Hyperliquid co-founder says self-custody, transparency drive onchain finance edge

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Highlights

Hyperliquid co-founder Yan told Korea Blockchain Week 2026 that onchain finance's self-custody reduces reliance on centralized intermediaries, especially during counterparty stress.
Yan emphasized transparency in onchain trading, stating users can observe systemic activity, providing trust and neutrality versus private, centralized platforms.
Yan identified private markets as a major opportunity for onchain, round-the-clock trading, suggesting global price discovery can broaden access to valuable private assets.

Yan outlines core onchain advantages

The Block reports that Yan made the case at Korea Blockchain Week 2026, where he said crypto never depended on conventional market hours because the asset class is global by nature and traditional exchanges are already lengthening trading sessions.

He said onchain finance’s main advantage is self-custody, allowing users to retain control of their own funds and reducing reliance on centralized intermediaries. Yan said that feature becomes especially important during periods of stress involving counterparties, intermediaries and custodians.

Yan also pointed to transparency as a defining trait of onchain trading. He said users can in principle see what is happening across the system, creating a level of trust and neutrality that is harder to achieve in platforms controlled by a single private organization.

Private markets seen as next opportunity

Yan said continuous trading still has value for assets that lack a public reference price when traditional exchanges are closed. He pointed to commodities, equities and pre-IPO names traded on Hyperliquid outside regular market hours as evidence of user demand.

Looking ahead, he said private markets represent a significant opening for round-the-clock trading. Yan said wealth creation in that segment is often gate-kept, and argued that broader global price discovery in valuable private assets could make access less constrained by geography or a single jurisdiction.

His comments frame onchain finance less as a timing advantage and more as an alternative market structure for the digital asset sector. That view could shape how crypto platforms position themselves as competition grows across trading venues and tokenized real-world asset markets.

Our earlier article on Robinhood’s move toward 24/7 trading detailed the broker’s plans to add weekend trading for select U.S. equities, building on its existing 24/5 schedule. We also noted Robinhood’s rollout of AI-driven trading agents and its plans to introduce crypto perpetual futures, highlighting how retail platforms are competing on continuous access, automation, and a broader product mix.

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