Quick take:
- Jake Chervinsky, a veteran crypto litigator and former policy head at the Blockchain Association and Variant, has been appointed as the Founding CEO of the Hyperliquid Policy Center.
- Brad Bourque, formerly of Sullivan & Cromwell, is joining as Policy Counsel, while Salah Ghazzal, previously of Variant, is a Policy Director.
- The HPC is seen as a significant milestone in how individual DeFi protocols engage with federal regulators.
The Hyperliquid ecosystem has officially launched the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC). Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit research and advocacy group is launching with a war chest of 1 million HYPE tokens—valued at approximately $29 million—to champion the future of on-chain market infrastructure.
The initiative marks a significant milestone in how individual DeFi protocols engage with federal regulators. Leading the charge as founding CEO is Jake Chervinsky, a veteran crypto litigator and former policy head at the Blockchain Association and Variant, Fortune reported.
According to Chervinsky, the current financial regulations were “written for an analog era” and fail to account for the unique architecture of decentralized systems.
Unlike other industry groups, which aim to cover the entire crypto spectrum, the HPC will focus on the technical aspects of DeFi, including regulatory frameworks for DeFi Perps, as it seeks clear guidelines for perpetual futures, which are currently deemed to operate in a legal gray area within the U.S.
The nonprofit is also championing education for lawmakers on how decentralized order books and sub-second finality layers (like Hyperliquid’s L1) differ from traditional exchanges.
The Hyperliquid Policy Centre will also engage with the Senate on upcoming legislation, the CLARITY Act, which could define DeFi’s legal standing for the next decade.
The HBC has already started to build its team, with Brad Bourque, formerly of Sullivan & Cromwell, joining as Policy Counsel, while Salah Ghazzal, previously of Variant, is a Policy Director.
The group is still currently recruiting for several high-level roles, including a Head of Government Relations and a Head of Communications, as it aims to establish a permanent residency in the D.C. lobbying circuit.
The protocol’s deployment of nearly $30 million toward policy indicates that the Hyper Foundation sees legal clarity as a major “moat” required to bring decentralized trading into the mainstream.
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