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Hyperliquid’s builder program is making real money. Wallets, Telegram bots, and trading apps that route user transactions through HyperCore’s perpetuals exchange are pulling in cumulative revenue that’s hard to ignore — and the competitive dynamics behind it are worth understanding.
The setup is pretty straightforward. Developers connect directly to the exchange, set their own fee rates above the protocol’s base fee, and keep everything they collect. No revenue sharing at the protocol level. None. That means builders compete on user experience, pricing, and quality — not on who has the best deal with Hyperliquid itself. What it creates is a layered distribution network where dozens of different entry points all feed into the same underlying order book, each charging what the market will bear.
Phantom Leads, Based Closes In
Per CoinGecko’s analysis, Phantom sits at the top with $20.63 million in cumulative revenue since the program launched — that’s nearly 32% of the top 10 earners’ total combined revenue. Phantom’s user base is the biggest too, at 137,496 users, averaging $150 in revenue per user. It charges a 0.05% builder fee.
Based ranks second. It’s generated $15.05 million from $44 billion in trading volume, despite running a lower builder fee of 0.025% — half of Phantom’s rate. The volume makes up for the thinner margin. Together, Phantom and Based account for almost 55% of total top-10 builder revenue. That’s a pretty concentrated top of the leaderboard.
MetaMask is fourth, pulling in $6.51 million. It charges the highest fee among the top builders — 0.1% — and has attracted 43,761 users across $7.46 billion in trading volume, averaging $149 per user. Not far behind is Insilico, with $3.30 million from just 2,962 users, which is a striking revenue-per-user number when you think about it. Axiom processed $22.1 billion in volume but earned only $2.27 million because its fee sits at 0.01% — translating to $68 per user, the lowest among those mentioned.
The fee spread across builders is wide. From MetaMask’s 0.1% down to Axiom’s 0.01%, the range basically shows that different builders are targeting different user types. High-volume, cost-sensitive traders gravitate toward low-fee interfaces. Casual users or those who prioritize UX probably don’t blink at 0.05% or even 0.1%. That flexibility is kind of the whole point.
HIP-3, HIP-4, and the USDC Wildcard
Builder revenue isn’t the only thing moving at Hyperliquid. The HIP-3 permissionless perpetual markets — which include pre-IPO trading venues — have added activity and pulled in new users who weren’t there before. Pre-IPO perps are still a niche product in crypto, but they’ve clearly driven awareness.
Spot HYPE ETF launches have also helped. Broader distribution, easier investor access, strong early demand — it’s added up to real momentum for the token.
FalconX flagged the HIP-4 outcome markets launch on mainnet as another meaningful step. Prediction markets are having a moment broadly, with platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket getting significant attention. Hyperliquid moving into that space puts it in direct competition with those names. Whether it can carve out share there is unclear yet, but the direction is obvious.
Priority fees are coming too. The idea is that they’ll boost protocol revenue and add utility to the native token — giving users more reason to hold and engage rather than just trade and exit. No specific timeline was given.
And then there’s the USDC angle. FalconX’s projections put potential annualized revenue from USDC’s alignment — backed by Coinbase and Circle — at up to $160 million. That’s a big number. It’s a projection, not a guarantee, but if USDC becomes a core asset within Hyperliquid’s ecosystem with that kind of institutional backing, the revenue impact would be substantial. Probably the single largest potential upside mentioned in the analysis.
It’s worth stepping back for a second. Hyperliquid’s builder program works because it doesn’t try to take a cut from the builders. That sounds counterintuitive for a protocol trying to grow revenue, but the logic holds — more builders competing aggressively means more users on the platform, more volume through HyperCore, and more protocol-level activity that benefits Hyperliquid in other ways. The builders do the distribution work. Hyperliquid gets the liquidity and the network effects.
Whether the top-10 concentration around Phantom and Based becomes a problem down the road is an open question. Right now, it’s not really a problem — it’s a sign that the best-executed products win. But if those two players ever pull back or migrate to a competing venue, the revenue picture shifts fast.
FalconX’s $160 million USDC revenue estimate assumes the alignment goes smoothly and adoption follows.
Hub: USDC price, news, and analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Hyperliquid’s builder program and how does it work?
The builder program lets developers connect directly to Hyperliquid’s HyperCore exchange, set custom fee rates above the base protocol fee, and keep all revenue they collect — with no revenue sharing at the protocol level.
Which builder has earned the most revenue on Hyperliquid?
Phantom leads with $20.63 million in cumulative revenue, representing nearly 32% of the top 10 builders’ total, with 137,496 users and an average revenue of $150 per user.
