sHYPE by Kintsu Now Live on Hyperliquid | Built for HyperEVM
Posted September 15, 2025
Kintsu’s vision has always been clear: unify fragmented DeFi ecosystems through liquid staking. That mission now takes a major step forward as sHYPE goes live on Hyperliquid mainnet.
Kintsu is changing how liquid staking works on Hyperliquid by introducing a governance model that plays out like a game: delegates stake governance tokens and campaign for delegations by curating high-performing validator teams. Validators compete for stake, delegates compete for reputation and voting power, and the entire system is driven by transparent performance.
The result: validator performance fuels yield, and yield powers a more resilient, composable sHYPE designed for the HyperEVM ecosystem.
“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. After two years of research and development, we are proud to announce that Kintsu is expanding to Hyperliquid and bringing a new level of resilience to liquid staking on the HyperEVM.” — Stephen, Founder of Kintsu
Why Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid has emerged as one of the most important hubs in DeFi, averaging billions in daily trading volume and strengthened by HIP-3’s permissionless market creation. Its HyperEVM runtime provides the perfect foundation for scaling new primitives and integrating liquid staking directly into high performance strategies.
By launching sHYPE on Hyperliquid, Kintsu delivers:
Validator battlefield dynamics — A decentralized validator registry ensures that competition drives yields. Performance fuels yield, and yield fuels sHYPE.
Composability from day one — sHYPE integrates directly with HyperEVM DeFi and yield strategies, while also connecting through CoreWriter contracts to tap into Hyperliquid’s native staking layer.
Stay liquid, stay aligned — No more locked staking. Capital remains composable, with governance ensuring transparent validator curation and aligned incentives.
This is liquid staking designed for speed, liquidity, and a builder-first DeFi ecosystem.
How sHYPE Works
sHYPE is more than a yield bearing token — it’s a governance first Liquid Staking Token (LST) built for the HyperEVM.
Validator selection — Delegates curate validator teams by staking governance tokens and competing for reputation. Validators compete for stake, and delegations are transparent and performance-based.
CoreWriter integration — sHYPE uses CoreWriter contracts to connect seamlessly with Hyperliquid’s native staking layer and DeFi protocols on HyperEVM, ensuring every delegation is verifiable on chain.
Aligned incentives — Validator rewards and user yield are tied directly to validator performance, removing the need for opaque whitelists.
Composability at its core — From perps to lending to structured products, sHYPE is designed as base layer collateral for the full Hyperliquid DeFi stack.
This architecture ensures that staking is not only transparent and permissionless, but also modular, able to expand into new use cases across Hyperliquid DeFi as the ecosystem grows.
The Battle Pass: Level Up Your Liquid Staking
Over 300,000 people joined our Beta Pass NFT, proof that the community is ready for what comes next. Now we’re raising the stakes with the Battle Pass Multiplier NFT.
Join the waitlist → earn your shot at a Battle Pass.
Refer others, stake sHYPE, and use it across integrations to climb the leaderboard.
Winners unlock the Battle Pass Multiplier NFT, giving them 1.5x Kintsu Points, an edge from day one.
This isn’t liquid staking as usual. It’s a competitive, community-driven system where performance and participation decide the outcome.
With sHYPE live on Hyperliquid mainnet, the focus now shifts to real integrations and adoption. In the coming days, sHYPE will expand across a range of Hyperliquid native protocols, from lending markets to vault strategies and beyond.
Partnerships with Pendle, HypurrFi, Upheaval, Based, Rysk Finance, HyperSwap & Hybra amongst others are already in motion, giving sHYPE immediate utility beyond staking yield. And this is just the beginning, the Hyperliquid builder community is already exploring how sHYPE can serve as a base layer for structured products, automated strategies, and entirely new primitives.
By combining validator-aligned rewards with deep composability, sHYPE is positioned to become a core building block within HyperEVM’s DeFi ecosystem.po
Closing
Liquid staking doesn’t have to be centralized, opaque, or locked away. With sHYPE, Kintsu is showing that validator competition, user alignment, and real composability can live at the core of HyperEVM DeFi. And we’re just getting started.
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