「Is the boundary between CEX and DEX melting away?」

1️⃣ From Hard Isolation to Wall Breakers: Hyperliquid's Disruption

In traditional understanding, CEX offers top-notch experience, deep liquidity, and millisecond matching speeds; whereas typical DEXs bear the labels of high costs, low performance, and poor experience.

However, Hyperliquid has achieved CEX-level trading on-chain by building a dedicated App-chain—50,000 TPS + high-frequency matching + ultra-low fees.

On-chain Centralized Order Book (CLOB) + Custom Consensus (HyperBFT)

Ultra-low slippage, sub-second response

It addresses the performance shortcomings of DEXs through a complete “performance flywheel”—App-chain → HLP Treasury → Liquidity → User Experience → More Users—tearing apart the notion that “DEXs will never be as good as CEXs.”

2️⃣ The Barbaric Growth of Small Teams, Aiming for the CEX Throne

Hyperliquid's small team, utilizing the mindset of professional traders, designed a system that “moves the auction-style matching capabilities of traditional CEXs onto the chain.”

Over 200,000 transactions per second

Median latency of only 0.2 seconds

Complete replication of CEX experience

It not only breaks down technical barriers but also forces enterprises to rethink the possibilities of on-chain trading.

3️⃣ The Giants' Hybrid Financial Counterattack

CEX giants are also unwilling to back down:

Bybit launched Byreal on Solana, presetting an RFQ + CLMM hybrid liquidity model;

Coinbase introduced Aerodrome through the Base ecosystem, deeply integrating it into the main app;

They are rapidly seizing future trading volume with a hybrid strategy of “CEX core capabilities + on-chain transparency”—the boundaries between traditional CEXs and DEXs are being reshaped.

4️⃣ The Hidden Dangers of Sovereign Chains: The JELLY Incident Warning

However, behind the extreme performance lies the intrigue of decentralized governance—

In the March JELLY incident, an attacker manipulated the market, causing significant losses to the HLP Treasury. The validator team urgently “adjusted prices and cut positions,” temporarily intervening in on-chain trading, successfully stopping the losses but raising doubts about “centralized intervention.”

This intervention exposes the fundamental dilemma of application chains between performance vs. trust:

Centralized Governance → Efficient Response

But it may also violate the underlying trust commitment of “code is law.”