Ironic how Hyperliquid and Ethena became the two most successful new DeFi projects this cycle in part because they were not fully decentralized.

The key insight behind both was simple: users value attributes like permissionless and transparency far more than prepper-level decentralization. By selectively sacrificing the latter, they were able to deliver more compelling products with greater scale.

Expect many more valuable onchain products to emerge from teams willing to operate in the pragmatic middle ground of the centralization ↔ decentralization spectrum.