The Hyper Foundation has refuted allegations that validator seats on Hyperliquid’s high-performance layer-1 blockchain were for sale, addressing concerns about the project’s practices.

In a packed X post, the Hyper Foundation, an organization dedicated to growing Hyperliquid’s ecosystem, debunked allegations surrounding its 16 blockchain validators.

Most of the claims alleged that entities bought their way into the project. Hyperliquid (HYPE) launched in November 2024 as a decentralized perpetual futures exchange on its own layer-1 network.

Responding to the allegations, the Hyper Foundation emphasized that validator selection was based on a merit-driven process. The organization also noted that the number of validators would naturally grow as the ecosystem expands.

There is no way to buy a seat at the table, and claims otherwise undermine the efforts of the validators who dedicated time and effort to understanding the system.

Hyper Foundation

Hyperliquid defends closed-sourced code

Concerns also arose regarding Hyperliquid’s closed-source code and single-binary infrastructure. Addressing these criticisms, the Hyper Foundation acknowledged the advantages of open-sourcing but defended its approach, citing the scale and speed of its development. The foundation compared its model to established blockchains like Solana, which also use single-client architecture.

Yes, the node code is currently a closed source. Open sourcing is important. Projects open source once development is in a stable state. Hyperliquid ships at orders of magnitude faster than most projects. The scope is orders of magnitude larger than most projects as well. Code will be open source when it’s secure to do so.

Hyperliquid debuted with a massive token airdrop last November. The perp DEX airdropped 310 million tokens, 31% of the total HYPE supply, to early participants. The project also launched HYPE staking, locking $8.4 billion worth of its cryptocurrency to secure the L1 chain and bootstrap developer activity.