I Spent 14 Days Grinding on Hyperliquid, Turning a Testnet Mistake into a $50 Million Valuation

Original Author: PerpetualCow.hl

Original Compilation: Luffy, Foresight News

This is my startup story. One month ago, I came to the X platform as an anonymous user, penniless, with no followers, no connections, and no funding.

Building something from nothing is a long shot, but I did it. Now, I want to share my success story and tell you: you can do it too.

My Starting Point

The reason I registered this account stemmed from the price crash of the HYPE token, in which I had heavily invested all my savings.

I thought, at the very least, I could open an account on X and write about my views and investment thesis on HYPE, arguing why this cryptocurrency was severely undervalued, hoping to boost its price.

So, I wrote a detailed analysis and posted it on this newly registered account, hoping to reach more people. To my surprise, the article went viral.

If you're not a player in the cryptocurrency space, you might not have heard of the Hyperliquid platform. That's okay; it's not the focus of this article.

But from the beginning, I firmly believed this ecosystem held immense potential.

I started thinking, besides posting bullish content, what else could I do to personally contribute to HYPE's trading volume and market cap growth, thereby driving token buybacks and increasing its market attention and influence.

The First Failed Attempt

I decided to build a product on the Hyperliquid platform to generate more trading volume and revenue for the platform. This way, the platform would not only increase HYPE token buybacks but also boost the token's exposure and market consensus.

At that time, the Hyperliquid ecosystem was already quite mature, with developers having built many impressive financial tools, such as Ventuals, a platform for trading pre-IPO company stocks, and trade.xyz, a tool offering leveraged trading of stock futures.

But one thing was overlooked: forex pairs. As one of the largest derivatives in traditional finance, no one had brought it to the Hyperliquid platform yet.

For context, Hyperliquid is a permissionless exchange where anyone can launch their own trading products.

The daily trading volume of the forex market is a staggering $7.5 trillion, ten times the size of the global stock market. With my background in traditional derivatives, I keenly sensed the huge opportunity here.

I was certain other developers hadn't realized the size of this pie. If I could be the first to launch forex pairs on Hyperliquid, I could make a fortune from fee sharing alone in the future.

I couldn't believe such a great opportunity had been ignored.

I knew I had to act immediately and race against time. It wouldn't be long before other developers discovered this hidden opportunity.

I took 20mg of instant-release Adderall (a central nervous system stimulant), ordered a few Red Bulls via a delivery app, and dove into development.

I coded through the night, and by the next morning, a prototype was ready.

I registered the domain Hyperfx.xyz and even prepared around 500,000 HYPE tokens worth approximately $15 million to pay the platform's deployment fee.

I felt my moment had finally arrived.

However, I made a fatal mistake.

Before the stimulant wore off and I became drowsy, I followed standard procedure and deployed the product to the testnet, then went to sleep.

This was the biggest mistake of my life.

I never imagined anyone would closely monitor new deployments on the testnet. When I woke up, I found that news of my forex pair deployment on the testnet had spread through Hyperliquid's private developer community.

The entire Hyperliquid ecosystem was buzzing. Everyone knew a new developer was about to launch forex pairs. It dawned on everyone that such a massive gap existed in the market. Before me, no one had actually thought of doing forex pairs.

The news quickly reached trade.xyz. They reacted swiftly, immediately seizing the JPYUSD pair and announcing they would be the first to launch forex products on Hyperliquid.

Remember, trade.xyz had a daily platform volume in the billions, with hundreds of millions backing their trading pairs.

I knew I couldn't compete with such a giant.

What's the point of being a second-rate forex provider on Hyperliquid?

One wrong move, and the whole game was lost. I had single-handedly ruined my bright future.

Rather than launching a me-too competitor that would fragment the platform's liquidity, it was better to abandon the project. After all, my original intention was to contribute to the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

Sure enough, soon after, trade.xyz officially launched the EURUSD trading pair.

I was shaking with rage, an anger I can't describe. If I hadn't been drowning in despair, I would have smashed my computer. I never knew I could be so consumed by anger.

But I was mostly angry at myself. How could I make such a rookie mistake, exposing my brainchild like that?

This is Entrepreneurship 101, and I failed miserably. This time, I lost completely, possibly missing out on a chance to make billions in fees over the next few years.

A stupid mistake killed my entire plan. I couldn't believe my eyes. I've made many mistakes before, but never one as absurd as this.

I swore to myself I would never deploy anything to a public testnet again.

The frustration, combined with the Adderall crash, plunged me into severe acute depression. I was a dejected bull.

Until one day, I finally had enough...

I had to get back up.

I racked my brains, thinking of other possibilities. If everyone missed forex pairs, there must be other overlooked opportunities.

Although temporarily set back, I wouldn't stop. I was determined to find a new breakthrough.

After all, the financial system is vast; surely, I could find some unknown market gap. But this time, I wouldn't repeat my mistake.

I noticed a serious problem in the Hyperliquid ecosystem: a few top developers copying each other, a very short-sighted practice that severely fragmented the platform's liquidity.

For example, trading pairs for popular stocks like Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA) were deployed by multiple developers.

No one wanted to innovate; everyone was copying, launching similar products. Sure, this could bring some volume and revenue, but it wasn't sustainable.

The Comeback: My Moment of Success

Then, I noticed that the Monero (XMR) community's needs were chronically neglected. Due to its anonymous transaction features angering regulators, the token had been delisted from most exchanges.

Despite this, Monero still ranks within the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, valued at nearly $10 billion, with a large and loyal community. The market desperately needed a platform to serve Monero users' trading needs.

This was the perfect fit for Hyperliquid. After all, that's the point of a permissionless, decentralized exchange.

A bit of background: Before I launched wagyu.xyz, it was incredibly difficult for the average person to buy Monero.

You either had to use shady instant swap sites, paying over 1% in fees, or rely on centralized exchanges, which would often freeze your account for depositing or withdrawing Monero.

Now, most centralized exchanges have delisted Monero. Even Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, announced delisting Monero last year, with others following suit.

Seeing the potential, I built wagyu.xyz, making Monero trading easier than ever. Users simply deposit any token (ETH, BTC, SOL, USDC) on Hyperliquid and can swap it for my issued XMR1 token.

Once you hold XMR1 on Hyperliquid, you can seamlessly withdraw it to your Monero wallet via wagyu.xyz.

I made a short demo video explaining the process. The video went viral, causing a huge stir in the Monero community.

Video link: https://x.com/PerpetualCow/status/2002112238044483642

My product was more convenient and user-friendly than any existing tool. After all, a superior product always wins.

Pure Monero tokens were a treasure for users. The Monero community was ecstatic; they had never seen such a thoughtful tool that perfectly solved their pain point. The previous alternatives were terrible in comparison.

Since then, Wagyu has been on a roll. Within just two weeks of launch, withdrawal volume surpassed $10 million, bringing over $20 million in new trading volume to Hyperliquid.

Since launch, we've enabled more investors, previously unable to access Monero, to finally buy it. When people can buy Monero without worry and store it safely in a cold wallet without fear of account freezes, buying pressure naturally flows in.

Now, users can easily buy or sell Monero in multi-million dollar sizes using a time-weighted average price algorithm and securely store the tokens in their wallets. The order book liquidity has become very deep and will only get better over time, as we've only been live for two weeks.

$50 Million Valuation in Two Weeks

In just two weeks, the Wagyu platform generated $200,000 in revenue, annualizing to $5.2 million.

I initiated a small funding round for Hyperliquid community members and friends I met during my startup journey. The company valuation was set at $50 million, representing a 10x P/E ratio. The allocation was quickly snapped up; clearly, many saw the project's huge potential.

However, I won't stop here. Monero's success is just my first step.

I plan to build wagyu.xyz into one of the top developer platforms in the Hyperliquid ecosystem and launch a points incentive system to encourage users to provide liquidity and generate trading volume.

My goal is to make Wagyu a platform that can compete with other top projects in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. We will focus on developing quality products that users genuinely need, want to trade, and hold.

Entrepreneurial Insights

This story teaches one lesson: if you have an idea, just go for it.

Go find the market gaps. There are so many unmet needs in this world waiting for you to discover and fulfill.

We are in a golden age for startups; success is within reach. Don't follow the crowd building generic AI products; build hardcore products that the market actually needs.