CZ Praises Hyperliquid; Adams Criticizes U.S. Securities Rules

During a recent episode of the Galaxy Brains podcast, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao praised Hyperliquid’s on‑chain order books, gasless orders and sub‑second trade matching, while warning the platform’s lack of identity checks creates compliance risk for operators.

Hyperliquid uses on‑chain limit order books rather than automated market‑maker pools, allows users to place gasless orders and supports rapid execution the project says yields sub‑second fills. The exchange offers leveraged products up to 40x and permits trading without conventional identity verification.

He noted those features create a niche that a large centralized exchange would find hard to replicate, and he referenced his own regulatory history when discussing operator risk. Zhao pleaded guilty to anti‑money‑laundering violations in 2023 and served a four‑month sentence in the United States in 2024.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams posted on X about investor‑protection rules, arguing that in practice U.S. securities law restricts many startup investments to wealthy individuals. Uniswap Labs was under a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry for about two years before the agency dropped the probe, and in 2026 a New York judge dismissed a class action tied to a scam token against the company with prejudice.

Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token traded at record levels in 2026. Regulators in Washington are debating market‑structure legislation and how existing securities and derivatives rules apply to tokenized assets and on‑chain trading. Industry participants and developers have requested clearer regulatory guidance for on‑chain derivatives and token markets.

In his remarks, Zhao called Hyperliquid “actually awesome” and added he would “never operate it the same way” because of “compliance exposure.” Adams wrote on X: “The main impact of securities law seems to be only people who are already millionaires can invest in startups. Hard to imagine that’s the right approach.”