Hyperliquid's Jeff Yan: The Real Edge of Onchain Finance Isn't the 24-Hour Clock

The most talked-about feature of crypto markets — trading that never sleeps — isn't actually what makes onchain finance special. That was the message from Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan during a fireside chat at Korea Blockchain Week, where he argued the industry has been selling the wrong differentiator.

Custody over clock

Yan told the audience that 24-hour trading isn't unique to crypto anymore: the asset class never needed conventional market hours because it's inherently international, and traditional exchanges have begun extending their own sessions. The real separation, he said, comes from users keeping control of their own funds — something that matters most "during critical moments when there are issues with counterparties, intermediaries, and custodians."

"Onchain finance really, at its core, means that users have still retained control and custody of their funds. I think that's the number one thing," Yan said, according to The Block's reporting.

Transparency as infrastructure

The second advantage he named is transparency. Yan acknowledged it lacks "mass appeal" for everyday users, but called it "extremely important" that users can in theory know everything happening inside the system — a level of trust and neutrality he said no privately controlled system can match.

Private markets next

The 24-hour clock still has a role, Yan said — just not as the headline act. Assets with no public price while reference markets are closed, from commodities to pre-IPO names, have found genuine demand trading on Hyperliquid during off-hours. When asked what asset class might come next, he pointed to private markets.

"A lot of wealth is being created in a way that is really gate-kept," he said, clarifying he doesn't believe the gatekeeping is intentional — but that global, always-on price discovery for private assets could open the system up in a way "not confined to one jurisdiction."

The bigger bet

Yan's framing is a bet that onchain venues win on trust architecture, not session length. If exchanges everywhere eventually trade around the clock, the moat disappears — custody and verifiability are much harder for incumbents to copy.

Crypto prices are volatile and the figures above reflect the reporting of the cited sources at the time of publication.

Written by the BidAsk Newsroom. Based on reporting from the sources below.