Hyperliquid Co-founder Jeff Yan says 24-hour clock is not onchain finance’s true differentiator

Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan used a fireside chat at Korea Blockchain Week to argue that 24-hour trading is not the defining advantage of onchain venues over traditional exchanges. Crypto markets, he noted, never needed conventional opening hours because the asset class is inherently international — and traditional venues have already begun extending their own sessions.

Instead, Yan pointed to user custody as the core of what onchain finance offers. In his view, the ability for traders to retain control of their own funds is the single most important feature, particularly during moments when counterparties, intermediaries or custodians run into trouble. That structural protection, he said, is what distinguishes decentralized venues from systems run by a single private organization.

Yan also highlighted transparency as a second pillar, acknowledging that it lacks everyday appeal for casual users but is nevertheless essential. He argued that being able to know, in theory, everything happening inside a system is what produces the trust and neutrality that a privately controlled platform cannot provide.

Private markets in focus

Continuous trading hours still have a role, Yan conceded, for assets that have no public price when traditional exchanges are shut. He cited commodities, equities and pre-IPO names that have traded on Hyperliquid while their reference markets were closed as evidence that demand exists for round-the-clock price discovery outside standard sessions.

Asked which assets could next be traded continuously, Yan named private markets as the big opportunity, pointing out that some activity of this kind is already visible on Hyperliquid. He said much of today's wealth creation is effectively gate-kept, while stressing that he does not believe the practice is driven by bad intentions. Opening those assets to global price discovery earlier, in a way that is not confined to a single jurisdiction, could be valuable for society and for the broader economy, he said.

Hyperliquid's HYPE token has been among the more closely watched assets in the decentralized derivatives sector, and the venue's open interest has become a benchmark for measuring onchain trading activity against centralized exchanges.