Hyperliquid’s Jeff Yan Says Regulators Should Target Service Operators, Not Blockchain Networks

Jeff Yan, co-founder of Hyperliquid, said regulatory obligations should apply to service providers rather than blockchain networks themselves.

In an interview on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on October 15, Yan said financial service providers that operate markets and exercise control over them — not the underlying blockchain networks — should be responsible for meeting regulatory requirements.

He compared blockchain to internet infrastructure. Because blockchain is an infrastructure technology that provides liquidity and trade processing, regulatory responsibility should rest with the entities that actually run markets rather than with the network itself, he said.

Yan also stressed that Hyperliquid’s goal is not to replace Wall Street financial institutions. Instead, the company wants to supply trading technology to those firms, much as Amazon Web Services provides computing infrastructure to companies. He added that Hyperliquid is seriously pursuing plans to develop into infrastructure that supports a range of financial markets.