I. A Dusty Photo, a Living Legend
A single resurfaced group picture is now ricocheting through crypto-Twitter.
In the back row, wearing a light sweater and an almost shy smile, stands a young Jeff Yan—today the anonymous founder of Hyperliquid, the perpetual-swap DEX that routinely out-trades Coinbase’s entire derivatives book.
The shot was taken in 2018 at the inaugural BUIDLers camp run by Binance Labs. Seven years later the apprentice has become the giant’s most stubborn competitor.

II. 2019: Too Early Is Indistinguishable From Wrong
Binance Labs’ own Medium archives list Jeff’s first start-up: Deaux, a prediction-market protocol that mixed off-chain order-matching with on-chain settlement.
In other words, exactly what Polymarket popularised half a decade later.
The tech was sound, the thesis was right, but the world wasn’t ready. Crypto was crawling out of the 2018 crater; gas fees were measured in dollars and wallet UX was a command line.
Deaux’s site is now a 404 and its Twitter ends in July 2019.
Jeff’s takeaway: being N versions ahead is meaningless if the runway is shorter than the adoption curve.

III. 2020-2022: Pivot, Timing and the FTX Void
He re-surfaced with Chameleon Trading, a prop shop that morphed into Hyperliquid.
This time he picked a market that already had product-market fit—perpetual futures—and attacked it with three non-negotiables:

1. Build our own L1 so we never queue for someone else’s block-space.

2. Zero trading fees; monetise via token value-capture, not rent.

3. Internalise liquidity through the HLP vault, turning every user into a pseudo-market-maker.

When FTX imploded in November 2022 the industry’s trust deficit became Hyperliquid’s user-acquisition funnel.
Volume went vertical, HLP vaults hit nine-figure TVL, and Binance suddenly had a shadow it couldn’t acquire.

IV. The Invisible Founder
Jeff’s last personal tweet was 23 September.
No podcasts, no conference panels, no “gm” selfies.
While rival CEOs weaponise their personal brands, he keeps shipping: sub-second withdrawals, isolated margin, native Telegram alerts, one-click sub-accounts.
The product roadmap is the marketing department.

V. From Pupil to Sparring Partner—Why Incubators Don’t Demand Loyalty
Comment threads love the “Binance accidentally bred its own nemesis” angle, but that misreads how open networks evolve.
A kung-fu school doesn’t graduate disciples; it graduates future rivals.
By letting talent leave with intellectual capital, Binance Labs increases the aggregate value of the arena it still dominates.
Hyperliquid’s zero-fee model is already forcing CEXs to rebate more, publish merkle-proof reserves faster, and list long-tail perps sooner.
Users win, turnover grows, and the pie expands for everyone—including Binance.

VI. Take-away: Knowledge Flows, Talent Walks, Competition Helps
The real drama isn’t betrayal; it’s velocity.
Jeff Yan’s seven-year arc is a live demo of crypto’s core thesis: permissionless innovation beats moats built on gatekeeping.
Today’s apprentice can be tomorrow’s challenger, and the best incubator is the one brave enough to celebrate when its alumni start throwing punches.

I. A Dusty Photo, a Living Legend
A single resurfaced group picture is now ricocheting through crypto-Twitter.
In the back row, wearing a light sweater and an almost shy smile, stands a young Jeff Yan—today the anonymous founder of Hyperliquid, the perpetual-swap DEX that routinely out-trades Coinbase’s entire derivatives book.
The shot was taken in 2018 at the inaugural BUIDLers camp run by Binance Labs. Seven years later the apprentice has become the giant’s most stubborn competitor.

II. 2019: Too Early Is Indistinguishable From Wrong
Binance Labs’ own Medium archives list Jeff’s first start-up: Deaux, a prediction-market protocol that mixed off-chain order-matching with on-chain settlement.
In other words, exactly what Polymarket popularised half a decade later.
The tech was sound, the thesis was right, but the world wasn’t ready. Crypto was crawling out of the 2018 crater; gas fees were measured in dollars and wallet UX was a command line.
Deaux’s site is now a 404 and its Twitter ends in July 2019.
Jeff’s takeaway: being N versions ahead is meaningless if the runway is shorter than the adoption curve.

III. 2020-2022: Pivot, Timing and the FTX Void
He re-surfaced with Chameleon Trading, a prop shop that morphed into Hyperliquid.
This time he picked a market that already had product-market fit—perpetual futures—and attacked it with three non-negotiables:

1. Build our own L1 so we never queue for someone else’s block-space.

2. Zero trading fees; monetise via token value-capture, not rent.

3. Internalise liquidity through the HLP vault, turning every user into a pseudo-market-maker.

When FTX imploded in November 2022 the industry’s trust deficit became Hyperliquid’s user-acquisition funnel.
Volume went vertical, HLP vaults hit nine-figure TVL, and Binance suddenly had a shadow it couldn’t acquire.

IV. The Invisible Founder
Jeff’s last personal tweet was 23 September.
No podcasts, no conference panels, no “gm” selfies.
While rival CEOs weaponise their personal brands, he keeps shipping: sub-second withdrawals, isolated margin, native Telegram alerts, one-click sub-accounts.
The product roadmap is the marketing department.

V. From Pupil to Sparring Partner—Why Incubators Don’t Demand Loyalty
Comment threads love the “Binance accidentally bred its own nemesis” angle, but that misreads how open networks evolve.
A kung-fu school doesn’t graduate disciples; it graduates future rivals.
By letting talent leave with intellectual capital, Binance Labs increases the aggregate value of the arena it still dominates.
Hyperliquid’s zero-fee model is already forcing CEXs to rebate more, publish merkle-proof reserves faster, and list long-tail perps sooner.
Users win, turnover grows, and the pie expands for everyone—including Binance.

VI. Take-away: Knowledge Flows, Talent Walks, Competition Helps
The real drama isn’t betrayal; it’s velocity.
Jeff Yan’s seven-year arc is a live demo of crypto’s core thesis: permissionless innovation beats moats built on gatekeeping.
Today’s apprentice can be tomorrow’s challenger, and the best incubator is the one brave enough to celebrate when its alumni start throwing punches.