Founders Clash Over Liquidation Transparency

During last week’s market downturn that saw HYPE prices plummet towards $20, Hyperliquid reportedly maintained 100% uptime with zero bad debt, as stated by the platform’s founder, Jeff Yan. 

However, in a post shared on social media site X (formerly Twitter), Yan also raised concerns about certain centralized exchanges (CEXs), suggesting they may have underreported liquidation data during this volatile event.

The Liquidation Debate

In his remarks, the platform’s founder highlighted that Hyperliquid operates on a blockchain where every order, trade, and liquidation occurs visibly on-chain, allowing anyone to permissionlessly verify the execution of these processes. 

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Yet, Yan identified a troubling trend among some CEXs, which he claims publicly document a drastic underreporting of user liquidations. He took Binance’s example, noting that even when thousands of liquidation orders occur simultaneously, only one is reported due to limitations in its data stream. 

The platform’s founder asserted that this can obscure the actual volume of liquidations, particularly during high-volatility events like the recent flash crash, leading to a potential underreporting factor of 100 times. In response to Yan’s criticism, Binance former CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), addressed the issue, stating, 

Some people ask why is #BNB so strong? While others tried to ignore, hide, shift blame, or attack competitors, the key @BNBChain ecosystem players (Binance, Venus, and more) took hundreds of millions out of their own pockets to PROTECT USERS.

From Binance To Hyperliquid

This exchange comes on the heels of a major drop on broader crypto prices last Friday, which saw the Bitcoin (BTC) price drop from $122,000 to $102,000 on exchanges like Binance, leading to the liquidation of over $19 billion in leveraged positions. 

Amid the chaos, Jeff noted that Hyperliquid reportedly managed a trading volume between $50 and $70 billion without any downtime or disruption. In contrast, Binance faced temporary technical issues that left some users unable to close their positions.

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Hyperliquid’s founder has a history with Binance, having participated in the Binance Labs Investment Incubation Program in 2018. During this period, he, along with co-founder Brian Wong, aimed to develop Deaux, a decentralized prediction market product. 

Their vision was to create a platform that facilitated collaborative betting within an international liquidity pool using cryptocurrency. Throughout their time in the Binance Incubation Program, they emphasized the importance of user experience while exploring the benefits of decentralization. 

Their product sought to mirror the user-friendly interface of centralized exchanges like Binance—offering low fees and real-time feedback—while ensuring security through blockchain smart contracts and incorporating decentralized democratic voting for settlement.

At the time of writing, HYPE is still recording weekly losses of 14%, with the token trading at around $41.88. However, it has recovered by over 4% in the last few hours, although all-time high levels are still 28% away. 

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com