The total value locked (TVL) of Hyperliquid’s Layer 1 blockchain, HyperEVM, has grown to almost $2 billion in just five months, according to DeFiLlama.
Since late May, HyperEVM has processed between 200,000 and 400,000 transactions per day, according to Dune Analytics. Daily active users (DAU) have generally been in the 15,000 to 20,000 range in that period.
“Although activity remains modest compared to HyperCore [Hyperliquid’s perpetuals exchange]… HyperEVM has demonstrated steady growth in transaction volume, total value locked (TVL), and application development since its launch in February,” said Galaxy Digital Research Analyst Will Owens and Research Associate Lucas Tcheyan in a July 10 research note. “Momentum has been fueled by key infrastructure upgrades, a maturing DeFi ecosystem, and growing speculation about potential airdrops.”
Ecosystem growth has been rapid, they said, noting that there are more than 175 teams publicly building on the chain, and more in stealth mode.
CoreWriter Upgrade
One of those key infrastructure upgrades came on July 5 with the release of the CoreWriter smart contract, which will allow HyperEVM dApps to directly execute transactions on the HyperCore perpetuals exchange. It unlocked advanced DeFi features like native liquid staking while enhancing developer flexibility.
That will “drive a surge in application deployments and user activity over the coming months,” Owens and Tcheyan predicted. “HyperCore will likely remain the predominant hub for activity in the near term, but we expect HyperEVM activity to accelerate over the coming year as chain performance and tooling improve and applications mature.”
Surging Ecosystem
For a chain where activity “remains modest,” HyperEVM is doing quite well, according to DeFiLlama. The Hyperliquid L1 has already cracked the top 10 blockchains by TVL, coming in at No. 9, with 1.57% of the total. That puts it ahead of Avalanche.
The dApps on HyperEVM have been booming, with Felix, a collateralized debt position (CDP) and lending protocol, accounting for 18.4% of the L1’s TVL, according to DeFiLlama. Together with HyperLend, a lending protocol with 17.2% of TVL, they outpace Hyperliquid itself, which accounts for 24.8% of TVL.
Felix has a TVL of $401 million, and HyperLend has a TVL of $380 million, according to DeFiLlama.
The protocol’s HYPE token hit an all-time high of $49.75 on July 14, having gotten a big boost in late May when former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Summer Mersinger — now CEO of the Blockchain Association — said she expected crypto perpetual futures will be able to come to the U.S. “very soon.”
HyperEVM’s TVL has grown by about two-thirds of a billion dollars since Mersinger’s comments.
There is also growing speculation of another forthcoming airdrop. On Nov. 29, 2024, it dropped 310 million HYPE to its community, representing 31% of the total supply and marking one of the largest airdrops ever, approaching $7.5 billion as the token’s value soared. Another 38.9% of the HYPE supply is earmarked for future incentives.
