Unit: Expanding the Asset Layer of Hyperliquid
Unit is the bridge that transforms external assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and even niche tokens like Fartcoin into fully usable, spot-settled instruments on Hyperliquid. It acts as the asset layer of the Hyperliquid ecosystem, ensuring that capital parked in external chains is brought directly into Hypercore without friction. As Shoku, one of the co-founders, has expressed, Unit is completely asset-agnostic, positioning itself as the holistic asset layer of Hyperliquid, encompassing both crypto and traditional markets.
Shoku put it succinctly:
“Spot crypto is just the wedge.”
This framing captures Hyperliquid’s larger ambition to integrate a wide spectrum of assets into a unified, onchain trading and settlement framework.
From inception, Unit has been designed to solve one of DeFi’s most pressing issues: fragmented liquidity. Instead of keeping user capital siloed on different chains, it aggregates those deposits and deploys them natively within Hyperliquid’s unified trading account system. This allows any deposited asset to flow seamlessly across spot markets, derivatives, and emerging DeFi protocols built on Hyperliquid. In doing so, Unit not only secures user funds but also accelerates liquidity depth across Hyperliquid, positioning it as a premier venue for both retail traders and institutions.
Builders and Origins
Unit was founded by a team of builders with unusually diverse backgrounds, combining expertise from military technology, venture investing, finance, and crypto-native engineering. One of the co-founders previously served in Israel’s IDF cyber units, bringing a deep technical understanding of security systems and applied cryptography. Another emerged from the world of venture capital and traditional finance, with years spent modeling market risk and portfolio structures. A third came from crypto’s grassroots, immersed in community building and protocol mechanics during the DeFi summer. The fourth co-founder built a reputation in engineering and product execution, specializing in scaling onchain infrastructure.
Together, they form a team that bridges operational rigor with experimental speed. Their guiding philosophy has always been user-driven growth: listen to the community, prioritize transparency, and design infrastructure that prioritizes capital safety above all else. The founders see Unit not as a short-term experiment but as the foundation for a long-term asset layer that can anchor Hyperliquid’s ecosystem expansion.
Core Mechanism: How Unit Works
At its core, Unit transforms user deposits into live, spot-settled assets on Hyperliquid. When a user deposits Bitcoin, Ethereum, Fartcoin, or other supported assets into Unit, those assets are custody-secured and mapped directly into Hyperliquid’s unified trading account. This system ensures that once deposited, users can deploy their capital instantly across multiple markets without delays, wrapping, or cross-chain risks.
The trading milestones speak to the effectiveness of this mechanism. Bitcoin’s native spot market launched on February 14, 2025, with $18 million in daily volume and now regularly clears over $170 million. Ethereum began with $1.5 million in trading volume and has since climbed to $155 million. Solana launched with $2.75 million and now trades around $70 million daily. These surges are not just statistics; they demonstrate that Unit is capable of turning deposits into tangible liquidity at unprecedented speed, strengthening Hyperliquid’s order books and enabling institutional-grade trading depth.
Importantly, Unit is expanding beyond the assets already live. It has secured the ticker symbol for $ENA and will soon list the token on Hypercore’s spot markets, further widening the range of supported instruments. This addition highlights Hyperunit’s asset-agnostic model and its broader vision to serve as the universal settlement layer for any asset class that Hyperliquid integrates in the future.
Current Activity and Market Footprint
Unit now supports more than $725 million in deposits across assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Fartcoin. These deposits form the backbone of Hyperliquid’s growing liquidity engine. In total, Unit has already processed over $15 billion in cumulative trading volume since its launch, with daily volumes consistently in the hundreds of millions.
Its total value locked (TVL) stands at $826.48 million, reflecting the scale of deposits and the trust placed in the protocol. Annualized fee generation is currently estimated at $14.19 million, a figure that reflects both trading activity and the efficiency of Unit’s integration with Hyperliquid’s unified account structure.
These figures matter because they establish Unit not as a speculative project, but as a fully functional and deeply liquid layer within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Its ability to turn user deposits into consistent, large-scale market activity demonstrates both product-market fit and operational stability.
Criticisms and Security Considerations
Despite its strong performance, Unit has yet to release a third-party audit report. While Hyperliquid’s base layer has undergone audits by Zellic, those reviews do not extend to Unit’s custody or settlement infrastructure. Instead, Unit has published claims about its own security model, including a 2-of-3 MPC/TSS signature scheme, deterministic state machines managed by Guardians, the use of secure enclaves, and circuit breakers. It also mentions encrypted communication and post-event auditing via Guardian logs.
However, without an independent audit from a recognized firm such as Trail of Bits, OpenZeppelin, or Zellic, these remain unverified assurances. The reliance on a 2-of-3 Guardian setup introduces centralization risk: if two parties are compromised or coerced, system control could be lost. Promises of secure enclaves and circuit breakers are difficult to evaluate without transparency or attestation. Moreover, while post-event logging provides accountability, it is not a substitute for preventive verification. Real user complaints, including issues with stuck Bitcoin deposits on the bridge, highlight operational risks that a thorough audit might have helped pre-empt. Until such an audit is completed and published, Unit must be regarded as unaudited, with risks appropriately priced in by participants.
Why Unit Matters
Unit matters because it is the foundation of Hyperliquid’s asset layer. By keeping capital in constant motion within Hyperliquid’s unified trading account, it ensures that deposits are not static, but instead flow into markets that generate liquidity and deepen order books. This design benefits both traders seeking tighter spreads and institutions demanding reliable liquidity depth.
The protocol’s scale speaks for itself. With $826.48 million in TVL, more than $725 million in deposits across assets like BTC, ETH, SOL, and FART coin, and over $15 billion in cumulative trading volume, Unit has quickly become indispensable to Hyperliquid’s ecosystem. Its annualized fees of $14.19 million underline healthy economic activity, while its pace of adoption demonstrates broad trust in its infrastructure.
Most importantly, Unit’s asset-agnostic vision positions it as the long-term bridge for both crypto and traditional assets. As Shoku noted, spot crypto is just the wedge. The real goal is to make Unit the universal layer where assets of any kind digital or traditional can be brought onchain, traded, and settled with the speed and transparency of Hyperliquid. For users, that means every deposit is put to work. For developers, it opens pathways to build structured products, leverage systems, and financial applications on top of a credible, liquid foundation. And for the broader ecosystem, it makes Hyperliquid not just a blockchain for trading, but a full-scale marketplace for assets of every kind.
Explore Unit further on their official X page: Unit