Author: kaledora Compiled by: TechFlow
Multiple perspectives can be valid at the same time:
The Hyperliquid airdrop marks a turning point, reflecting the market's complete rejection of the trend of "air software" infrastructure led by insiders, which typically allocate only a tiny fraction to the community.
Raising massive funds at absurd valuations, then launching at a ridiculous fully diluted valuation (FDV), ultimately leading to a continuous price decline and dumping on retail investors, is a bad practice.
For most projects, unless the founders have already made tens of millions of dollars, it is difficult to avoid fundraising and having "insiders", even if just team members.
Here are some thoughts on how to understand these seemingly contradictory perspectives.
The Success of Hyperliquid
The Hyperliquid airdrop was an important event in this cycle. I particularly appreciate the following four points:
It reset expectations about how, when, and to what extent Token ownership should be distributed.
It reaffirmed the importance of DeFi and user-centric applications in the industry.
It demonstrated that selling pressure should be resolved quickly, not delayed.
The community's cultural aesthetics
The brilliance of Hyperliquid lies in combining the Token timeline of venture-backed projects with the distribution mechanism of ICOs. First, build the product, launch without Tokens, iterate with users over multiple seasons, gradually adapt to reward the most valuable behaviors for the protocol, and then release Tokens (rather than raising funds before the product launch) over a year later. But like community-funded projects, distribute Tokens to users.
Ironically, in many areas where founders are eager to reduce selling pressure by limiting initial Token Generation Event (TGE) distribution and liquidity, Hyperliquid has successfully achieved the strongest buying pressure post-launch and the most widespread distribution among major protocols over the years.
On selling pressure: the more protocols try to artificially disperse the pain of short-term speculators' selling, the more the selling pressure is exacerbated, making it almost impossible for true long-term supporters to hold Tokens (as the complex supply dynamics will outweigh the project's strength in the medium term).
My last appreciation for Hyperliquid is its community's cultural aesthetics, although it is rarely mentioned. The "community" refers to those who actually use the product. The crypto community's love for community has evolved into an implicit requirement that every product needs its own pseudo-religious cult, whether real or bot-generated, filled with exaggerated visual symbols, slogans, and personal profiles that may be real or bot-generated, conveying the same few slogans daily. Building a cult around images or slogans unrelated to the underlying product is a substitute for the cult that should be built around your product itself.
Hyperliquid's cult exists, but it is - or at least starts as - a cult of users, not followers. As far as I know, its most ardent users don't even have their own consensus self-designation. I've heard "bozos" is the de facto term, but overall, HL's crypto branding features are sparse. I'm not sure I've ever seen any HL pepes; there are PURR cats and PIPs, but that's about it. Aesthetically, it takes its clean brand seriously, with no posts cluttered with cartoon characters.
However, Hyperliquid's cult is exploding, and its social media is becoming thoroughly botified. Its followers seem to have tripled in the past few weeks, but when they start handling billions of dollars in daily trading volume, there are only about 30,000 of them. Compared to other projects with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers on Twitter (and you don't know a single user!)
Even if You Can't (or Won't) Replicate Them, You Can Still Learn from Hyperliquid
Ignoring the product, most founders building serious projects can't simply not raise funds, the obvious reason being they don't have $5-10 million to fund a small development team for years. Those with that privilege should consider putting in the capital and reaping the outsized returns they may get if they execute well. If you're a college graduate startup or in any way an ordinary person, this may not be your choice.
Even if Hyperliquid sets unrealistic expectations for those who can't avoid raising external capital in some ways, I think this reset is actually a good thing if you're not raising massive funds.
Just look at the type of announcement that confers maximum status elevation and always triggers the most bot-driven growth: fundraising announcements. Over the past few years, fundraising announcements have become the defining status symbol in crypto; the bigger, the better. This puts natural pressure on founders to raise more and more funds at higher and higher valuations, regardless of how much capital they actually need to reach the next stage. This is not unique to crypto, but if you believe in its basic spirit at all, it's certainly not good for crypto.
Even if you can't avoid fundraising, you can raise more reasonable amounts, focus on the product, and avoid participating in the game of who can raise the biggest round. Instead, compete on who can build the best product - that will be more fun and, hopefully, better for the entire crypto ecosystem.
In Summary:
HL has put DeFi in the lead and redefined the model of Token distribution
Selling pressure should be resolved quickly
Reject those groups that don't focus on the product
The market now allows you to focus more on product development than fundraising
