From PayPal to Building a HYPE Treasury : My Takeaways

When I announced I was leaving PayPal to join Hyperion DeFi as Chief Financial Officer, the first question I heard was, “why leave traditional finance for decentralized finance?”

The answer is simple: fundamentals.

I’ve spent my career at some of the largest institutions in global finance. At PayPal, I led capital markets and finance for global credit and financial services. Before that, I worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, SoFi, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and others. At every step, one principle guided me: follow the fundamentals.

By fundamentals, I mean the underlying economics and metrics that indicate whether something can scale and sustain itself over time. Revenue generation, user growth, volumes, efficiency, and effective governance are the markers that matter in DeFi.

Today, those fundamentals are pointing to Hyperliquid.

Why Hyperliquid, Why Now

Hyperliquid is one of the highest revenue-generating blockchains in the world, often earning more daily fees than Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin combined. It frequently processes more underlying trading volume than many mainstream centralized exchanges.

And it does so with speed, efficiency, and resilience that most traditional systems struggle to match. This is not just a crypto story. It is the story of the evolution of financial markets, and Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, is how we access it.

When I discovered Hyperion DeFi, the first U.S. publicly listed company focused on building a long-term strategic HYPE treasury and developing products focused on the Hyperliquid ecosystem, the opportunity was undeniable. We are not here to speculate. We are here to build. Our mission is to create institutional rails on-chain and bring Wall Street rigor to decentralized finance.

Opportunity for Traditional Finance

Traditional finance is full of friction. Too many steps. Too much paperwork. Too many intermediaries. The experience is frustrating for both businesses and clients. In contrast, decentralized exchanges are growing because they are faster, cheaper, and more innovative. The same principle applies across all of finance. The best solutions win.

Recent events, such as the Tricolor bankruptcy, highlight just how inefficient the existing system has become. Imagine offering these institutions blockchain-enabled solutions that are faster, simpler, and cheaper. Imagine the ability to save their clients money while generating more revenue for their own firms. That is not a hard sell. I believe Hyperliquid will play a central role in this transition.

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Regulation and Governance at Hyperion

Hyperliquid Labs has already submitted comment letters to regulators. At Hyperion DeFi, we are committed to doing the same.

As a NASDAQ-listed company, we hold ourselves to a high standard of governance and transparency. We use regulated custodians such as Anchorage and pursue various risk management strategies, such as thorough KYC/AML of our counterparties. Institutional adoption of Bitcoin was only the beginning. The fundamentals point to Hyperliquid as the next chapter.

Building Hyperion DeFi’s Flywheel

Hyperion DeFi is not simply a static treasury of HYPE. We are building revenue-generating products uniquely on the Hyperliquid ecosystem, including:

1. Validator operations that earn fees on HYPE delegated to us,

2. The HYPE Asset Use Service (HAUS), which reduces trading costs for partners while scaling our revenues,

3. Future on-chain products that expand our on-chain footprint and create new sources of growth for Hyperliquid

Our goal is simple: to create a flywheel effect where successful business outcomes generate revenues that can be reinvested into the Hyperliquid ecosystem and bring value back to our shareholders.

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Concentration Over Diversification

One of my mentors at Cantor Fitzgerald taught me that sometimes the best opportunities come from concentration, not diversification. That philosophy guides our approach today.

We are entirely focused on Hyperliquid. We are not distracted by multiple blockchains or speculative assets. Our diversification will come from multiple business models, not from scattering our focus across different ecosystems.

Looking Ahead

To me, this moment feels similar to the early internet. The fundamentals pointed to a paradigm shift long before Wall Street fully understood it. Hyperliquid and Hyperion DeFi are at the forefront of that same kind of transformation.

I have spent my career scaling financial platforms with discipline and oversight. Now, I am applying that same approach to decentralized finance. Our mission is to bridge traditional institutions with on-chain innovation and create sustainable value for shareholders and the global financial system.

The fundamentals are clear. The time is now. And I could not be more excited to help build Hyperion DeFi into the bridge between Wall Street and the decentralized future.

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