Overview
- On February 8, Samani posted — then deleted — a broad denunciation calling Hyperliquid “everything wrong with crypto,” citing closed-source code, permissioned controls, and governance concerns while naming founder Jeff Yan.
- He alleged the project enables illicit activity and said the founder moved abroad to avoid scrutiny, but outlets note no verified evidence supports those claims and no enforcement actions have been reported.
- On-chain analysts reported that wallets believed to be linked to Multicoin bought over $40 million in HYPE in late January, though there is no official confirmation tying the activity to the firm’s strategy.
- Hyperliquid has promoted recent upgrades, with HIP-3 enabling permissionless perpetual markets and HIP-4 announced for outcome-style markets, as provider TradeXYZ reported processing more than $12 billion in volume.
- Despite the criticism, reporting points to continued institutional usage and feature uptake, and HYPE has posted gains in early February.