Hyperliquid Saved Itself a $15 Million Loss, but Sparked Criticism - Ep. 807

28/03/2025 43 min Episodio 807
Hyperliquid Saved Itself a $15 Million Loss, but Sparked Criticism - Ep. 807

Listen "Hyperliquid Saved Itself a $15 Million Loss, but Sparked Criticism - Ep. 807"

Episode Synopsis

Perpetual swap DEX Hyperliquid suffered a whale attack and was on the brink of losing $15 million. It promptly responded in a way that generated a fair amount of controversy.
The founder and CEO of Ambient Finance Doug Colkitt joined the show to explain:

How perp swaps work

How a whale used the low-liquidity memecoin $JELLY to attack Hyperliquid’s vault

How Hyperliquid’s response broke DeFi taboos around decentralization, oracles, etc.

Criticisms of and justifications for the team’s decisions

What can be done to prevent similar attacks in the future

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FalconX

Mantle

Guest

Doug Colkitt, Founder and CEO of Ambient Finance
Links

 Accounts of the $JELLY whale attack on Hyperliquid and its response 

X: The story


X: Nuking the vault


X: How Hyperliquid responded




Arguments for and against Hyperliquid’s solution:

ZachXBT: ZachXBT calls out alleged hypocrisy


Jordi Alexander: Shorting on a perp is not robust


Jose Maria Macedo: How do they override the oracle price? 

Doug: Closing positions at an arbitrary price


Gracy Chen: Casting doubts on integrity


Steven.hl: In defense of HL


Kam: Of course quorum was reached easily




What precedent Hyperliquid’s actions set

Kevin Zhou: Binance and OKX set a precedent



Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro
🤔 02:59 What is Hyperliquid?
🐳 05:16 How a whale used $JELLY to attack
⛔ 09:19 How Hyperliquid responded
📈 11:59 Why did Binance and OKX suddenly list the memecoin?
🤔 16:32 How did Hyperliquid ‘change the rules’ to protect themselves?
⚖️ 19:25 ‘Losses for thee, but not for me’: Hyperliquid’s hypocrisy?
💡 24:39 Doug’s ‘cleaner’ solution
👀 28:35 Will this have positive or negative knock-on effects?
🧹 31:20 Tidying up illiquid markets
📰 32:46 Crypto News Recap
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