Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the man who built the world’s largest crypto exchange and then went to prison for its compliance failures, has some thoughts about Hyperliquid. Speaking on the Galaxy Brains podcast on June 10, CZ called Hyperliquid’s high-performance Layer-1 blockchain and no-KYC perpetual futures trading model “awesome.” In the same breath, he made it clear he would never touch that approach himself. “I would never do what they do,” he said, pointing to the very personal consequences he faced when Binance’s own compliance infrastructure fell short.
Binance was hit with a $4.3 billion fine in 2023 for KYC and anti-money laundering violations. CZ personally served a four-month prison sentence as part of the settlement. He acknowledged that Binance, as a centralized exchange with identifiable leadership and corporate structure, simply cannot operate the way Hyperliquid does. Hyperliquid, by contrast, positions itself as a decentralized protocol, which at least theoretically puts it in a different regulatory category.
Inside Hyperliquid’s model
Hyperliquid launched its Layer-1 blockchain in 2023 and has since grown into one of the most active decentralized trading venues in crypto. Users connect their wallets and start trading perpetual futures instantly. No identity verification, no waiting period, no compliance friction. By 2025, it was handling hundreds of billions monthly in transaction volume.
