Hyperliquid Validator Update: Top 21 Stakers to Be Selected

There have been two recent important developments for Hyperliquid, as the Hyperliquid validator program has been opened to all users. Additionally, this platform is also showing immense potential in the Perpetual futures sector as it processes the majority of its transactions. This exchange’s successes have also increased the adoption and usability of its native token, HYPE. As such, the HYPE price has been increasing as well, recording moderate daily gains and even higher weekly increases. 

Who Can Join the Hyperliquid Validator Program?

Based on an announcement from the official X page of Hyper Foundation about the 21 permissionless nodes of the chain. Based on this announcement, all users of the Hyperliquid ecosystem can now register for the validator program. However, it is worth mentioning that among all the registered users, the Hyperliquid validator system will pick 21 users with the largest stake. The X post does not contain any specific dates for the update, but it reassures that the update is coming soon. “Delegations from the Delegation Program are expected to go live in the coming days.”

The validator set has been updated to 21 permissionless nodes. Anyone can register a validator, and the 21 largest by stake form the active set. Delegations from the Delegation Program are expected to go live in the coming days.

Technical details for validators:
Validators…

— Hyper Foundation (@HyperFND) April 22, 2025

The developers have also encouraged the validator to learn more about the Hyperliquid ecosystem on the testnet before going to the mainnet. Another important point that was mentioned is that “the self-delegation of 10,000 HYPE is locked by the protocol for one year.” As such, the participants are advised to consider this before committing their capital and staking the tokens. This is especially important as, regardless of the formation of an active set, all Hyperliquid validators will be included in the delegation. 

Is Hyperliquid Taking Over the Perpetual Futures Market?

Additionally, there has been a report about the continued growth of this platform, as it now dominates the perpetual futures market. The on-chain market share of Hyperliquid in these perpetuals is now recorded to be 70% of the total. This blockchain has processed over $175 billion of March’s trading volume. This metric was standing at $83 billion in the middle of April. As of now, over 10% of the exchange’s volume is dedicated to HYPE price, which makes the demand for decentralized derivatives clear. 

Why Is Hyperliquid Dominating the Perpetuals Market?

Generally, Perpetual futures are known as derivatives that don’t have an expiration. This is because these contracts are funded by moving the positions from short to long and vice versa. As such, seasoned traders especially like to use these contracts as they provide access to leverage without commitment to spot positions. Additionally, for the investors who have concerns regarding centralization, there are on-chain contracts that have a non-custodial advantage. This will help avoid settlement failures and delays when the markets are busy. Instead, the non-custodial contracts will be executed in order using automatic smart contracts. 

As such, although the current market for these contracts is small, their future growth will be significant. As of now, the total market volume for Perpetual futures stands at nearly $7.8 billion.  From this volume, Hyperliquid covers nearly $4.765 billion of the 24-hour volume. The decentralized exchange Jupiter is in second place with only $579.02 million of the market share. Additionally, there are also other platforms like ApeX Protocol, Vertex Edge, and RabbitX Fusion, which have even smaller shares of this market. 

What’s Driving Hyperliquid’s Explosive 472% Token Growth?

As more traders turn to on-chain solutions, Hyperliquid has been constantly growing since April 2024. As such, the native token for this platform has also been growing, as the HYPE price has grown 472.90% since last year. Such growth has been caused by updates like the new validator system, which has provided new and exciting options for