglected for a long time. Due to its anonymous transaction features angering regulators, this token had been delisted from the vast majority of exchanges.
Despite this, Monero still ranks within the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, with a valuation of nearly $10 billion and a large, loyal community. The market desperately needed a platform to meet the trading needs of Monero users.
This was the perfect fit for Hyperliquid. After all, this is the very purpose of a permissionless, decentralized exchange.
A bit of background: Before I launched wagyu.xyz, it was extremely difficult for the average person to buy Monero.
You either had to use shady instant exchange websites, paying fees of over 1%, or rely on centralized exchanges, which would often freeze your account for depositing or withdrawing Monero.
Nowadays, most centralized exchanges have delisted Monero. Even Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced delisting Monero last year, with others following suit.
Seeing the potential, I built wagyu.xyz, making Monero trading easier than ever. Users simply deposit any token (ETH, BTC, SOL, USDC) on the Hyperliquid platform to exchange for my issued XMR1 token.
Once you hold XMR1 on Hyperliquid, you can use wagyu.xyz to withdraw it directly to your Monero wallet with one click.
I made a short demo video explaining the process. The video quickly went viral, causing a huge stir in the Monero community.
Video link: https://x.com/PerpetualCow/status/2002112238044483642
My product was more convenient and user-friendly than any similar tool on the market. After all, superior products always win.
Pure Monero tokens were a treasure for users. The Monero community was ecstatic; they had never seen such a thoughtful tool that completely solved their trading pain points. The previous alternatives were terrible by comparison.
Since then, Wagyu has been on a roll. Within just two weeks of launch, withdrawal volume surpassed $10 million, bringing over $20 million in new trading volume to the Hyperliquid platform.
Since launch, we've enabled more investors who previously couldn't access Monero to finally buy the token. When people can buy Monero without worry and store it safely in cold wallets without fearing account freezes, buying pressure naturally flows in.
Now, users can easily buy or sell Monero on a scale of millions of dollars using a time-weighted average price algorithm and securely deposit the tokens into their wallets. The platform's order book liquidity has become very robust, and it will only get better over time as we've only been live for two weeks.
$50 Million Valuation in Two Weeks
In just two weeks, Wagyu generated $200,000 in revenue, annualizing to $5.2 million.
I initiated a small funding round for members of the Hyperliquid community and friends I'd met during my entrepreneurial journey. The company valuation was set at $50 million, representing a P/E ratio of 10x. The allocation was quickly snapped up; clearly, many people already saw the project's huge potential.
However, I won't stop here. Monero's success is just the first step in my plan.
I plan to build wagyu.xyz into one of the top developer platforms within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, introducing a points incentive system to encourage users to provide liquidity and generate trading volume.
My goal is to build Wagyu into a platform that can compete with other top projects in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. We will focus on developing quality products that users genuinely need, want to trade, and hold.
Entrepreneurial Insights
This story teaches us one thing: if you think of it, just go for it.
Go find the gaps in the market. There are still so many unmet needs in this world waiting for you to discover and fulfill.
We are in a golden age for entrepreneurship, where success is within reach. Don't follow the crowd making cookie-cutter AI products; build hardcore products that the market actually needs.
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