The Block founder calls Hyperliquid-Binance comparison 'absurd'

Mike Dudas, co-founder of The Block and crypto investment firm 6th Man Ventures, has defended the exchange Hyperliquid, stating it does not manipulate the prices or fund flows of its listed assets. His comments came in response to suggestions that Hyperliquid is as suspicious as Binance. Earlier, Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani stated on X that "Hyperliquid is as shady as Binance" and that the charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against Binance could also apply to the exchange. Samani dismissed claims of dialogue with regulators as "meaningless," noting that Binance also engaged in such talks for years. He added that the regulatory landscape has since clarified the distinction between centralized and decentralized protocols and established formal rules for centralized perpetual futures trading. Dudas called the comparison "absurd." He argued that Hyperliquid does not invest in listed coins to later sell them via perpetual futures or launchpads, nor does it pre-secure a portion of a coin's supply. He emphasized that Hyperliquid's financial structure is fully transparent on-chain, with platform revenue programmatically distributed to token holders.