On February 18, 2026, the Hyper Foundation committed 1 million HYPE tokens — worth approximately $29 million — to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to shaping how Congress regulates decentralized exchanges and perpetual futures. Led by Jake Chervin...
"Financial markets are migrating onto public blockchains because they offer efficiency, transparency and resilience that legacy systems cannot match." — Jake Chervinsky, CEO, Hyperliquid Policy Center
On February 18, 2026, the Hyper Foundation committed 1 million HYPE tokens — worth approximately $29 million — to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to shaping how Congress regulates decentralized exchanges and perpetual futures. Led by Jake Chervinsky, one of crypto's most prominent policy voices, the center represents the single largest capital deployment by a DeFi protocol into direct policy advocacy.
This is not an isolated event. It is the latest escalation in a systematic campaign by the decentralized finance industry to embed itself in the U.S. legislative process before the window closes. With the Senate's market structure bill under active negotiation, a 90-day legislative deadline set by Senator Bernie Moreno, and the Fairshake super PAC sitting on $193 million for the 2026 midterms, DeFi protocols have concluded that code alone will not protect them. They need lawyers, lobbyists, and legislative allies — and they are willing to spend protocol-treasury-scale capital to get them.
Hyperliquid is not a typical crypto startup seeking regulatory cover. It is a blockchain-based perpetual futures exchange that processed over $250 billion in perpetual futures trading volume in the month preceding the announcement, along with $6.6 billion in spot volume. In January 2026, it surpassed Binance in BTC perpetual liquidity, achieving tighter spreads ($1 versus $5.50) on the world's most traded derivative instrument.
That market position explains why Hyperliquid is willing to commit $29 million — more than five times the Blockchain Association's entire 2024 lobbying budget of $8.3 million, and more than three times the Digital Chamber's $5.6 million — to a single policy entity.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center's founding team reflects serious intent:
The center is already hiring a chief of staff, head of communications, and head of government relations — the full infrastructure of a permanent Washington presence.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center enters an increasingly dense advocacy landscape. At least six major organizations now compete to influence crypto legislation in Washington:
| Organization | Focus | Key Backers | |---|---|---| | Hyperliquid Policy Center | Perp DEXs, decentralized market infrastructure | Hyper Foundation ($29M) | | DeFi Education Fund | Broad DeFi policy, litigation | Uniswap governance, a16z, Paradigm | | Solana Policy Institute | Layer-1 ecosystem policy | Solana Foundation | | Blockchain Association | Industry-wide trade group | 100+ member companies | | Digital Chamber | Digital assets, tokenization | Broad industry membership | | Crypto Council for Innovation | Institutional adoption | Coinbase, Paradigm, a16z |
Additionally, the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance, launched in November 2025, coordinates policy efforts among Ethereum protocol teams. And the Fairshake super PAC — funded by Coinbase ($25M), Ripple ($25M), and Andreessen Horowitz ($24M) — holds $193 million for the 2026 midterm elections, making it one of the best-funded corporate super PACs in American politics.
The total crypto policy spend now exceeds $200 million when combining lobbying budgets, policy centers, litigation funds, and electoral PAC money. For an industry whose entire DeFi sector generates roughly $3-4 billion in annual protocol revenue, this represents an extraordinary allocation to regulatory capture.
The immediate legislative target is the Senate's crypto market structure bill, which will determine how DeFi protocols are regulated — or exempted — under U.S. law.
On January 21, 2026, Chairman John Boozman of the Senate Agriculture Committee released updated text of the "Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act." The bill incorporates definitions from the House's CLARITY Act and includes carve-outs for decentralized governance systems, but critically leaves the treatment of DeFi protocols unresolved.
The fault lines are clear:
Industry position: DeFi front ends are software interfaces, not regulated intermediaries. Protocols that are "sufficiently decentralized" should be exempt from broker-dealer registration and KYC requirements. The DeFi Education Fund, Solana Policy Institute, and now the Hyperliquid Policy Center are aligned on this view.
Democratic counter-proposal: DeFi front ends that facilitate transactions should register with regulators and implement Know Your Customer checks — a requirement Chervinsky has characterized as "government overreach that could drive developers offshore."
Senator Moreno has set a 90-day deadline, requiring passage by end of April 2026. The Hyperliquid Policy Center's launch — two days before this reporting — is timed to influence this narrow legislative window.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center's most specific policy priority is creating a legal framework for perpetual futures in the United States. This is existential for Hyperliquid and strategically important for the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Perpetual futures — derivative contracts with no expiration date — are the dominant instrument on offshore crypto exchanges. DEX perpetual futures trading volumes have maintained a three-month streak above $1 trillion monthly as of early 2026, with daily volumes approaching $10 billion. Hyperliquid alone holds approximately $9.57 billion in open interest, compared to $7.34 billion combined across other major decentralized platforms.
Yet perpetuals exist in a U.S. regulatory gray zone. The CFTC has jurisdiction over derivatives, but has not established a clear framework for decentralized perpetual futures markets. The SEC's evolving stance on crypto assets creates additional uncertainty about which tokens underlying these contracts are securities.
Chervinsky's mandate is to build the legal and intellectual infrastructure for perpetuals to become a recognized, regulated U.S. financial product — before regulators decide to ban them by default. As he stated: "The future of finance will be decentralized. The U.S. must choose between supporting blockchain technology or watching other nations seize opportunities."
The crypto industry's Washington strategy has evolved through three distinct phases:
Phase 1 (2018-2022): Defensive lobbying. Individual companies hired lobbyists reactively to fight enforcement actions. Total industry lobbying spend was under $10 million annually.
Phase 2 (2023-2025): Electoral firepower. Fairshake and affiliated PACs deployed $290 million in the 2024 election cycle, demonstrating that crypto could reward allies and punish opponents. The result: a demonstrably more crypto-friendly Congress in 2025-2026.
Phase 3 (2026-present): Protocol-funded policy infrastructure. Individual protocols are now building permanent Washington institutions funded directly from protocol treasuries. Hyperliquid's $29 million commitment is the largest single deployment, but it follows the Uniswap-funded DeFi Education Fund and the Solana Foundation-backed Solana Policy Institute.
This evolution matters because it shifts the locus of influence from the industry's centralized players (Coinbase, a16z) to the protocols themselves. A decentralized exchange is now funding its own policy center with native tokens — a model that could be replicated by any protocol with a treasury and a regulatory threat.
The crypto industry's total federal lobbying spend exceeded $18.4 million in just the first half of 2025, a 21% increase over the prior period. At least 27 crypto companies filed their first-ever lobbying disclosures in 2025. The pace has only accelerated in 2026.
Why would a DeFi protocol spend $29 million on lobbying instead of product development, liquidity incentives, or token buybacks?
The answer is asymmetric risk. If the market structure bill passes with a DeFi exemption, Hyperliquid's addressable market expands by orders of magnitude — U.S. institutional capital could legally access decentralized perpetual futures for the first time. If it passes without one, or if the CFTC moves to classify DeFi front ends as regulated intermediaries, Hyperliquid's core business model becomes illegal for U.S. users.
At $250 billion in monthly trading volume, even a modest fee capture improvement from U.S. market access would dwarf the $29 million policy investment within months. Conversely, adverse regulation could eliminate the platform's fastest-growing user segment.
This is not rent-seeking. It is rational capital allocation by a protocol whose survival depends on the regulatory outcome. And it signals that the DeFi industry has matured past the naive belief that "code is law" provides adequate protection against sovereign regulatory power.
The crypto industry has spent three years building electoral leverage. Now it is converting that leverage into permanent legislative infrastructure. Hyperliquid's $29 million bet is the clearest signal yet that DeFi protocols understand a fundamental truth: in a regulated world, the protocols that shape the rules will capture the market.
The next 90 days will determine whether this investment pays off. Senator Moreno's deadline, the Senate Agriculture Committee's unresolved DeFi provisions, and the approaching 2026 midterms create a compressed window in which billions of dollars in perpetual futures market access will be decided. The Hyperliquid Policy Center exists to ensure that decision goes DeFi's way.
For investors and builders, the message is clear: the era of DeFi's political innocence is over. The protocols that thrive in 2026 and beyond will be those that understand Washington as well as they understand Solidity.