Original Title: 《Hyperliquidcrossroads:Robinhoodor Nasdaq economics》
Source: BlockRearch
Translation and Compilation: BitpushNews
Hyperliquid is currently in the phase of liquidating Nasdaq-level perpetual contracts (Perp) trading volume, but is earning only meager profits. In the past 30 days, it has liquidated $205.6 billion in nominal value of perpetual contracts (annualized at $617 billion), generating only $8.03 million in fees, with a monetization rate of approximately 3.9 basis points.
Its monetization model resembles that of a wholesale execution venue.
In contrast, Coinbase reported a trading volume of $295 billion for Q3 2025, with trading revenue of $1.046 billion, implying a take rate of up to 35.5 basis points.
Robinhood has shown similar retail monetization characteristics in the cryptocurrency space: its $80 billion nominal trading volume in cryptocurrencies generated $268 million in trading revenue, with an implied take rate of 33.5 basis points; meanwhile, its nominal value of stock trading in Q3 2025 was $647 billion.
The gap between the two is even larger than what the fee rates suggest, as retail platforms have multidimensional monetization pathways. In Q3 2025, Robinhood generated $730 million in trading-related revenue, plus $456 million in net interest income and $88 million in other income (primarily driven by its Gold subscription service).
In contrast, Hyperliquid currently relies heavily on trading fees, which are structurally limited to single-digit basis points at the protocol level.
Positioning Difference: Distributor vs. Market Layer
The best explanation for this difference is positioning: Coinbase and Robinhood belong to the brokerage/distribution business, monetizing through balance sheets and subscription services; while Hyperliquid is closer to the exchange layer (market layer). In traditional market structures, profit pools are divided between these two levels.
The core divergence in traditional finance (TradFi) lies in "distribution" versus "market":
Distribution layer (e.g., Robinhood and Coinbase): They hold customer relationships and occupy high-profit segments.
Market layer (e.g., Nasdaq): They exist as exchanges, with pricing power structurally suppressed, and their execution business tends to gravitate towards "commoditized" economic efficiency in competition.
1. Brokerage = Distribution + Customer Balance Sheet
Brokerages own customer relationships. Most users do not access Nasdaq directly but enter the market through brokerages. Brokerages handle deposits, custody, margin/risk management, customer service, and tax documentation, then route orders to various trading venues. This ownership of relationships creates monetization capabilities beyond trading:
Balances: Cash sweep spreads, margin financing, securities lending.
Packaging: Subscription services, bundles, co-branded cards/consulting services.
Routing economics: Brokerages control the flow and can embed payment or revenue-sharing mechanisms in the routing chain.
This is why brokerages often have profitability that exceeds trading venues: profit pools concentrate where distribution and balances reside.
2. Exchange = Matching + Rulebook + Infrastructure (Monetization Rate Limited)
Exchanges are responsible for operating venues: matching, setting market rules, deterministic execution, and connectivity. Their monetization methods include:
Trading fees: Pressured down in high liquidity products due to competition.
Rebates/liquidity programs: Often have to return most nominal fees to makers to attract liquidity.
Market data, connectivity/co-location services.
Listing fees and index licensing.
Robinhood's routing logic clearly illustrates this structure: the brokerage (Robinhood Securities) owns the users and routes orders to third-party market centers, with routing revenue shared throughout the chain. Distribution is the high-profit layer: it controls customer acquisition and the monetization areas surrounding execution (payment for order flow, margin, securities lending, subscriptions).
Nasdaq is the low-profit layer. Its products are commoditized execution capabilities and queue access rights, and because trading venues need to pay rebates to attract liquidity, and regulatory caps exist on access fees, routing is extremely flexible, thus its pricing power is mechanically suppressed. In Nasdaq's disclosures, this is reflected in the implied net cash capture per share being only a few cents.
The strategic consequences of this low-profit model are evident in Nasdaq's revenue mix. In 2024, its Market Services revenue was $1.02 billion, accounting for only 22% of total revenue of $4.649 billion; this ratio was 39.4% in 2014 and 35% in 2019. This aligns with its strategic shift from market-sensitive execution business to more sustainable software/data business.
Hyperliquid's "Nasdaq Path"
Hyperliquid's effective monetization rate of about 4 basis points aligns with its focus on the "market layer." It is building an on-chain Nasdaq simulator: an architecture with high throughput, margin management, and clearing stack (HyperCore), utilizing maker/taker pricing and maker rebates, aimed at optimizing execution quality and sharing liquidity rather than purely retail monetization.
This is reflected in two traditionally financial-like separation designs that most cryptocurrency venues lack:
A) Licensed Distribution/Distribution Layer (Builder Codes)
"Builder Codes" allow third-party interfaces to be deployed on top of the core trading venue and capture their own economic benefits. The cap on builder fees is set at 0.1% (10 bps) for perpetual contracts and 1% for spot, and can be set at the order level. This creates a competitive market for distribution rather than a monopoly of a single application.
B) Licensed Listing/Product Layer (HIP-3)
In traditional finance, exchanges control listings and product creation. The HIP-3 protocol externalizes this function: builders can deploy perpetual contracts inheriting the HyperCore stack and API, with deployers responsible for defining and operating the market. Economically, HIP-3 formally establishes revenue sharing between venues and products: spot and HIP-3 perpetual contract deployers can retain up to 50% of the trading fees from deployed assets.
Builder Codes have already achieved success in distribution; by mid-December, about one-third of users were trading through third-party front ends rather than the native UI.
Structural Pressures and Defenses
The issue is: this structure that promotes distribution growth may also foreseeably compress the revenues of trading venues:
Price compression: Multiple front ends selling the same back-end liquidity will push competition towards the lowest overall cost; builder fees can be adjusted at the order level, pushing pricing to the bottom line.
Loss of monetization areas: Front ends have deposits, bundling, subscriptions, and workflows; they capture the profits of the brokerage layer, while Hyperliquid can only retain weak trading venue revenues.
Strategic routing risk: If front ends become true cross-platform routers, Hyperliquid will be forced into a wholesale execution race, having to preserve flow only by lowering fees or increasing rebates.
Hyperliquid deliberately chose a low-margin market layer (through HIP-3 and Builder Codes), while allowing a high-margin brokerage layer to emerge above it. If third-party front ends continue to expand, they will increasingly determine the user-facing economic benefits, control retention areas, and gain routing leverage, thereby structurally and long-term depressing Hyperliquid's monetization rate.
Commoditization is clearly the biggest risk. If third-party front ends can consistently offer lower prices than the native UI and ultimately achieve cross-platform routing, Hyperliquid may become a low-margin wholesale clearing channel.
Strategic Shift: Defending Distribution and Broadening Revenue
Recent design choices indicate that Hyperliquid is attempting to broaden its revenue sources while preventing the aforementioned outcomes.
Distribution Defense: Maintaining Economic Competitiveness of the Native UI
A previously proposed staking discount could have allowed builders to receive up to a 40% discount by staking HYPE, which would have made third-party front ends structurally cheaper than Hyperliquid's own interface. Withdrawing this proposal eliminated direct price subsidies for external front ends. Meanwhile, the HIP-3 market, initially positioned for builder distribution, is now being included in Hyperliquid's native front end's "strict list." The signal is clear: Hyperliquid remains open at the builder level but is unwilling to compromise on core distribution rights.
USDH: Shifting from Trading Monetization to Floating Reserve Monetization
The launch of USDH aims to reclaim reserve income that would otherwise flow externally. Its structure is a 50/50 split of reserve income: 50% goes to Hyperliquid, and 50% is used for USDH ecosystem growth. The rate discounts for USDH trading pairs further confirm this: Hyperliquid is willing to compress single transaction profits for a larger, stickier asset balance profit pool. In fact, it has added a quasi-annuity income stream that grows with the monetary base (rather than just trading volume).
Portfolio Margin: Introducing Prime Broker-like Financing Economics
Portfolio margin unifies the margin for spot and perpetual contracts, offsetting risks and introducing a native lending cycle. Hyperliquid retains 10% of the interest paid by borrowers. This increasingly ties the protocol's economic benefits to leverage utilization and interest rates, aligning more closely with the economic model of brokerages/prime brokers rather than purely an exchange model.
Conclusion: Moving Towards 2026
Hyperliquid has reached the level of top trading venues in terms of throughput scale, but monetization still resembles that of a market layer: massive trading value paired with single-digit basis points effective monetization rates. The gap between it and Coinbase or Robinhood is structural. Retail platforms occupy the brokerage layer, holding user relationships and asset balances, profiting from multiple profit pools (financing, idle cash, subscriptions). Pure trading venues sell "execution," which, due to liquidity and routing competition, is essentially commoditized. Nasdaq is a reflection of this constraint in traditional finance.
Hyperliquid initially leaned towards a "pure trading venue" prototype. By separating distribution and product creation, it accelerated ecosystem growth. The cost is that this architecture may lead to profit spillover.
However, recent initiatives can be interpreted as a deliberate shift aimed at defending distribution and enriching the revenue mix beyond trading fees. The protocol has become less willing to subsidize external front ends to make them cheaper than the native UI, beginning to showcase HIP-3 more natively, and has introduced balance sheet-style profit pools. USDH is a typical example of reclaiming reserve income, while portfolio margin introduces financing economics through a 10% interest cut on lending.
Hyperliquid is evolving towards a hybrid model: with execution tracks as the foundation, layered with distribution defenses and balance-driven profit pools. This reduces the risk of being trapped in a low-margin wholesale segment, allowing it to align more closely with a brokerage-style revenue mix without sacrificing its core advantages in unified execution and clearing.
Looking ahead to 2026, the core suspense lies in whether Hyperliquid can successfully transition to a brokerage-style profit model without undermining its "outsourcing-friendly" approach.
USDH (Hyperliquid's native stablecoin) is the clearest litmus test: the current supply of about $100 million indicates that when a protocol does not directly control distribution channels, this outsourced issuance growth is slow. An obvious alternative could have been to set default options at the user interface (UI) level, such as automatically converting the approximately $4 billion USDC reserves within the protocol into the native stablecoin (similar to Binance's past practice of automatically converting user assets into BUSD).
If Hyperliquid wants to achieve brokerage-level profit pools, it may need to adopt brokerage-like behaviors: stronger control, tighter native product integration, and clearer boundaries with ecological teams competing at the same distribution and asset balance levels.
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