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Interview Summary: 24/7 Trading on Hyperliquid (@Joonylive × Jeff Yan) Joony Koo: Two years ago, the prevailing view was that markets should close because of risk, rest, and off-hours liquidity. Was there a moment when that view broke for you? Jeff Yan: Crypto is an inherently international asset, so the idea of market hours never really fit, and 24/7 has always been the default. It started to matter for traditional assets when the incumbent exchanges began extending their hours. They didn't go straight to 24/7, they went to 24/5, but it became clear they had recognized customer demand and were responding to it. Joony Koo: Incumbents are now matching the hours. What is left that an on-chain venue can offer? Jeff Yan: Trading hours are independent of being on-chain. The core of on-chain finance is two things. First, users keep control and custody of their funds. That doesn't matter day to day, but it matters in critical moments, when counterparties, intermediaries, or custodians run into trouble. Reducing trust assumptions and moving power to individuals rather than a single point of failure makes the system more robust. Second, transparency. It has limited mass appeal, but being able to know, in theory, everything happening in the system brings a trust and neutrality you don't get from a system controlled by one private organization. You can have 24/7 trading without these properties, but these are what on-chain markets can offer the world. Joony Koo: This year commodities, equities, and pre-IPO names traded at scale, and price discovery sometimes happened while the reference markets were closed. What did the team learn from watching the two run side by side? Jeff Yan: The clearest lesson is that demand for 24/7 trading exists. You wouldn't know without these markets, but the world doesn't sleep as a whole. Global 24/7 markets concentrate liquidity across more buyers and sellers, making markets more efficient and liquid for everyone. There will always be someone, somewhere, who wants to express a view, so once the option exists, those markets become the Schelling point where people go to do that. Joony Koo: HIP-3 lets independent teams create markets, and institutions are building on top too. If anyone can build, what is Labs focusing on? Jeff Yan: Labs specializes in the technology and infrastructure that supports deployers. What a deployer needs varies widely depending on who they are, where they're based, who their users are, and what they want to list, and the list is long. The vision is for Hyperliquid to be a neutral infrastructure layer, like AWS, which spared startups and large firms from reinventing the wheel. Financial primitives like order books should become pervasive and battle-tested infrastructure, and making that work for everyone is the primary mandate. Joony Koo: The "AWS for finance" analogy reminds me of working at a game company when people debated whether the cloud could be trusted. What open problems would Labs most like to see others solve? Jeff Yan: First, builders should find something they're uniquely positioned to do, given their interests and competitive advantages, and we'll support whatever they build. One specific hard problem is tokenizing the underlying assets themselves. Custody, liquidity, and the mechanics are all harder, so it hasn't taken off yet. I hope to see strong projects and builders next year, because having the assets represented on-chain synergizes with price discovery and liquidity. Joony Koo: Tokenization is speeding up as more institutions get involved. Any advice for smaller teams? Jeff Yan: Many teams, big and small, are working on tokenization, but it hasn't hit escape velocity and it's unclear who will succeed. That's the beauty of neutral infrastructure: you don't win just because you're big, though big teams may have legitimate advantages like institutional connectivity. Viral products often come from small teams that see the world differently and think less rigidly. Perps are intuitive and fair instruments that concentrate liquidity across the globe and across all time horizons into one asset, so they're easy to present to users. Some small team may even reinvent how the interfaces look. Joony Koo: You spent three days with the Korean community this week. What stood out? Jeff Yan: Like last year, I felt the hospitality, and I'm grateful to everyone who organized events. The community here is strong, and trading is a core part of many Koreans' lives, so it was great to discuss how on-chain markets and HIP-3 would change their approach to markets. Talking to users and the community inspires us to keep building. Joony Koo: And your meetings with institutions? Jeff Yan: It's cool to see institutions interested in the platform and building on top of it. They're understandably slower to adopt new technology because they have a lot to protect, but as this year has shown, the appetite is significant. Joony Koo: Last question: what is next to be priced 24/7 that has no continuous price today? Jeff Yan: Nothing specific, but private markets are a big opportunity, and you already see some of it through HIP-3 deployers. Much wealth creation happens privately, because companies have incentives to stay private as long as possible. It isn't intended to exclude most of the world's population, but that's what happens in practice. Allowing global price discovery on these assets as early as possible, in a global system not confined to one jurisdiction, could break that trend. There are many complexities to work through, but markets exist so everyone can benefit from them, and trading anything, anytime, anywhere has the most potential here. Joony Koo: Any final remarks? Jeff Yan: Hyperliquid's core strength is its community and people. It's not one company doing what's best for itself, but a decentralized network of contributors and users building a financial system owned by the people rather than by private interests. There's a long way to go and many challenges, but seeing everyone in Seoul, I feel we're in good hands, and we'll build something the financial system can ultimately adopt. @kbwofficial @HyperliquidX