Unchained

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

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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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      • Guest
      Doug Colkitt, Founder and CEO of Ambient FinanceLinks
      •  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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            UnchainedBy Laura Shin