Written by: Shannon@Jinse Finance
On June 1, 2026, Hyperliquid's native token HYPE hit a new all-time high of $73.79.
However, behind this triumph, the crypto community on the X platform had been embroiled in a war of words for months.
The trigger was a well-known VC who launched his attack just three days after leaving Multicoin Capital.
To understand this debate, we must first understand what Hyperliquid actually is.
I. 11 People, Zero VC, Trillion-Dollar Trading Volume
Hyperliquid was founded in 2022 by Jeff Yan, a Harvard graduate and gold medalist in the Physics Olympiad.
After the collapse of FTX, Yan decided to build a Layer 1 public chain designed specifically for trading from scratch. Its core is a fully on-chain perpetual contract order book—requiring neither centralized servers for matching nor relying on the slow block generation of general-purpose chains like Ethereum.
What's even more noteworthy is that Hyperliquid rejected a VC funding offer with a valuation as high as $1 billion and, in November 2024, directly airdropped tokens worth approximately $16 billion to users, leaving no room for any institutions to profit from it. "VC investment often creates an illusion of progress—by inflating valuations rather than creating real user value. I have never done this for the money." — Jeff Yan, founder of Hyperliquid. Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, recently stated publicly that Hyperliquid's trading activity is even "greater than Nasdaq," and highly praised the 11-person team. Grayscale, Bitwise, and 21Shares have successively launched HYPE-related ETF products, with institutional funds continuing to flow in.
On February 5, 2026, Kyle Samani announced his resignation as co-managing partner of Multicoin Capital, which he founded, ending his nearly ten-year tenure.
Three days later, he posted a tweet on X that ignited public opinion:
"Hyperliquid is the worst embodiment of cryptocurrency in every way. The founder fled his homeland to evade regulation, openly aids crime and terrorism, has closed-source code, and is a permitted system." — Kyle Samani, X platform post (original post deleted), February 8, 2026
This post was subsequently deleted, but screenshots had already circulated widely.
It is worth noting that Samani incorrectly described this American born in the San Francisco Bay Area as a foreigner who "fled his homeland."
In fact, Jeff Yan moved from the United States to Puerto Rico, a legitimate tax choice for many tech entrepreneurs, far removed from "escaping regulation." The most dramatic moment came from Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom Fund. On February 8th, he directly challenged Samani on X to a $100,000 bet. "Since HYPE is so bad… let's make a bet. From February 10th to July 31st, 2026, HYPE will outperform any altcoin with a market capitalization of over $1 billion on CoinGecko in USD. You choose your opponent. The loser donates $100,000 to a charity designated by the winner." — Arthur Hayes, X platform, February 8th, 2026. Hayes' logic is: the best way to criticize an asset is to let the market speak for itself. If HYPE is truly worthless as Samani claims, then it should underperform other assets. On February 8th, Samani did not publicly respond to this bet challenge. On June 1st, when HYPE hit a new high, Arthur Hayes again challenged Samani: "When I contacted you last time, you were probably busy. How about we make a bet, a charitable donation? I'll donate $100,000 to a charity you choose. From now until the end of the year, HYPE, denominated in USD, will outperform the current top ten cryptocurrencies. Who do you think is the best choice? — Arthur Hayes, X Platform, June 1, 2026." This time, Samani accepted the bet.
The timeline of events is as follows:
Samani's criticisms were not unfounded, but each accusation sparked fierce rebuttals.
The essence of this debate is two completely different sets of criteria for judging "good crypto products". **Accusation 1: Closed-source code, lack of transparency** Samani's side: Closed-source means no auditing, posing security and trust risks. Supporters: Daily transaction volume of tens of billions of dollars proves product strength; the market votes with its feet, not caring about open-source status. **Accusation 2: Permissioned validator nodes, not truly decentralized** Samani's side: Permissioned validator set means the team retains centralized control. Supporters: The number of validator nodes has gradually expanded from 24 to 27; the decentralization process is continuously advancing, and the trade-off between speed and security is a reasonable engineering choice. **Accusation 3: Founders moved overseas to evade regulation** list-paddingleft-2">Samani's side: Jeff Yan's move to Puerto Rico is a signal of escaping regulation
Supporters: Yan is a U.S. citizen, Puerto Rico is U.S. territory, and moving there is a legitimate tax planning move, unrelated to "escaping". Samani even incorrectly described Yan as a foreigner in the post. **Accusation Four: The Platform Facilitates Crime and Terrorism** **Samani's Side:** Hyperliquid lacks KYC and is a breeding ground for criminal funds. **Supporters:** No specific evidence provided; DEXs without KYC are common in the industry, and the regulatory gray area is not unique to Hyperliquid. **Fifth, Conflict of Interest: This elephant is standing right in the middle of the room.** What makes this whole thing most intriguing is not what Samani said, but when he said it. **On-chain data shows that wallets associated with Multicoin Capital purchased approximately 1.355 million HYPE tokens around January 31, 2026, worth over $40 million. Less than two weeks after this major purchase, Samani announced his resignation and immediately launched a scathing attack. This sparked much speculation within the crypto community: Did Samani's departure stem from internal disagreements with the fund regarding the HYPE purchase? Was his outburst a form of distancing—an attempt to distance himself from Multicoin's investment? Or was it simply a personal expression from someone with fundamental disagreements after leaving? Samani's response to Multicoin's purchase of HYPE was a brief statement: "I'm no longer with Multicoin." This made the whole affair even more perplexing and led to the widespread circulation of a comment on X that received thousands of likes: "They couldn't buy HYPE before Kyle left?" Anthony Sassano, a well-known figure in the Ethereum community, labeled Samani a "big liar" on X, implying that the real motivation behind the criticism was Hyperliquid's refusal to allocate tokens to relevant parties, while also suggesting that Hyperliquid's rise was eroding the core narrative of the Solana ecosystem—and Samani has long been one of Solana's most steadfast supporters. "Hyperliquid has achieved undeniable success to date, entirely on its own merits. Pretending not to see it is nothing but burying one's head in the sand." — Crypto commentator Eddie, X Platform. VI. Market Verdict: Price is the Answer. Regardless of how the debate continues, the market has already given its answer in its most direct language. On June 1, 2026, HYPE reached a new all-time high of $73.79, more than 20 times its offering price in November 2024, briefly placing its market capitalization among the top ten global crypto assets. HYPE's rise was not purely speculative. Several fundamental factors supported this rally: 1. Regulatory Validation: The CFTC officially approved the US-regulated perpetual contract product, fundamentally validating the financial framework adopted by Hyperliquid and reducing compliance risks for institutional participants. 2. ETF Access Enabled: Grayscale, Bitwise, and 21Shares have successively launched HYPE-related ETFs, attracting continuous inflows of traditional institutional funds, with eight consecutive days of positive net inflows. 3. Protocol Upgrades: The HIP-3 upgrade enables permissionless creation of perpetual contract markets, allowing on-chain trading of assets such as gold, Nasdaq futures, and forex; HIP-4 is advancing prediction market functionality. 4. Real Revenue Buyback: The protocol distributes cash flow to token holders through a revenue buyback mechanism, providing real value support. Conclusion: A Clash of Two Beliefs At its core, this debate stems from a fundamental disagreement within the cryptocurrency community regarding the definition of a "good project." Samani's side believes that open source, decentralization, and regulatory compliance are non-negotiable bottom lines; while Hyperliquid supporters believe that fair token distribution without exploiting investors, an independent spirit that rejects venture capital, and a genuine user base and revenue are the core metrics for measuring a protocol's value. Price cannot prove everything, but in this specific case, the market's choice is very clear.
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