Hyperliquid and similar exchanges aren't decentralized. That is their long term goal but they are very far from achieving it.

The few actual decentralized exchanges are too slow and expensive.

> HyperCore includes fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books. Every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation happens transparently with one-block finality inherited from HyperBFT. HyperCore currently supports 200k orders / second, with throughput constantly improving as the node software is further optimized.

Key part:

> fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books

Being on a blockchain and being decentralized are two different things. The HyperCore client isn't even open source.

That's just patently false.

> Importantly, HyperCore does not rely on the crutch of off-chain order books. A core design principle is full decentralization with one consistent order of transactions achieved through HyperBFT consensus.

The basis of decentralized software is open-source. Otherwise a centralized authority can just push an update to, for instance, blacklist addresses.

https://github.com/hyperliquid-dex/node

"For lowest latency, run the node in Tokyo, Japan."

Decentralization means to run all of the closed-source nodes in the same AWS datacenter!

And in fact they did just this when their vaults started bleeding money on an unfavourable position (JellyJelly). They handed out a closed source binary and the validators ran it immediately, closing out the market at an arbitrary price.

The basis of decentralized software is open protocol. Then it doesn't matter that somebody runs closed source while somebody runs open source.

as an operator you don't even get the real validator / node binary directly, nor can you control which version to run.

all you can do is run their visor, and they push out whatever proprietary blob they produce and restart "your" nodes at their command.

I mean, as soon as synchronisation is required in any system, block chain, distributed SAAS, even Peer to Peer sharing, decentralisation fails hard

That's one of the sticking points I have with the /idea/ of the technology

Ethereum and similar chains run arbitrary computation on-chain. You can make a futures exchange on Ethereum (or Solana, etc). However, the fees for doing so are very large, and confirmation times are very long, like any other on-chain transaction.

What I am loving about this comment, and the downvotes, is the idea that blockchains can escape things like basic laws of the universe.

> confirmation times are very long, like any other on-chain transaction

Yes. synchronisation is where everything breaks down because you have to get everyone to agree to the new state.

edit: Sorry, not everyone, but a consensus, and that consensus is then what everyone agrees is the state.

There are some exchanges that are more decentralised (and older) than Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid, while being the most popular one, is not the only horse in the town.

E.g. GMX on Arbitrum chain is no longer prohibitively expensive.

Left some comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172450