Kintsu Launches sHYPE Liquid Staking on Hyperliquid

Kintsu’s expansion to Hyperliquid represents a paradigm shift in liquid staking protocols, moving away from traditional opaque models toward a transparent, performance-driven ecosystem. The protocol’s innovative approach treats governance as a competitive game where delegates stake governance tokens and campaign for delegations by curating high-performing validator teams. This creates a dynamic environment where validators compete for stake based on measurable performance metrics, while delegates compete for reputation and voting power, ensuring that the entire system operates on principles of meritocracy and transparency.

The founder of Kintsu, Stephen, emphasizes that this transformation is essential for the future of decentralized finance: “By transforming simply staked assets into programmable collateral, we catalyze growth by infusing the highest risk-adjusted yields and boosting chain GDP. At scale, liquid staking must be controlled transparently and programmatically—it is necessary and inevitable that LSTs become truly community governed, not run in an opaque discretionary fashion.” This philosophy underpins the two years of research and development that culminated in the Hyperliquid expansion.

Hyperliquid has emerged as one of DeFi’s most critical infrastructure hubs, averaging billions in daily trading volume and strengthened by HIP-3’s permissionless market creation capabilities. This makes it an ideal environment for Kintsu’s sHYPE launch, as the protocol leverages Hyperliquid’s robust ecosystem to deliver three core benefits: validator competition and yield structure, composability and integration, and liquidity and governance alignment.

The decentralized validator registry enables open competition among validators, with yields determined by performance metrics that directly influence yield distribution. This performance-based model underpins the sHYPE token economics, creating a virtuous cycle where validator output drives yield generation. Unlike traditional locked staking mechanisms, sHYPE maintains liquidity for participants while supporting composable capital allocation, addressing one of the fundamental limitations of conventional staking solutions.

sHYPE’s design prioritizes seamless integration with HyperEVM-based decentralized finance applications and yield strategies, representing a significant advancement in interoperability. Through CoreWriter contracts, the protocol connects with Hyperliquid’s native staking layer, expanding cross-ecosystem functionality and enabling developers to build sophisticated DeFi products atop the liquid staking infrastructure.

This composability extends beyond technical integration to encompass governance structures that oversee validator selection and curation. The objective is to ensure transparency and incentive alignment across all stakeholders—from validators and delegates to end-users and application developers. By creating a system where performance directly correlates with rewards, Kintsu establishes a foundation for sustainable ecosystem growth that benefits all participants.

Building on the remarkable engagement of over 300,000 participants with the Beta Pass NFT, Kintsu has introduced the Battle Pass Multiplier NFT program to further incentivize community participation. This innovative approach allows users to join a waitlist for selection into the Battle Pass program, with participation multipliers available through referrals, staking sHYPE, and engaging with supported integrations.

Selected participants receive the Battle Pass Multiplier NFT, which provides a 1.5x boost to Kintsu Points, offering early advantages in rank progression within the ecosystem. This gamified reward system aligns perfectly with the protocol’s overall philosophy of community-driven liquid staking, where validator performance and participant activity serve as key factors in shaping outcomes and distributing rewards.

Kintsu’s expansion to Hyperliquid benefits from substantial investor support, including backing from Castle Island Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, CMT Digital, Spartan, Arche Capital, and F-Prime. This institutional confidence underscores the protocol’s potential to redefine validator alignment and protocol growth through its unique combination of decentralized validator curation, composable staking tokens, and governance designed for credible neutrality.

The launch of sHYPE on Hyperliquid represents more than just another liquid staking product—it signals a fundamental shift toward community-governed, performance-driven staking ecosystems. As DeFi continues to mature, protocols like Kintsu that prioritize transparency, composability, and community alignment are positioned to drive the next wave of innovation and adoption in decentralized finance, potentially setting new standards for how staking protocols operate across blockchain ecosystems.