Expanded Proposal: Native Markets
TL;DR
We founded Native Markets to build the best stablecoin for the blockchain to house all finance
USDH should be a gateway for Hyperliquid, the first step in the next chapter of its growth, and not the last step in a stablecoin-as-a-service provider’s existing business
We’re building the USDH we want, with GENIUS-readiness and institutional reserves management (table stakes) through a service provider, Bridge, but remain issuer agnostic by design
We believe growing USDH to its full potential and greatest absolute contribution to the Assistance Fund requires investment in its growth. We propose 50% of reserve yield be immutably contributed to the Assistance Fund, with the other 50% dedicated to USDH growth in partnership with the builder-code interfaces, HIP-3 markets, and HyperEVM apps driving adoption on the frontlines
We look forward to community ownership in Native Markets
We’re here to win on product and long-term Hyperliquid alignment, ticker or no ticker
What “Hyperliquid-First” Means & Why It Matters
Every major stablecoin has been launched by an exchange. USDT and Bitfinex, USDC and Coinbase, and now USDH is Hyperliquid’s opportunity.
USDH should be the native on-ramp to Hyperliquid: seamless, no bridge risk, and guided by a team that lives this ecosystem. By contrast, loss-leading, chain-agnostic issuers recover costs through fees or cross-selling, which can pull value away from Hyperliquid. We’ll anchor USDH on Hyperliquid as its ledger of record and bridge or deploy it wherever users transact.
We founded this company for this vision. The success of our business is the success of USDH and the Hyperliquid ecosystem. It is crucial that value accrue to the Hyperliquid ecosystem and its participants as USDH gains adoption both on and off Hyperliquid.
We propose that reserve yield, not just net revenue, be divided equally between an autonomous and immutable stream to the Assistance Fund, and investment in the growth of USDH. Streaming part of reserve yield today and reinvesting the remainder to compounding USDH supply drives larger long-run contributions to the Assistance Fund and tighter alignment with the network long-term.
This follows the precedent set by previous Hyperliquid network fee splits (e.g., deployer fees, HIP-3 revenue share) and brings back home, to the Hyperliquid ecosystem, the current yield earned by Coinbase for every unit of USDC on Hyperliquid. Contributing to the Assistance Fund is the most direct way to align the success of USDH with those participating in the network, in contrast to holding HYPE on a corporate balance sheet or reintroducing it into circulating supply.
We will use the remainder to grow USDH on the initial frontlines of distribution, working with builder-code interface operators, HIP-3 market deployers, and HyperEVM app contributors. All are well-positioned to reward users for shifting their balances, trading activity, and borrowing habits into USDH. A lack of this type of reinvestment starves the product, pushes costs onto users via fees, and slows supply growth, ultimately shrinking future Assistance Fund contributions in absolute terms.
We are committed to making this a reality, with or without the USDH ticker.
What is Native Markets’ USDH?
Native Markets is prepared to launch a USDH with these features:
Native to Hyperliquid, issued on HyperEVM with seamless interop to HyperCore. This means the ledger of record for USDH will remain on the Hyperliquid blockchain
Fully backed by cash and US treasury equivalents with offchain reserves initially managed by BlackRock and onchain reserves by Superstate through Bridge
GENIUS-ready and compliant across the US and EEA. We are issuer agnostic and selected Bridge after due diligence because of their compliance, product flexibility, and velocity
Programmatically mintable and redeemable via API, with access to Bridge’s stablecoin orchestration network, and integration of on-/off-ramps in the pipeline
Immediately available onchain via liquidity from select institutions
Secure, audited, and tested in production on both HyperEVM and HyperCore, complete with robust alerting, safety, and monitoring systems
Issuer agnostic to let us own and deliver the best experience for Hyperliquid users
Onboarded companies and individuals across 48 states and 200+ jurisdictions would be able to mint and redeem USDH with or for supported stablecoins across multiple networks as well as fiat wires via our Native Markets dedicated API and dashboard.
We have vetted this design with multiple top tier U.S.. law firms and have a contract with Bridge. After extensive due diligence, we chose Bridge as an issuer because of:
Willingness to support Hyperliquid natively rather than via bridging
An API-first mint / redeem experience that plugs into power user workflows
Compliance via money transmitter licenses
Treasury management (BlackRock, with Fidelity and BNY coming)
Prioritizing growth and onchain collateral options (Superstate’s USTB) to provide redemption for inbound USDC and USDT
Bridge operates their issuance and orchestration programs as a FinCEN-registered money services business (MSB) with money-transmission licenses (MTLs) (NMLS #2450917) and other relevant state authorizations where necessary. For EEA flows, Bridge's EU subsidiary is registered in Poland as a VASP (RDWW-794), transitioning to CASP and EMI licenses in Luxembourg. Bridge serves non-US/non-EEA residents pursuant to a subsidiary registered in the British Virgin Islands.
We see on-ramp integrations, a smooth wallet experience via Privy, and cards that let users spend USDH balances seamlessly ahead, through Bridge, Stripe, and other partners.
None of these features are theoretical or prospective. We’ve had strong conviction that this product should exist, founded our company to build it, and began work months ago. We kept Labs up to speed on our plans, had inquired about the USDH ticker, and respect this open process. We hope we win it.
Engineering USDH
We have been testing both ERC-20 and HIP-1 token flows for a Bridge-issued deployment. Our most recent testnet tokens are TESTR3 and DBLN. Our most recent mainnet tokens are GALLEON and DBLN. We are prepared to launch a community-aligned stablecoin within days, and for spot quote asset support as soon as permissionless deployments are enabled.
We view the initial launch as just the beginning for USDH and are committed to delivering the best possible user experience across security, ease of use, and Hyperliquid integration by fundamentally innovating on the core technology of a stablecoin. We aim to do so both by integrating deeply into Hyperliquid’s unique architecture and optimizing every step in the stablecoin experience.
For example, to atomically mint on HyperEVM and bridge USDH to HyperCore, we have developed a first-of-its-kind smart contract, CoreRouter, that uses CoreWriter and exploits new spot quote asset changes to fund and initialize HyperCore accounts atomically. This contract has completed security audits from Zellic and will be a day-0 open-source contribution, the first of many.
GENIUS Readiness is Table Stakes
GENIUS-Compliant versus GENIUS-Ready
The GENIUS Act is the first comprehensive U.S. framework for stablecoin regulation, passed in July to set the rules for issuers, exchanges, and users. It matters because within a few years every major exchange and intermediary will be required to only support GENIUS-compliant stablecoins in the U.S., making alignment with this standard critical for long-term adoption.
The Act has passed, but issuers can only be “GENIUS-ready,” not technically GENIUS-compliant, because the charter does not yet exist today. We expect every USDH proposal will list financial services licenses or charters.
There are several paths to GENIUS-readiness. GENIUS-ready means aligning early with the coming standards. The law won’t take effect until 2027 (or 120 days after final rules), and even then there is a three-year phase-in before exchanges must exclusively support GENIUS-compliant assets. Issuers can choose federal or state regimes, which are treated as equivalent up to $10B supply in most cases.
We chose an issuer with MTLs, and selected them on the basis of product velocity and flexibility.
Regarding New York State Licenses
NYDFS stablecoin licensing is restrictive, with approvals limited and often slow to expand: PayPal’s pending Stellar PYUSD application is a clear example. An issuer tied to New York could face delays bringing USDH to Hyperliquid, as the underlying blockchain needs to be approved as well, while a non-NY license avoids that bottleneck.
Given these considerations, we ultimately decided to work with Bridge for issuance because their compliance posture positions our stablecoin to be GENIUS-ready with fast product velocity and flexible distribution.
On Native Markets and Our Team
We have spent our careers building, growing, and fighting for DeFi. We believe onchain markets should be better markets, and their impact on the world depends on the courage, vision and focus of the teams who build in them.
GENIUS-ready stablecoins are a historic chance to build universal USD accounts, on blockchains … or new revenue lines for incumbent companies.
Our co-founders are:
Max Fiege: Max has served the Hyperliquid ecosystem over the past year as an investor and advisor, backing projects now totaling nearly $2.5B in HyperEVM TVL and $15B in HyperCore trading volume. He’s previously served teams like Liquity and Barnbridge in product and strategy roles focused on onchain stablecoins and fixed rate instruments.
Anish Agnihotri: Anish has been a blockchain researcher and software engineer for over a decade. He was previously the first hire at Ritual, briefly youngest researcher at Paradigm, and a proprietary DeFi trader at Polychain, not to mention his track record in open-sourcing MEV and DeFi tooling.
MC Lader: MC was President and COO of Uniswap Labs (2021-2025) and launched digital assets at BlackRock in 2015, where she built multiple fintech businesses as a Managing Director and was an investor at Goldman Sachs. She joined Uniswap because of her belief in the importance of DeFi and drove its expansion. She navigated crypto’s hardest regulatory fights and is ready to help chart the course for USDH and Hyperliquid in a post-GENIUS landscape.
Other team members’ backgrounds span DeFi, fintech, and institutional finance. This is the only proposal built by a team with the combination of deep Hyperliquid experience, trading knowledge, institutional credibility and DeFi regulatory battle wounds.