DEX

Hyperliquid confirmed this week that a wallet tied to a former employee dismissed in Q1 2024 executed large short trades against HYPE. On December 17, the address deposited about $53,000 USDC and opened roughly $223,000 in leveraged shorts, including a $180,000 HYPE position. The exchange reiterated a zero‑tolerance policy on insider trading and defended the protocol's solvency.

Token swaps let users exchange crypto assets on decentralized platforms using smart contracts and liquidity pools. They underpin DeFi activities including lending, staking, yield farming, and governance while giving beginners wallet‑based control without intermediaries. Swaps provide instant access across tokens, keeping liquidity flowing and making participation permissionless.

After Balancer disclosed a vulnerability on November 3, Gnosis validators carried out a hard fork earlier this week to strip the attacker of control over the exploited assets. With more than $116 million drained and roughly $28 million later recovered by white‑hats, the plan now focuses on DAO custody and community governance to manage restitution.

Gnosis Chain said it activated a hard fork on December 22, 2025 to recover roughly $9.4 million that had been frozen after the November 2025 Balancer V2 exploit. The project disclosed the move on December 23, adding the assets were no longer under the attacker’s control and urging remaining node operators to update, a step that has prompted debate over governance and immutability.

On December 23, 2025, Bitget Wallet announced a full integration with Hyperliquid to broaden its onchain perpetuals offering. The company said users can access fees between 0.06% and 0.09%, more than 300 trading pairs plus equity-linked contracts, and up to 150x leverage within a self-custodial interface.

COTI has published its 2026 roadmap, prioritizing multichain Privacy-on-Demand, private RWAs, and expanded DeFi/DEX presence. The project's loyalty program offered 12.5 million COTI tokens in Season 001, ended on November 11, 2025, and launched a second season with 15 million $COTI plus bonuses and high APY equivalents.

On December 22, 2025, Hyperliquid denied rumors of insider-trading tools and USDC insolvency, saying the contested HYPE short was opened by a former employee. The alleged insider position was $25,140 (1,000 HYPE), while platform data showed $1.25B open interest and whales 59% long.

On 22 December 2025, Hyperliquid addressed community concerns over HYPE token selling. According to co‑founder Iliensinc, the wallet behind recent trades belongs to a former employee dismissed in early 2024 and is not tied to the current team. The company also reiterated strict policies barring staff from trading HYPE derivatives.

Hyperliquid said that a wallet its community identified for allegedly shorting HYPE belongs to a former staff member who left in the first quarter of 2024. The co-founder stressed that the person's trades do not represent the firm's ethics and reiterated that employees face strict bans on HYPE derivatives trading and use of material non-public information. HYPE, which launched near a few dollars in November 2024 and later touched about $60, was trading around $25.40, roughly 24% lower over the past year but still up about 290% since inception.

On Dec. 18, David Sacks said Sens. Tim Scott and John Boozman confirmed a CLARITY Act markup for January 2026. The article notes that key DeFi sections and the definition of "security" remain bracketed in Senate drafts, and most rules would be written over 360 days to 18 months after enactment.