Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan makes the case for on-chain private markets at Korea Blockchain Week 2026

Jeff Yan has a simple thesis: private markets are enormous, most people can’t access them, and that’s a problem worth solving on-chain. The Hyperliquid co-founder laid out that vision at Korea Blockchain Week 2026 in Seoul, where he told attendees that “huge opportunities” exist in asset classes that have historically been locked behind institutional gates.

What Yan actually said

Speaking at KBW 2026, which ran from September 29 to October 1 at the Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts in Seoul, Yan framed the opportunity in terms of access rather than pure profit. Wealth and investment opportunities have been gate-kept, he argued, and building better on-chain market infrastructure for restricted assets is “socially beneficial.”

Hyperliquid operates with a team of roughly 11 people, was built without a single dollar of venture capital funding, and has managed to become one of the highest-volume perpetuals platforms in crypto. The event drew Arthur Hayes and Tom Lee among featured speakers. Hyperliquid held its own dedicated seminar on September 28, a day before the main conference kicked off, specifically targeting Korean financial institutions exploring on-chain trading.

HIP-3 and the permissionless market thesis

The technical backbone of Yan’s private markets vision is HIP-3, an initiative that allows independent teams to create their own perpetual markets on Hyperliquid without needing permission from the core team. HIP-3 has already driven meaningful trading volume in non-crypto assets.

The bootstrapped advantage

Yan built the platform using his background in quantitative trading, and the team funded operations internally. Instead of selling tokens to VCs at a discount, Hyperliquid ran a major airdrop of its HYPE token in late 2024, distributing tokens directly to users.