Ventuals Announces Shutdown Of Its On-chain Perpetuals Platform

Co-founders Alvin Hsia and Emily Hsia signed the note, which went out through the official @ventuals account and a sunset page. They framed the Ventuals shutdown as a clean wind-down, not a collapse. So far, the community reaction backs that framing.

A Clean Exit From the Pre-IPO Perps Market

Ventuals ran a frontend for builder-deployed perpetuals on Hyperliquid. It used the HIP-3 framework to do it.

Traders got 24/7 exposure to pre-IPO names like OPENAI and ANTHROPIC. They could also trade commodities such as WHEAT and SOY, plus equity indices. Because the platform charged no traditional fees, traders paid only funding rates.

The pitch was simple. Most investors cannot touch private companies like OpenAI before an IPO. So Ventuals offered leveraged, on-chain exposure to those valuations instead. That novelty pulled in traders who wanted a bet on the AI boom.

That model grew fast. Over its lifetime, Ventuals generated more than $650 million in cumulative trading volume. It also gathered over 500,000 HYPE in deposits, according to its own on-chain data.

How the Ventuals Shutdown Settles Markets

Settlement runs on a fixed schedule, and the whole process finishes by June 19. Pre-IPO markets halted first.

On June 15, Ventuals froze OPENAI and ANTHROPIC using a 24-hour time-weighted average price. OPENAI settled at $1,341.80, and ANTHROPIC settled at $1,618.90.

Private companies have no live price oracle. So the system averages the last 24 hours of trading instead. As a result, no single trade can swing the final mark.

Commodity markets followed next. WHEAT and SOY settled after 2:20pm ET on June 18 using CME data. Then the eight index markets settled after 4:00pm ET the same day.

The index basket was broad. It covered MAG7, SEMIS, ROBOT, INFOTECH, NUCLEAR, DEFENSE, ENERGY, and BIOTECH. Each one settled against its relevant exchange data, so traders could check the final marks against public benchmarks.

vHYPE Redeems 1:1 With No Haircut

Ventuals raised its deployer bond through vHYPE, a liquid staking token. Users deposited HYPE and received vHYPE at a 1:1 rate. Meanwhile, the stake earned native Hyperliquid yield.

That design solved a real problem. A single team rarely holds 500,000 HYPE on its own. So Ventuals crowdsourced the bond from the community, and vHYPE kept those deposits liquid the whole time.

The vault batch-processes withdrawals from 10am ET on June 19. Holders then redeem vHYPE 1:1 for HYPE, plus the yield they accrued. After that, the unstaking takes about 7.5 days.

Crucially, the team applied no fees and no haircut. So depositors get back exactly what they put in. On-chain data showed roughly 500,252.61 HYPE across about 2,981 holders at the time of the announcement.

HIP-3 Consolidation Hands Ground to TradeXYZ

HIP-3 launched permissionless perps on Hyperliquid around October 2025. Anyone can deploy a market by staking a 500,000 HYPE bond. The deployer then manages oracles and frontends, while Hyperliquid handles matching and settlement.

Ventuals was the highest-profile pre-IPO builder in that system. Now its exit points to consolidation in the category.

TradeXYZ reportedly controls 95% to 97% of HIP-3 pre-IPO volume after the exit. The category has done about $1.46 billion in lifetime volume, according to tracked on-chain data.

The pattern worries some builders. Permissionless deployment clearly lowers the barrier to launch a market. Yet keeping liquidity and users is much harder, and a few sunsets can tip a whole category toward one dominant player.

Hyperliquid itself stays strong. The chain did roughly $234 billion in perp volume over the prior 30 days, DefiLlama data shows. So the loss of Ventuals’ $34 million in deposits barely moves the wider ecosystem.

Community Respects the Exit, but Mourns No Token

The reaction skewed respectful. Many traders praised the 1:1 return and the absence of any haircut.

Still, some early supporters voiced real frustration. They farmed points and drove volume, yet they got no token and no equity in return.

Some were not as respectful with points mentioning oracle issues that cost them money in the past.

One trader, @NabeelGMI, captured the mixed mood on X. “It’s genuinely sad to see Ventuals sunset their operations,” he wrote, while wishing the team success in its next chapter.

The native HYPE token traded near $68 on June 15, up about 12% on the day. However, analysts tie that move to broader market momentum, not the Ventuals shutdown.

What Comes Next for the Ventuals Team

The founders said they are joining another team in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. They have not named it yet, though they promised more details soon.

“Today one leg of the journey ends, and a new one begins,” the team wrote. They added that they were “proud of what we built,” and grateful to early supporters.

The Ventuals shutdown closes one chapter cleanly. For HIP-3, the open question now is whether permissionless perps can keep their builders, and not just attract them. None of this is financial advice.