Hyperliquid’s $2.5 Million Fee Lead
A fee chart shared on X placed Hyperliquid at $2.5 million in fees over 24 hours on October 20, giving it a commanding lead over every other platform in the comparison. Lighter ranked second with $198,000, generating only about one-twelfth as much as Hyperliquid. Aster took third place with $123,000, followed by Jupiter perp with $102,000.
Hyperliquid’s advantage extended beyond its closest rival. The other platforms—Antartic, GMTrade, Nado, edgeX, GMX and Extended—generated between $47,000 and $86,000 apiece. Together, the platforms in second through tenth place collected approximately $836,000. Hyperliquid’s $2.5 million was therefore about three times the combined total of every other name on the chart, underscoring the scale of its fee position.
ZachXBT Investigates FreedomXMR on Hyperliquid Core
On-chain sleuth ZachXBT has been examining a service called FreedomXMR, also known as FXMR, that appeared on Hyperliquid Core in August 2026. ZachXBT characterized FXMR as a laundering service and said more than 87% of the money flowing into it might be tied to illicit activity. Those findings represent the investigator’s assessment rather than a judicial finding.
ZachXBT reviewed individual past inflows larger than $10,000 and traced more than $20 million associated with those flows to ransomware, exploits and social engineering scams. Names including DCENT Wallet, Fetch.ai, Axelar and Gamdom appeared in the activity he examined. The report did not characterize those names as perpetrators; rather, they were identified as entities or projects appearing within the traced money flow.
The report also said FXMR’s administrator obtained XMR from KuCoin, with addresses linked to the administrator making more than 3,000 deposits on the exchange. ZachXBT has passed the relevant on-chain data to the Hyperliquid team for review.
FreedomXMR is distinct from Hyperliquid itself: the allegations concern a service operating on Hyperliquid Core, not the exchange or its parent platform. That distinction is central to the case, although the scale of Hyperliquid’s fee activity places the service—and the platform’s response—under greater scrutiny.
Hyperliquid Policy Center Seeks CFTC Approval for Compute Perps
The Hyperliquid Policy Center, or HPC, wants the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow perpetual-futures contracts, or perps, tied to compute pricing. Compute represents the chip capacity used to operate AI systems and other intensive workloads. The report places the CFTC’s first perp approval in May and says the agency began asking about compute in August.
HPC’s case is grounded in price volatility. Renting an NVIDIA H100 cost between $2.50 and $3.19 per hour in late 2024, before falling to around $2 an hour a year later. According to the report, data centers had no way to hedge that decline, leaving operators exposed to sudden changes in the cost of computing capacity.
Compute also differs fundamentally from commodities such as oil because it cannot be stockpiled for later use. It is consumed in the hour it is produced, meaning the associated market risk never pauses. HPC believes a contract with no expiry date is well suited to that continuously consumed resource and cited trade[XYZ]’s crude-oil perpetual futures on Hyperliquid as an example.
HPC said it will continue working with the Commission and its staff to give Americans access to onchain markets under U.S. oversight. The proposal would extend the regulatory conversation around perpetual futures to a market designed specifically for the pricing and hedging needs of compute infrastructure.
Why This Matters
Hyperliquid’s fee lead and the FreedomXMR allegations highlight two different aspects of the platform’s growing influence. Its $2.5 million daily fee total demonstrates substantial trading activity, while the presence of a service accused of laundering illicit funds raises questions about monitoring and enforcement on Hyperliquid Core. Although FXMR is not Hyperliquid itself and ZachXBT’s findings remain allegations, the episode puts the platform’s response to the transferred on-chain data in focus.
At the same time, HPC’s regulatory request could shape the next phase of institutional participation in perpetual futures. Compute contracts would give data centers a potential tool for managing volatile infrastructure costs, but the report does not indicate that the CFTC has approved the proposed market or issued a final decision. The unresolved questions are whether regulators will permit compute perps and how Hyperliquid will respond to the allegations surrounding FreedomXMR.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Hyperliquid earn in fees on October 20?
Hyperliquid generated $2.5 million over 24 hours. Lighter ranked second with $198,000, while the combined fees of the platforms in second through tenth place amounted to approximately $836,000.
Is FreedomXMR the same thing as Hyperliquid?
No. FreedomXMR, or FXMR, is a separate service that appeared on Hyperliquid Core in August 2026. ZachXBT alleged that it functions as a laundering service and that more than $20 million associated with reviewed inflows could be traced to ransomware, exploits and social engineering scams.
What is Hyperliquid Policy Center asking the CFTC to do?
HPC is asking the CFTC to allow perpetual-futures contracts tied to compute pricing. Its rationale is that compute costs can fluctuate sharply, cannot be stored for future use, and therefore require instruments that data centers can use to hedge their expenses.
