A 97 % Mandate and a BlackRock-Backed Pitch
After a month of Twitter spats, AMAs and back-room lobbying, Hyperliquid’s on-chain vote closed at block 61,433,812. Native Markets walked away with 97 % of validator approvals—an almost embarrassing margin in what was supposed to be a four-horse race. Their trump card: custody split between BlackRock (off-chain T-bill sleeve) and Superstate (on-chain tokenized fund), plus a pledge to route half of all reserve interest back into the ecosystem—50 % to a HYPE buy-back fund, 50 % to HIP-3 market-making and HyperEVM grants.
Users will mint/redeem USDH through Bridge (yes, the Stripe-owned on-ramp) with future fiat rails baked in. CoreRouter contracts are already audited and open-source. The pitch checked every box—compliance, neutrality and a direct value-flow to HYPE stakers—while rivals sounded like traditional corporate press releases.

The Team That Out-Shilled the OGs
Until last week hardly anyone had heard of Native Markets. The three co-founders, however, are low-key Hyperliquid natives:

• @fiege_max – former product lead at Liquity & BarnBridge; seeded > $2 B TVL on HyperEVM and pushed through the Hyperlion DAT SPV.

• @Mclader – ex-Uniswap Labs COO (2021-25) and BlackRock digital-assets director since 2015; plugged into every regulator that matters.

• @_anishagnihotri – Ritual’s first employee, Paradigm’s youngest-ever research intern, Polychain prop-DeFi trader; speaks MEV fluently.

Their combined résumé gave validators comfort that USDH would land on the right desks in Washington, Menlo Park and Singapore on day one.

“It Was Rigged” – Dragonfly Cries Foul
Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi blasted the process, claiming Native’s 40-page proposal appeared “within minutes” of the RFP drop—proof, he says, of advance notice. Paxos, Ethena and Frax supposedly delivered stronger financials but “weren’t given a fair hearing.”
Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, whose validator is among the top five, pushed back hard: “We spent 200 man-hours grilling every bidder; Native simply out-answered the rest.” Ethena conceded gracefully, withdrew its bid and tweeted that the episode “perfectly captures Hyperliquid’s ethos—new entrants can win on merit, not pedigree.”

Why Validators Picked the Underdog

1. Cash-flow to HYPE – Competitive proposals kept most reserve yield for themselves; Native handed it to token-holders.

2. Regulatory pre-pack – BlackRock + Superstate + GENIUS-compliant framework removed any “SEC surprise” discount.

3. Distribution moat – Stripe/Bridge rails mean USDH can hit fiat on day-one, something even Paxos couldn’t match inside Hyperliquid’s closed loop.

4. Political optics – Sending fees back to the community fits the “user-owned L1” meme Hyperliquid has cultivated since launch.

Stable-coin 2.0? A Template for Exchanges
Hyperliquid currently hosts ~$5.7 B of USDC, or 7.8 % of the entire USDC float. If USDH captures even half that flow, the protocol could redirect hundreds of millions in reserve interest annually to HYPE buy-backs and grants—without diluting supply or raising new VC rounds.
Other perp DEXs and L2s are already taking notes: “Why let Circle keep the float when we can monetize it ourselves and bribe our own token?” Expect copycat auctions on Sui, dYdX v4 and Monad the moment their main-nets stabilize. Native Markets’ landslide victory may go down as the moment exchanges realized the stable-coin business is too valuable to outsource.

Bottom Line
In a bear market every basis point of yield matters. Hyperliquid’s validator set voted to internalize those basis points, even if it means entrusting the keys to a rookie brand with star-studded résumés. If USDH launches without a hitch, “community-owned, BlackRock-backed” could become the new default playbook—and Native Markets will have punched a multi-billion-dollar hole in the wall separating DeFi and TradFi.

A 97 % Mandate and a BlackRock-Backed Pitch
After a month of Twitter spats, AMAs and back-room lobbying, Hyperliquid’s on-chain vote closed at block 61,433,812. Native Markets walked away with 97 % of validator approvals—an almost embarrassing margin in what was supposed to be a four-horse race. Their trump card: custody split between BlackRock (off-chain T-bill sleeve) and Superstate (on-chain tokenized fund), plus a pledge to route half of all reserve interest back into the ecosystem—50 % to a HYPE buy-back fund, 50 % to HIP-3 market-making and HyperEVM grants.
Users will mint/redeem USDH through Bridge (yes, the Stripe-owned on-ramp) with future fiat rails baked in. CoreRouter contracts are already audited and open-source. The pitch checked every box—compliance, neutrality and a direct value-flow to HYPE stakers—while rivals sounded like traditional corporate press releases.

The Team That Out-Shilled the OGs
Until last week hardly anyone had heard of Native Markets. The three co-founders, however, are low-key Hyperliquid natives:

• @fiege_max – former product lead at Liquity & BarnBridge; seeded > $2 B TVL on HyperEVM and pushed through the Hyperlion DAT SPV.

• @Mclader – ex-Uniswap Labs COO (2021-25) and BlackRock digital-assets director since 2015; plugged into every regulator that matters.

• @_anishagnihotri – Ritual’s first employee, Paradigm’s youngest-ever research intern, Polychain prop-DeFi trader; speaks MEV fluently.

Their combined résumé gave validators comfort that USDH would land on the right desks in Washington, Menlo Park and Singapore on day one.

“It Was Rigged” – Dragonfly Cries Foul
Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi blasted the process, claiming Native’s 40-page proposal appeared “within minutes” of the RFP drop—proof, he says, of advance notice. Paxos, Ethena and Frax supposedly delivered stronger financials but “weren’t given a fair hearing.”
Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, whose validator is among the top five, pushed back hard: “We spent 200 man-hours grilling every bidder; Native simply out-answered the rest.” Ethena conceded gracefully, withdrew its bid and tweeted that the episode “perfectly captures Hyperliquid’s ethos—new entrants can win on merit, not pedigree.”

Why Validators Picked the Underdog

1. Cash-flow to HYPE – Competitive proposals kept most reserve yield for themselves; Native handed it to token-holders.

2. Regulatory pre-pack – BlackRock + Superstate + GENIUS-compliant framework removed any “SEC surprise” discount.

3. Distribution moat – Stripe/Bridge rails mean USDH can hit fiat on day-one, something even Paxos couldn’t match inside Hyperliquid’s closed loop.

4. Political optics – Sending fees back to the community fits the “user-owned L1” meme Hyperliquid has cultivated since launch.

Stable-coin 2.0? A Template for Exchanges
Hyperliquid currently hosts ~$5.7 B of USDC, or 7.8 % of the entire USDC float. If USDH captures even half that flow, the protocol could redirect hundreds of millions in reserve interest annually to HYPE buy-backs and grants—without diluting supply or raising new VC rounds.
Other perp DEXs and L2s are already taking notes: “Why let Circle keep the float when we can monetize it ourselves and bribe our own token?” Expect copycat auctions on Sui, dYdX v4 and Monad the moment their main-nets stabilize. Native Markets’ landslide victory may go down as the moment exchanges realized the stable-coin business is too valuable to outsource.

Bottom Line
In a bear market every basis point of yield matters. Hyperliquid’s validator set voted to internalize those basis points, even if it means entrusting the keys to a rookie brand with star-studded résumés. If USDH launches without a hitch, “community-owned, BlackRock-backed” could become the new default playbook—and Native Markets will have punched a multi-billion-dollar hole in the wall separating DeFi and TradFi.