In less than three years, Hyperliquid has become one of the dominant players in crypto trading, notching volumes that rival long-established exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. Now, the firm is looking to flex its political muscle too. On Wednesday, the Hyperliquid Policy Center launched in Washington, D.C. with the goal of creating a legal pathway for widespread decentralized finance, or DeFi, adoption in the United States.
The inaugural CEO of the new body is Jake Chervinsky, a longtime cryptocurrency lawyer who has played a key role in helping the industry find its footing on Capitol Hill. He has previously held top positions at the Blockchain Association trade group and the venture firm Variant, and worked as an associate at Baker McKenzie.
The arrival of the Hyperliquid Policy Center comes at a time when the crypto industry, which once eschewed anything to do with Washington, DC, is backing a growing roster of policy and lobbying shops, including the DeFi Education Fund. Chervinsky, though, made the case that there is a distinct role for the new center.
“We’re in a moment where the U.S. faces a large challenge to rewrite the rules for the new chapter of DeFi,” Chervinsky told Fortune, explaining that the Hyperliquid center would seek to help Congress and federal agencies understand the technology underlying decentralized finance, and provide expertise to help regulators draft rules to incorporate it into the financial system.
Chervinsky added that current regulatory structures were designed in an analog era, and are not able to account for new types of trading like decentralized protocols, which allow participants to swap assets on automated platforms that are not controlled by any single company or individual.
One of the new center’s top priorities will be to develop a legal framework for perpetual derivatives. Known colloquially as “perps”, the instruments are a type of derivative that doesn’t expire and, in Chervinsky’s view, are superior to options or futures since they are simpler and provide more direct exposure to the underlying asset. Currently, perps make up a huge volume of trading on off-shore crypto exchanges but have yet to become part of mainstream finance.
In order to support the new center’s work, a foundation tied to Hyperliquid is donating 1 million of the platform’s native token, HYPE, which are currently worth about $28 million. In addition to Chervinsky, the organization’s founding team is composed of Policy Counsel Brad Bourque, formerly an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and Policy Director Salah Ghazzal, previously Policy Lead at Variant. The center is currently hiring for the role of Chief of Staff, Head of Communications, and Head of Government Relations.
