USDH Builders Deep Dive

Three HIP-3 builders share the same collateral: USDH. But Kinetiq Markets, Ventuals, and Felix Exchange are built for very different users. Kinetiq is rooted in HYPE liquid staking and community-funded exchange deployment. Ventuals opens Pre-IPO markets that exist nowhere else onchain. Felix extends a lending protocol into perpetual trading with a broader DeFi integration story.

This article is a deep dive into each of the three USDH builders — what they actually do, how their products work, and who they are best for. If you already hold USDH, this is the guide for choosing where to use it.

Why USDH builders matter

USDH is the only collateral accepted by three HIP-3 builders. That makes it the most versatile stablecoin in the ecosystem — more builder coverage than USDC (one builder), USDe (one builder), or USDT (one builder).

But collateral alone does not determine the right builder. Each of the three has a distinct product philosophy, market coverage, ecosystem role, and risk profile. Choosing the wrong one means you may trade the wrong assets, use leverage that does not match your strategy, or miss ecosystem advantages that matter to your broader Hyperliquid position.

Kinetiq Markets

Kinetiq Markets is the most ecosystem-native of the three USDH builders. It launched as the fifth HIP-3 DEX on December 22, 2025 and began trading on January 12, 2026. Within its first 10 days it processed over $300 million in cumulative volume — the fastest growth of any HIP-3 builder at launch.

The staking connection

Kinetiq is best known for kHYPE, the dominant liquid staking token on Hyperliquid. kHYPE holds over 80% market share among Hyperliquid liquid staking protocols. This is not a side project — staking is the foundation that everything else at Kinetiq is built on.

Markets by Kinetiq is funded by a dedicated staking pool. Participants who contribute HYPE receive kmHYPE, a reward-accruing liquid staking token with a fixed 888,000 circulating supply. kmHYPE holders earn a share of trading fees generated by the exchange.

Launch Protocol — Exchange-as-a-Service

Kinetiq's most structurally interesting product is Launch, an Exchange-as-a-Service (EaaS) platform for HIP-3. Rather than requiring a single entity to stake 500,000 HYPE to deploy a perpetual exchange, Launch allows communities to pool capital and crowdfund a new HIP-3 venue.

Each deployment through Launch is risk-isolated — its own staking pool, its own liquid staking token, its own validator set. Contributors receive exchange-specific LSTs that represent their stake and entitle them to fee revenue. This modular approach means Kinetiq is not just a trading venue; it is also infrastructure for creating new venues.

Market coverage

Kinetiq Markets focuses on traditional assets — stocks, indices, commodities, and FX. Its initial launch included US500, EUR/USD, BABA, USTECH, SMALL2000, USBOND, and USENERGY. It offers up to 50x leverage on select markets, placing it among the highest-leverage HIP-3 builders.

Kinetiq uses Kaiko as its oracle provider, enabling real-time pricing across both crypto and equity markets with institutional-grade data feeds.

Who should use Kinetiq

Kinetiq is the strongest fit for users already embedded in the Hyperliquid staking ecosystem. If you hold kHYPE, care about how new HIP-3 exchanges get funded and deployed, or want traditional asset exposure while staying close to the HYPE-native economic layer, Kinetiq offers the tightest ecosystem alignment.

Best for: USDH holders and HYPE stakers who want traditional asset exposure within the Hyperliquid-native staking and deployment stack.

Kinetiq trade-offs

• Market coverage is still growing — fewer listed markets than the widest generalist builders
• The Launch Protocol and EaaS model are novel but not yet proven at scale
• The product is more structurally interesting than universally broad

Trade TSLA with USDH on Kinetiq Markets

Ventuals

Ventuals is the most differentiated builder in the entire HIP-3 ecosystem. While every other builder competes on traditional assets, crypto, or broad market coverage, Ventuals stands alone by making private company valuations tradable through perpetual futures. It went live on November 13, 2025 and crossed $200 million in cumulative volume by February 2026.

Pre-IPO perpetuals

Ventuals offers leveraged exposure to companies that have not yet listed on public markets. That means you can take a position on the valuation trajectory of OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, Databricks, and other private companies — exposure that is extremely difficult to access anywhere else onchain.

Contract values are denominated as company valuation divided by one billion, making them intuitive to read. A position on OPENAI at 300 means you are expressing a view that OpenAI is valued at $300 billion.

Ventuals also offers thematic indices like MAG7 (Magnificent Seven US tech companies), providing broader exposure beyond single names.

The Optimistic Oracle

Because private companies do not have continuous public-market prices, Ventuals designed a hybrid oracle mechanism:

• Off-chain sources ("Notice data") include secondary transactions, secondary bids/offers, official fundraising announcements, mutual fund marks, 409A valuations, and comparable public companies
• Oracle price formula: 1/3 weight on Notice data + 2/3 weight on a 2-hour EMA of the on-chain mark price
• Price band protection: mark price is constrained to stay within ±20% of the oracle price to prevent manipulation during thin liquidity
• Funding rate: hourly payments between longs and shorts based on mark-vs-oracle deviation

This semi-decentralized approach mitigates single-source bias while still allowing on-chain price discovery — a necessary design choice given the illiquidity of private markets.

Post-IPO settlement

Ventuals includes settlement logic for when a private company eventually goes public. A contract can settle based on the company's first-day public market capitalization, giving traders a clear exit mechanism tied to a verifiable public event.

Founder background

Ventuals was founded by Alvin Hsia, a former Airbnb and Goldfinch product lead who was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Paradigm. He developed the on-chain data platform Shadow during his time at Paradigm before building Ventuals. The Paradigm connection is notable — Native Markets co-founder Anish Agnihotri was also a Paradigm researcher, which helps explain the rapid coordination around USDH adoption across the ecosystem.

Points program

Ventuals runs an ongoing points program (launched February 3, 2026) that rewards trading activity. Points are distributed weekly based on:

• Trading volume — taker and maker activity on Ventuals (vntl) markets through any frontend, or any Hyperliquid/HIP-3 market through the Ventuals frontend
• Open interest — holding positions on Ventuals markets
• vHYPE boost — users holding vHYPE (Ventuals' HYPE liquid staking token) receive enhanced point multipliers, with a minimum of 100 vHYPE required

The base weekly allocation is 500,000 trading points. Ventuals reserves the right to adjust formulas and past distributions. For active traders considering Ventuals, the points program adds an additional incentive layer on top of the trading itself.

Who should use Ventuals

Ventuals is for traders with high-conviction views on private companies. If you want to express a directional opinion on OpenAI's valuation before it IPOs, this is the only venue in the USDH group — and effectively the only HIP-3 builder — that directly serves that use case.

Best for: traders who want speculative or directional exposure to Pre-IPO company valuations and are comfortable with thinner liquidity and higher uncertainty.

Ventuals trade-offs

• Maximum leverage is limited to 3x, reflecting the high volatility of private-company valuations
• Liquidity is thinner than in mainstream asset categories
• Valuation formation is inherently more uncertain — private companies do not trade on public markets, so pricing is an interpretive exercise rather than a fully observable market fact
• Position sizing matters more here than on almost any other HIP-3 venue

Trade OPENAI with USDH on Ventuals

Felix Exchange

Felix Exchange is the perpetual trading arm of the broader Felix Protocol. Unlike Ventuals (defined by a unique market category) or Kinetiq (defined by a novel deployment model), Felix's advantage is capital efficiency through DeFi integration. It is best understood as an extension of a lending and stablecoin platform into perpetual trading.

The Felix Protocol stack

Felix Protocol grew from a lending background built on a Liquity V2 fork with HyperEVM-specific licensing. The protocol has three interconnected layers:

1. Lending — CDP markets and variable-rate Vanilla lending pools. Felix has processed over $100 million in outstanding loans and currently holds roughly $167 million in TVL on Hyperliquid.

2. feUSD — Felix's own stablecoin, minted against crypto collateral. feUSD has approximately 75 million tokens in circulation and trades on the Hyperliquid spot market.

3. Perpetual futures — HIP-3-deployed markets using USDH as collateral, powered by RedStone's HyperStone oracle.

For a user already inside Felix, the workflow is seamless: borrow USDH, use it as margin, and trade without leaving the broader Felix environment.

Ondo Finance partnership — tokenized equities

Felix's most significant forward-looking development is its partnership with Ondo Finance. In March 2026, Felix launched over 250 tokenized US stocks and ETFs on HyperEVM via Ondo Global Markets. These assets are backed by real off-chain shares held through Ondo, with execution costs below 10 basis points for orders up to $1 million.

This signals that Felix is building toward a broader onchain financial stack — not just perpetuals, but spot equities, lending, and stablecoin infrastructure all within one environment.

Hyperion DeFi backing

Felix received a strategic commitment of 500,000 HYPE from Hyperion DeFi (NASDAQ: HYPD) through a HAUS agreement to seed liquidity for its HIP-3 perpetual futures markets. This places Felix within the same capital network that connects Native Markets and Kinetiq — the Hyperion-coordinated USDH ecosystem.

Who should use Felix

Felix makes the most sense for users already active in the Felix Protocol ecosystem — borrowing, lending, or managing USDH and feUSD. If the goal is to keep capital inside one coherent DeFi environment where lending and trading coexist, Felix is the cleanest fit.

Best for: DeFi-native users who want to combine borrowing, collateral management, and perpetual trading within one integrated protocol.

Felix trade-offs

• Perpetuals are an extension of the core protocol, not the entire product — traders who only care about asset breadth may prefer other builders
• Market count is modest compared to generalist builders
• The strongest appeal depends on whether you are already inside the Felix lending stack

Trade TSLA with USDH on Felix Exchange

The hidden connections

These three builders are not entirely independent projects. A web of shared investors, advisors, and strategic partners connects them — and understanding this network helps explain why they all adopted USDH:

Hyperion DeFi (NASDAQ: HYPD) acts as a capital orchestrator binding key ecosystem participants:

The connector is Max Fiege, who co-founded Native Markets (the USDH issuer) and serves as strategic advisor to Hyperion DeFi.

Paradigm is another common thread. Ventuals founder Alvin Hsia was a Paradigm EIR, while Native Markets co-founder Anish Agnihotri was a Paradigm research fellow. This shared network accelerated coordination around USDH as a common collateral standard.

Quick comparison

How to choose

The right USDH builder depends on what you want to trade and what ecosystem exposure you want around that trade.

Want traditional assets + ecosystem alignment? Choose Kinetiq Markets. It is the most structurally Hyperliquid-native builder, with the strongest ties to HYPE staking and community exchange deployment.

Want Pre-IPO companies? Choose Ventuals. It is the only builder in this group — and effectively the only HIP-3 venue — built around that specific category.

Already using Felix for lending or feUSD? Choose Felix Exchange. Its edge is not asset uniqueness but the fact that perpetual trading is embedded into a broader DeFi workflow where lending and margin management coexist.

A simple framework: Kinetiq is the ecosystem-native choice, Ventuals is the niche exposure choice, and Felix is the integrated DeFi choice.