Solve Maxwell on institutional vaults and Hyperliquid’s ecosystem

0:00I'm Ashton Addison from the Cryptocoin Show and today on blockchain interviews we have Solve Maxwell, co-founder of RIP XYZ to talk hyperlquid ecosystem, institutional grade vault strategies, uh, bringing onchain assets in and reshaping DeFi and much much more. Solve, welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time. >> Thanks for having me, Ashton. Appreciate

0:24it. >> Yeah, it's I'm really excited to dive into the Hyperlid ecosystem. I know you've been in it since the very beginning uh because you understood the value and you probably understand it better than most people. A lot of people have seen it around, but there's still a large percentage of people in web 3 and and traditional finance that haven't heard of it or, you know, they've

0:44they've seen it, but they haven't really got into trying it and they're just using traditional exchanges and traditional products. I would love to start out with a little bit on why you were so excited on Hyperlquid ecosystem from the beginning and we can lead into how RIP and and your other portfolio companies developed from there. >> Okay, great. Yeah. Um I mean RIP or I

1:08should say Hyperlid is um first and foremost is just kind of the answer that um web 3 and DeFi were looking for and have been looking for for a long time. So, you know, when you find a product like this and it's just butter to use and you're used to using these things all the time, every day for many years, you know, and starting with the earliest concepts of

1:35what a DEX is, um to finding Hyperlid, um it's just uh you're like, uh, okay, this is it. Here it is finally, right? Um, and there were a lot of other ones that were, you know, kind of fitting the bill. They were working right, but Hyperlink, which was was just a whole another level, like when it came to the execution, the feel and uh what you could accomplish there. And so, um, you

2:01know, I represent a firm called Rebel Dividends where I'm the head of DeFi. Um, and I was in charge of putting on and managing per positions and um, hedge positions and managing our our trades in general. And so just using all these different dexes, I discovered Hyperlid in 2023, um, which was very early and really had no idea there was going to be

2:29a significant air drop or anything of the sort, right? I was just like, this is a better product. I'm using it and I enjoy it. So eventually I relocated all of our trading there um and became very happy with it and of course the points program was live and we were racking up these points and you know all was well. We still didn't think you know too much

2:49about that aspect of it but of course when it occurred um it was kind of transformational and we decided we should really stick in this ecosystem and continue to build. Um, so that was kind of just the the gist and how we got started utilizing Hyperlquid and and why we're going to stick around. >> Mhm. Yeah. It's interesting to hear. You said, you know, it feels like butter to

3:13use and I think a lot of people they have the concept that centralized exchanges are are easier and dexes are are more difficult or they have limitations, but it seems like this is different. >> That's right. And they were absolutely right until the, you know, existence of Hyperlid, right? Like, uh, when Hyperlid came on the scene, it it actually changed that fundamentally. And so

3:37that's why I said this is what we've been waiting for because, you know, even like CZ at Binance and everyone else has mentioned, you know, everyone else running a centralized exchange that's notable has mentioned that decentralized exchanges are like the future. They also have those, you know, they invest in those. um and they look for ways to further decentralize their own

3:58operations and have that component, right? Of course, they're not going to just switch over the the centralized exchange method or or um approach is too pro profitable, you know, so until that changes, right? and and and so Hyperlid actually gives us a reason for that to change >> and working with Rebel Dividends and the the other companies that are attached to

4:20the Hyperlid ecosystem, you saw the the naturally the next best fit and what you needed to expand the products and the strategies was was RIP. Can you talk about the formation of RIP and and why it was an added value to your ecosystem? >> Yeah, sure. I mean we felt kind of a responsibility and also just wanted to honor like what just occurred. So um you

4:44know when it came from the value that Hyperlid gave us not only from a user perspective but also through an airdrop um and you know we were recipients of hype token and also of hypers which is the you know native sort of uh NFT collection in that ecosystem. And so we're we wanted to put those assets to work, make them more efficient, and also, you know, add to the community

5:09that we're bullish on, right? Um, and so we came up with a few different brands and a few different products, right? And ultimately, we thought RIP was cool because it reminded us of like a surf brand but in DeFi. And then uh you know one of the NFTts that we picked up uh one of the hypers had a surfboard and we're like you know we we read read through the IP

5:34allowances and everything like that. We're like we could build a brand around this you know and it can be like a DeFi surf brand and uh you know but obviously just focus very specifically on these various vaults right and we're super bullish vaults. I think that vaults are fundamentally changing the way that funds operate and that'll continue to happen and I'm I'm really excited about

5:55vaults in general. So, uh I have several friends with vaults that have you know or they built them with over 100 million TVL and I'm like, you know, got on the calls with them and just started discussing like what they were looking at and the way that they viewed vaults and the industry in general over the next 5 10 years. Um, and some of these products just started lining up and and

6:20it became very obvious what we should be building. >> I I love that surf analogy. I think everybody wants to uh once you're up on the board and you're riding the wave, you know, hopefully uh catching the big wave uh in crypto and getting, you know, all the value on the way. It's a [clears throat] good analogy. uh you know and uh there's definitely a lot of

6:41waves in crypto, but a lot of people smash into the wave headon and right now at least at least the the dgens that were in uh with the meme coins and low caps, which I think some were trading on on Hyperlquid as well, but there's definitely a lot of >> uh sort of more whales. I think that's their go-to. And I had friends back in 2023 as well that that had approached me

7:02and maybe it was because of the points play or they also saw the value in Hyperlquid and they're like this is the next best thing. So there was definitely some some people that were right on that. I want to uh dive into those vault strategies because it sounds very promising. I I feel like I want to know more in how the average person can can get involved in the vault and you know

7:21what what do you need and do you have to lock in and and how can you take advantage of that? >> Yeah. So, one of the earliest iterations we made after launching this um late last year was simplifying the homepage. Um, and why we did that was to make it slightly less DeFi native. Of course, it's like impossible to remove um or obfuscate all of that, you know, because

7:45you need to understand the product. Um, but ultimately we wanted to make it as easy as like deposit an asset and that will get even easier going forward. But currently it's hype, right? So you deposit hype in hyper EVM and uh that's it, right? And then you get our hyper and return which is the the exposure to the tokenized vault of hypers. So, um, that's as easy as it can possibly get at

8:13the moment, but we, you know, have other ideas on how to make that easier. Of course, um, you know, you should be able to show up and really deposit any asset from any chain and, you know, that sort of infrastructure obviously already exists that we can implement and be in the middle right there. Um, how important that is right now in this stage, you know, is, uh, has yet to be

8:33seen. But um ultimately the idea here is how do we allow >> a crypto curious person >> to be excited uh when they already are excited about Hyperlid and the future of that ecosystem to just gain access to kind of a beta play here and also join a community, right? Like be part of something that they can latch on to and learn more about Hyperlid and crypto in

8:58general. And uh we think like hypers are an excellent you know sort of uh entrylevel step there to get started into this ecosystem because they're very approachable. We already saw what worked in NFTTS. Sure bring up NFTTS at like a lunch right now and you know in public and it's you don't get the best response but the fact of the matter is these assets work in building community. We've

9:21seen it right. Yeah. >> Um and so we think that not only do these help do that, but they also have this um beta aspect to hype itself since they're priced in hype. So think, you know, punks to ETH and and other assets. Um, and they also have kind of this thing that Pudgy Penguins and other collections have shown us, which is these things can be valuable to hold

9:48because you can be rewarded as a holder because you're part of this community. And as other builders like myself and my team come into the ecosystem and build, you look for ways to if you are planning a token of some sort, you look for ways to give that to your community in a way that is more fair. Well, one way to do that immediately is just to set aside a

10:10specific amount for holders of a collection, right? And this collection is the sort of definitive, you know, collection of this ecosystem. So, it would be really strange for Hyper EVM uh products to come out and release a token and not sort of airdrop to these holders, right? They're they're deep community members of this ecosystem. >> Yeah, I think it's important to reshape

10:37that. As you mentioned, if you're talking about NFTTS at lunch, they think of, you know, all the celebrities that spent 500,000 a million and now it's worth $10. um or you know even just the any collections they sort of lost momentum and there are good ones you know like Pudgy seems to have [clears throat] made a dent and done things different but punks even so you know the

11:00valuations of all of them are sort of they were overhyped before and now maybe they're more reasonable uh but finding a differentiator where whether whether it's early access or you know a strong smart community I feel like is important and I would love to see you know hyperlquid change that narrative that, you know, NFTTS are more than just we're buying it

11:21to sell it later for more and provide extra value for like the ecosystem and the communities. >> Yeah. and listening to, you know, media covering NFT is kind of just like um midcurving it in general because like they're going to look at these specific things like the the headline you just mentioned is kind of the funniest one and it's the best uh it's the best

11:44example of what I'm talking about because it's like yeah Justin Bieber paid this much money and then now it's worth this. And there's a few things wrong with that headline because Justin Bieber first off didn't buy that himself. it was gifted it from a company a large company in the crypto space as an advertising or marketing campaign. And the second thing is um the the value

12:06of that NFT is not uh determined by what the lowest offer or the current offer on a marketplace is. And so um you know obviously if someone accepted that offer and to them it was worth that exact amount well in that moment it would be worth that much right but a moment later any trader that was able to purchase that or bought you know would repric that asset very quickly. Mhm. And some

12:34of these ma big ones like the punks, you know, they had a pretty high floor, so maybe whales could get involved or or traditional investors that had a lot of capital, but you know, your everyday retail trader, they couldn't. What's that like with the barriers to entry uh for the hypers? >> Yeah, bingo. So hypers, you know, were priced much higher uh when they were

12:58released. Um and of course in this, you know, in the market that we've been in, those have gone down and they're still at a level and I believe will continue to be at a level that's pretty inaccessible for, you know, the average retail participant in crypto um and in general maybe. Um so and this is thinking around the world of course and so yeah fractionalizing the ownership of

13:27that asset class is I shouldn't say class but fractionalizing a treasury of these assets uh we thought you know was a really solid approach >> um and of course it has turned out to be um there's a lot of people that would love to own a hyper and definitely want the exposure to anything that comes along with that community. Um yes these assets um the hypers when they were air

13:50dropped they were quite valuable um and they still are quite valuable and definitely in terms of the average retail participant and what they can actually you know how much liquidity they have to deploy into a single asset. Um and so one thing we thought about doing was essentially writing kind of the treasury trend and then you know having a treasury of these assets that

14:13we can tokenize and fractionalize to to allow any participant to show up with like a single hype or or less and purchase you know 0.1 hype worth of uh one of these NFTs but not just one of the NFTs the access or exposure to entire treasury that is underlying the the uh protocol. So as people deposit hype um and that hype reaches um the floor of a hyper on the open market, it

14:42purchases that hyper and adds it to the treasury and then also uh that increases the nav. So we had to create a custom nav solution uh specifically for hypers and uh add in some more feeds and get to where we are very comfortable with the way that it operates. Um and that offers exposure to a treasury of hypers um for the first time that works in this way.

15:09>> Mhm. Um and one other question about chains, you know, on in terms of layer twos for Ethereum, Coinbase's base chain sort of taken a forefront for for layer 2s. Uh but the Hyperlid EVM it or or Hyper liquid like L1 uh it's a different ecosystem. Is there a positive and negative to the way that Hyperlid is built right now on

15:36EVM versus having some of these layer 2s that have more at least with base corporate adoption? Yeah, I mean there's a fundamental difference to what Hyperlid did versus all the other EBML2s which is have this central engine uh this ordered book that you know all the liquidity is sitting on inside of Hyperlquid in Hyper Core which is their L1. uh and then the ability for the EVM

16:01ecosystem to tap into that liquidity directly to that source right for the first time. That is an really interesting approach and honestly it made all the difference and so that was a fundamental difference that uh really was a boon to the EVM eco. >> Very cool. And could you explain one more time when you have hype and you deposit uh into into RIP um how does

16:26that exactly work with the hype that you owned and then the liquidity or being able to withdraw and what you're really getting in return? >> Sure. Yeah. So once you deposit hype, you know, we built in like a nav control mechanism where essentially it goes in as batches. So you'll see exactly when you're making the deposit when it's going to be deposited. And then as soon

16:48as that clears, you get your RH Hyper and it's just sitting in your wallet. You can trade on Project X, which is a large DEX on Hyper EVM. You can, you know, do other things with that asset in the future, but really you just have to hold it. Um, and then at any point if you want to uh get your height back, let's say it's up, uh, you you're you're happy, you you you want to do something

17:12else with your hype, you just simply deposit the, um, our hyper and you're going to get the hype back at the current nav, which would be, you know, different from when you deposited it because it's, if the ecosystem is going up, it's going to be more valuable. >> That's very cool. I'd love to be able to just purchase 0.1 of the same NFT and and get at least some access that that

17:35you could get by, you know, some of these communities that where where the floor is quite high. And you know when you guys started RIP, you you've been in hyperlquid, the the market's been up and down over the years here, but now starting RIP uh was the market was fair cooling off, but in the beginning of 2026, and we've seen a dip in Bitcoin and and and altcoins uh more so. Uh but

18:00Hyperlid still seems to be, you know, per uh per capita or per employee, you know, one of the most profitable companies in the world. I think they only have 13 employees or something. Uh, and you know, when when the market cools off, the trading volumes seem to go down on Coinbase and Binance and these major ones. Uh, but Hyperlid seems to still be standing pretty strong. Um, and then now

18:24introducing non-crypto assets as well as the traders sort of move to where where the market is moving. Um, how do you think that affects uh, RIP as you continue to grow? Yeah, I mean so this, you know, our hyper which is the tokenized treasury of hypers is our initial product and we have plenty more planned and we as traders ourselves understand what we

18:49want access to and what would be interesting going forward and we're definitely up to date on what's happening inside of the hyperlquid ecosystem and we're super excited about it. Um, HIPP3 has been awesome to see it kind of blossom very quickly and I don't think that's going to slow down at all. Um, and so there are opportunities to build more things that we've seen in

19:12Tradfi that haven't necessarily been brought on chain uh, in the most clean ways and in the most trady userfriendly ways. And so, um, our plan is to continue to deploy products under this brand that allow these more, uh, crypto new newbies, right? Like people that are just now discovering how

19:41to get access to onchain assets after maybe purchasing the ETF with their firm or them individually for the first time and they're more interested. Um, you know, we want to have products that are available for them. Yeah. And when you say crypto newbie, you know, we might think it's some teenager, but there's also, you know, multi-million dollar hedge funds that are crypto newbies and

20:02they're just getting in, but they have a lot of capital. >> Yeah. The more the majority of the world falls under this category actually, right? >> Uh the majority of the world is not cryptonative. So, [laughter] >> and we've seen it in every single cycle. I've, you know, been fortunate enough um sometimes misfortunate enough to be in this industry, you know, Bitcoin since

20:232011 and Ethereum since 2015, right? So, it's like I've had I've seen every single cycle that you could see uh you know, that was meaningful and I've seen the destruction and I also seen the you know, complete uh you know, exuberance and uh euphoric situations that occur as well. are familiar with it

20:52>> definitely. And you mentioned HIP3 in Hyperlid and I was talking about noncrypto assets. Can you elaborate on what that is and how it helps the ecosystem? >> Yeah, sure. For the first time, this is allowing the existence of perpetuals surrounding off-chain assets. >> Um, things that are typically offchain, things that you find in uh your brokerage account, equities that you see

21:20on any stock market. Um, and you know, RWA plays and plenty of other things that can come out in the future. Um, and that's what will come out in the future. That's the bet that we're making. That's the bet that the hyperlquid ecosystem is making. Um, so really allowing for you to trade any asset on chain and doing that with liquidity and the the butteriness, you know, that that

21:43hyperlid brings to the table. >> Yeah. you know, precious metals have been so hot in Q4 and tokenized equities. You know, people have been looking for tokenized equities, whether they're the actual, you know, you get to un own the underlying asset, uh, or you just get to trade it with with, uh, you know, a onetoone on the price. There's no perfect solution right now for sort

22:07of these off-chain assets to to be traded, at least with with liquidity and volume. >> Yeah, it's true. uh and there there hasn't been for a long time. I mean, of course, there are like threats to the overall concept of HIPP3 and to Hyperlid in general. Um you can't, you know, do what they've done and not have any competition and not have, you know,

22:29serious threats from other angles as well, technology advances and things. We have obviously seen like NASDAQ and other companies um major exchanges announce that they are working with blockchain companies and that they'll be bringing these assets on chain. You have every single major financial institution you know that has had a you know onchain department for many years now. you know

22:54the things that they're working on of course are traditional assets onchain right and what that looks like in the future and that's where rwas come into play as well right where we have these like actual assets that are you know we have these these instruments on chain that are backed by the actual assets offchain um so yeah I think a lot of that's going to come to fruition I think

23:19that there's still um huge reason to to need these as perpetual and uh and for them to, you know, trade as they do today. And there's also a lot of room inside of crypto itself with bringing, you know, some of these baskets we haven't really seen before to the forefront as well, which is definitely on our mind. >> Yeah, I'd love to see that on the crypto

23:44side as well. it it we've seen little pieces of it. Uh but really it's just Bitcoin and Ethereum, mainly just Bitcoin at this point, but that the the there's so much more to explore in integrating web 2 or Tradfi and and web 3. >> Um with with RIP and sort of the plan for 2026, uh I know one of the main focuses is growing the the TVL, the total value

24:12locked. What are some of the the key milestones or the new vaults and and the strategy in getting to the next 100 million locked in? >> It's really taking these concepts that I was talking about in Tradfi, delivering them to DeFi in this specific way for the first time. Uh that that's that's what I'll say there. So really giving, you know, why would a retired

24:38person in Florida like move from their brokerage account to DeFi? >> You know, and if you dwell on that long enough, you start to come up with some ideas, right? And that of course isn't the only thing we're thinking about and the only thing we're building for. We're also building for DeFi natives and, you know, onchain people like ourselves, right? Um, but we think the future means

25:03everyone's on chain and so why not just build for that? Like why not just place that uh bet and build with that in mind, right? Um, so TBL is growing. You know, people want access to hypers and this treasury strategy of tokenized hypers, but you know, they also want these other products as well. And so I think that with each product, you know, there will

25:25be a kind of meaningful jump in TVL as people start learning about the things that we're building. >> Definitely. Yeah, it can be a big shift if you've you're entrenched deeply in the the US financial system, you know, working the same job uh back, you know, before the 2000s and now you have your retirement there and looking at DeFi, all this new stuff comes up and it can

25:51be overwhelming. But I've seen looking through the hyperlquid and the RIP community in my research, I saw that it's very appealing and and growing in Asia uh versus the US. Can you talk about the difference there in why the Asian communities see this and they jump on it right away and and the hesitation on on the Western side? >> Yeah, I mean there's a couple of major

26:17uh reasons there, right? And the first is that Hyperlid is a Singaporebased operation um with a ton of users in Asia, you know, and in Hong Kong. Um so in uh just the airdrop alone of the hypers went to a lot of people in Singapore, went to a lot of people in Hong Kong. Um and of course everywhere else as well, just to a lesser degree, I would say. Um and so

26:44then you also have the geo fencing of the American retail uh with you know hyperlquid itself right and for any decentralized exchange for a long time. We're kind of out of this you know Americans are kind of out of this um long period of just being at absolute war with their own government right um with the the their their day jobs. And so it's been absolutely wild. Like the

27:10amount of bank accounts that the average, you know, crypto company anywhere near America has gone through is just absurd, right? It was really challenging to do. It was like it was as if it was the crypto or it was as if crypto was the cannabis industry, you know? It was like very similar. And so [clears throat] it's it's uh grown a lot, you know, and under the current

27:32administration in the United States, it's changed uh, you know, just night and day. uh there's still a bunch of bureaucracy and things that you know to some degree should exist right um so as we work through there I think a lot more western world will get exposure to these assets and and hyperlquid in general there's all you know every major firm is

27:55kind of like already utilizing hyperlid in some way typically >> um and at least the ones in crypto you know obviously and so you know I think that that's going to change a lot but of course you have the the greatest user base was in Asia, right, for Hyper Liquid in general. And so that that isn't necessarily going to change overnight or anything like that.

28:17>> Yeah, definitely. Well, the major firms, as you say, they're smart. They're using it. You've been using it for years. You know, it's like butter. It's changing decentralized exchange which is amazing because that's been the goal uh and the ethos of of blockchain from the beginning was you know the centralized exchanges sort of came in as a temporary

28:39solution because we couldn't figure out uh the efficiency the speed and the user experience on decentralized exchanges as it takes a while to to rebuild the entire financial system on chain and we're still early in crypto but uh this has been made a huge dent um And I think a lot of people are going to wake up to it and the more they know the better. Uh

29:02what's for, you know, for the two categories, those who haven't used Hyperlquid and maybe they've heard of Hype, uh and then those who have Hype sitting in their wallet and maybe they're not doing anything with it. How should those people take the next step in getting involved further? >> Yeah, I mean, you can go to rip.xyz um and just deposit hype right then and

29:24there. you know, if you're already on the EBM, if you've never used the EVM, but you have used Hyperlquid, I definitely encourage you to check out the protocols that are on that in that ecosystem. There's a lot of good stuff, you know, a lot of things that you can find in any other EVM ecosystem exist in this one and more. And so, it's fun to get exposure to those. and Hyperliquid,

29:47you know, Hyper Core where your assets exist. Once you get onto Hyperlquid, um, has a very easy, you know, way to on the UI just to transfer assets to EBM, >> they pop right over. So, if you're using MetaMask or Rabbi or one of these wallets, you can immediately, you know, start utilizing your hype in this ecosystem to make it more efficient. Uh there there's lots of ways to make hype

30:13more efficient than just sitting on it, you know, and so I encourage you to go try to find those ways. And one way is definitely to play, you know, our hyper which is uh the tokenized treasury of hypers in RIP.xyz. >> Sounds great, Sal. I appreciate all your insights into decentralized trading, off-chain assets coming onchain, hyperlquid ecosystem, and RIP and the

30:36tokenized treasuries and strategies. Uh, I'm going to leave a link to the the platform in the show notes as well as the socials. I'm going to tell my friends who told me about Hyperlid in the beginning uh that this is the next beta play and and this what something they need to check out. I appreciate your insights. Wishing you and the team all the best moving forward and would

30:58love to follow up again in the near future. >> Yeah, I really love that. Appreciate you having me on, Ashton. And I really want to encourage people to find the X account specifically cuz we have an X chat going there. And so if you're interested in asking questions or joining this community or being involved in any way, um, you know, join the X chat, say what you're there for, and

31:17I'll be in there chatting with you.