Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, has responded to rumors about a connection between Binance and the quickly growing decentralized exchange called Hyperliquid. He confirmed that although the founder of Hyperliquid was previously involved in a Binance Labs program, there are no current investments or ties between the two companies.

In a message on X, CZ said that Jeff Yan, who started Hyperliquid, took part in Binance Labs’ first group of new businesses in 2018 with a company called YZiLabs.

The project about a decentralized prediction market named Deaux did not succeed, and Binance Labs lost its investment. CZ said he didn’t talk much with Jeff back then and only found out about their connection earlier this year.

“Just so you know, Jeff (from Hyperliquid) was in the first group of YZiLabs (which was called Binance Labs at that time) in 2018. ” Sadly, that project did not succeed.

The founder of Hyperliquid used to be part of Binance’s training program, but CZ confirmed that there are no current connections

YZiLabs did not get back any of the money it invested, CZ wrote. He said that YZiLabs does not own any shares or tokens in Hyperliquid and mentioned that Binance helps all developers in the industry.

The post came after old photos from 2018 showed Jeff with other YZiLabs members, making people think there is a stronger connection between Hyperliquid and Binance.

Jeff’s earlier project, Deaux, tried to make decentralized prediction markets easier to use. This idea later developed into the community-based model for Hyperliquid.

Hyperliquid, which started on its own blockchain, has become one of the busiest platforms for trading perpetual contracts in decentralized finance (DeFi). In July 2025, it handled around $319 billion in trades, according to DefiLlama data, which is the most it has ever done in a month since starting.

The increase helped reach a total of $487 billion in DeFi perpetuals trades that month, which is a record high.

Hyperliquid is completely based on blockchain technology and has two main parts that work closely together: HyperCore, which manages order books, margin trading, and liquidations; and HyperEVM, a smart contract system that shares information and agreement with the main exchange.

Its HyperBFT system, based on HotStuff, allows trades to happen in less than a second, with an average time of only 0. 2 seconds This performance is as good as that of central exchanges.

The platform is built differently from the automated market maker model that is common in many decentralized exchanges.

Instead, it keeps track of orders and matches them directly on the blockchain, offering clear information while also being as fast as central exchanges.

Hyperliquid is thought to have a main team of only 11 members.

Jeff Yan, the founder, said that the project is funded by itself and that he has chosen not to seek money from investors to stay independent and in line with the community’s needs.

The team quickly responds to problems, like a situation in July when they paid back $1. 99 million to traders in just one day. This shows they are very good at managing operations.

CZ explained that Binance does not own any part of Hyperliquid. However, he talked about how Binance Labs helped start some of the people who are now in charge of important projects in DeFi.

Hyperliquid is becoming Binance’s biggest competitor in the world of decentralized exchanges

The decentralized exchange Hyperliquid is gradually taking away some of Binance’s control in crypto derivatives trading. Its trading activity now makes up 13. 6% of what Binance does, which is an increase from 8% at the beginning of the year.

The change shows that decentralized perpetual futures platforms are becoming popular as good options instead of centralized exchanges.

Hyperliquid has handled more than $200 billion recently, thanks to new features that allow it to work with different blockchains, including Bitcoin.

The exchange currently has about 70% of the entire decentralized perpetuals market, based on information from DeFiLlama and Token Terminal. The main token, HYPE, recently reached a record price of $59. 29, making its total market value nearly $16 billion.

Decentralized perpetual exchanges (perp DEXs) have quickly become popular. The total trading amount in the industry was $1. 22 trillion in September, which is a 48% increase from August.

Most of that activity came from Hyperliquid and Aster, a new derivatives decentralized exchange (DEX) started by YZi Labs, a company connected to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Aster has grown fast, making almost $494 billion in transactions and earning over $120 million in fees in just one week.

Even though Binance still has a huge $83 billion in daily futures trading, the difference between centralized and decentralized platforms is getting smaller.

Experts believe that Hyperliquid’s steady availability of funds and Aster’s fast growth show a big change in trading derivatives. More traders are choosing decentralized, open, and non-custodial platforms.