jakiro
Author: Max @IOSG
Core View TL;DR
-
Retail investment in traditional finance (tradfi) has been mobile (zero commission + application user experience), and this trend is spreading to the cryptocurrency field – retail users pursue fast, familiar, and low-friction mobile native trading experiences.
-
Hyperliquid’s technology stack (HyperEVM + CoreWriter + Builder Code) significantly lowers the development threshold of mobile front-end, while taking into account the execution efficiency of CEX and the advantages of DEX (self-hosting, fast coin listing, and fewer geographical/KYC restrictions).
-
The wave of native mobile applications based on HL has been launched: BasedApp, Mass.Money, Dexari, Supercexy.The average daily trading volume of these applications is US$50,000 (monthly repeated revenue of US$1.5 million), accounting for about 3-6% of the HL perpetual contract trading volume, with a diverse group of users (crypto native users, Web2 retail users, professional traders).
-
Why now?”Super speculative” + creator content cycle has pushed up retail users’ risk preferences; mobile applications compress users’ introductory time, simplify encryption complexity, and add sticky functions (subsidy transactions, fiat currency deposits, card payments, money markets, and income tools).
-
Core argument:
-
The crypto mobile trading front end benefits from strong tailwinds in the Web2 mass group and retail behavior.
-
To achieve scale and transaction volume growth in the cryptocurrency market, it is necessary to provide mainstream Web2 consumers with more crypto-native mobile applications.
-
Compared with the Web3 business model, this field has the characteristics of truly sustainable scale revenue, and the marginal cost of scaling is extremely low.
Mobile transaction + DeFi applications for retail consumers have increased significantly in the past few months, most of which are built on Hyperliquid infrastructure.This article aims to explore this vertical field in depth, analyze the current application of dominant markets, and put forward relevant views.
1. Background
Overall, the scale of retail investors’ participation in traditional investments has grown dramatically over the past decade.The trend began in 2019, when several major U.S. brokers reduced the trading commissions for stocks to zero in order to compete with Robinhood, significantly reducing transaction costs for small accounts.The 2020 epidemic has accelerated this process: lockdown policies, stimulus checks and a continuously optimized mobile experience have brought millions of newbies into the market.As of 2022, the Federal Reserve’s consumer financial survey showed that stock market participation increased significantly – 58% of American households directly or indirectly held stocks, and the direct shareholding ratio jumped from 15% to 21%, the largest increase in history.
The proportion of retail transactions in daily market activities continues to be highlighted: currently accounting for 20-30% of US stock trading volume, far higher than the pre-epidemic level.This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, but is also obvious worldwide: the number of Indian investment accounts surged from tens of millions before the epidemic to more than 200 million in 2025.Investment channels are also continuing to expand – ETF capital inflows reached a record time from 2024 to 2025, coupled with the popularization of zero stock trading and mobile brokerage services, it provides retail investors with more convenient investment tools.The cost shocks brought by zero commissions, the channel shocks brought by mobile trading applications, and the liquidity shocks brought by ETFs have jointly promoted retail investors to enter the open market on a large scale, making consumer-grade investment applications an important structural force in the market.
Mobile Trading Application
Since 2021, the vertical field of mobile trading applications in the retail trading market has continued to expand, behind which is the increase in mobile device penetration and the rise of a new generation of independent decision-making investors.The global investment application market size is expected to reach approximately US$254.9 billion by 2033, with an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 19.1%.
Why are mobile trading applications so popular among retail investors?The main reasons can be summarized into two dimensions:
#Socially driven (everything gambling, gambling)
Contemporary social culture is dominated by dopamine cycles, gamification mechanisms and hyperspeculative behavior.The rise of creator economy and short video platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts has reshaped user behavior patterns, people seeking instant satisfaction, and mobile trading applications perfectly meet this demand at multiple levels.
On the social level, communities such as Wall Street Bets on platforms such as Reddit are full of content that users showcase huge profits and losses.The phenomenon of daily profit and loss exceeding US$100,000 has been normalized, and retail users are gradually desensitizing such amounts.Many users split Robinhood account funds from real currencies and view portfolios as game chips.In addition to the rising cost of living, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and people’s negative sentiment towards “involuntary”, many working-class people believe that only through “hyperspective” can the American dream be realized – to gain excess returns with super high risks.
Mobile trading applications have successfully captured this social and cultural dividend.By providing short-term options, leveraged products, instant execution and gamified interface experiences, these applications successfully attract users from casinos to stock markets.Users only need one mobile phone to get dopamine stimulation, gaming pleasure and speculative experience at the same time.
#Application Features
In terms of application characteristics, mobile trading applications have achieved significant optimization in multiple dimensions.In the user entry process, they compress the account opening process from days of tedious paperwork to nearly instant online operations.All user processes from authentication to transaction execution are integrated in a single interface, enabling users to fully manage their portfolios.
On the trading experience side, by eliminating the friction points of the traditional brokerage model and integrating new value points such as zero stock purchases and regular investments, these platforms simultaneously lower the capital threshold and cognitive threshold.Drawing on the familiar consumer design language of mainstream applications, shortening the transaction decision-making path, while personalized functions (such as lists of selected targets and portfolio performance analysis, etc.) continue to maintain user participation.
In addition, post-investment features such as performance segmentation reports and automated tax filings bring the experience closer to the full-service financial application where users can complete all operations rather than a simple trading terminal.On the social side, content elements further reduce usage barriers by providing an easy-to-share interface, promoting social engagement and motivation (such as usage behaviors promoted by WSB forums).Together, these features explain why mobile platforms have become the default investment channel and become the lasting driver of retail market participation.
2. What impact does this have on the cryptocurrency industry?
The mobile-first application trend has extended from the traditional finance/Web2 market to the Web3 field.
The use of cryptocurrency wallet applications has surged over the past five years, showing the market demand for mobile native crypto products.Since transactions and returns are inherent characteristics of cryptocurrencies, perpetual contracts and DeFi naturally became the first areas to be transformed in the process of “mobileization”.
With Hyperliquid’s rise since the end of 2024 and its modular high-performance trading infrastructure, numerous mobile perpetual contract DEX trading and DeFi front-end products have begun to be built on HL infrastructure and poured into the market.
Why Hyperliquid and DEX?
From a developer’s perspective, HyperEVM’s infrastructure is extremely attractive due to the powerful tools it provides.CoreWriter and precompiled contracts allow smart contracts on HyperEVM to interact directly with HyperCore perpetual contract positions, enabling unique use cases and near-instant execution.The builder code provides developers with a clear incentive layer that allows them to get a fee share when users trade through their front-end.These features not only lower the development threshold, but also make HyperEVM one of the most in the interests of developers, attracting top teams and talents to settle in.This is why 99% of crypto mobile transaction front-ends choose to be built on Hyperliquid.
As for why DEX is chosen?Traders are generally attracted by the structural advantages of DEX: by eliminating KYC and jurisdictional restrictions, providing wider access opportunities, faster listing and richer token options, and autonomy in custody of funds.Previously, CEX attracted retail users because they greatly reduced the complexity of participating in the market: it provides multiple trading markets in a single mature network application, has instant execution, low slippage and high liquidity, and integrates auxiliary functions such as wallet management, stable returns, and fiat currency channels.However, users need to bear huge counterparty risks and give up their own right to self-custody of assets.
Hyperliquid is the platform that perfectly blends all of this.This on-chain decentralized exchange enjoys the structural advantages of the DEX perpetual contract platform, as well as CEX-level liquidity, execution efficiency and overall user experience.Therefore, it has become the most ideal liquidity base for building mobile crypto trading applications.
So how does all this relate to mobile wallet transactions?
Thanks to the availability of this modular high-performance architecture, the development cost of building a mobile transaction front-end has become extremely low – this is why a large number of related applications are beginning to emerge in the market.
Currently, most mobile trading front-ends provide similar functions with perpetual contract trading as the core, but some applications have begun to surpass perpetual contracts and provide users with more auxiliary products.Overall, these applications generally have the following functions:
-
Franchise deposit channel: Supports credit/debit card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo and other deposit methods
-
Investment strategy tools: Provide fixed investment plan, take profit and stop loss functions and early access rights for new tokens
-
Money Market Integration: One-stop access DeFi lending agreement
-
Income income: Get profits through automatic compounding treasury
-
Dapp explorer: Search and connect to emerging decentralized applications
-
Debit card/credit card service: Direct use of self-custodial funds for consumption
The implementation of these features is due to the Hyperliquid infrastructure that greatly simplifies the development of the main products of the perpetual contract and allows the team to focus on innovation in other derivative fields.Due to the modular nature of the entire ecosystem, most HL-based projects can easily achieve multi-field parallel development.Many applications can provide rich features, mainly attributed to: 1. Low development barriers for Hypercore builder code; 2. High integration intention for other protocols
In addition, major applications mainly compete in user experience/interface design and social brand building.The most promising representatives on the market today include:
#Basedapp
At present, the Based app is the most popular and fastest-growing front-end mobile trading application.In addition to providing perpetual contracts and spot transactions, the platform has also innovatively launched a debit/credit card solution directly connected to the user’s trading wallet to support payment needs in daily consumption scenarios.Its long-term goal is to transform into an emerging digital bank similar to Etherfi.
#Mass.Money
Mass.money is followed by the competition in the front-end mobile trading.Unlike the Based app, the platform focuses more on the Web2 retail user group. This positioning is fully reflected in product design: in addition to standard HL perpetual contracts and spot transactions, it also integrates full-function services such as Apple Pay deposit channel, social ordering function, DeFi currency market access, and cross-chain EVM spot exchange.Its interface design deeply integrates gamification elements and draws a lot from the design language of Web2 consumer applications.
However, their single-user revenue and transaction volumes are significantly higher than those of Basedapp due to their higher rate model and wider product portfolio.
#Dexari
Following Mass.money is Dexari.This is a mobile trading front-end focused on professional traders, focusing purely on trading functions.Therefore, its main product features include HL perpetual contracts and spot trading, and its user experience and interface design focuses on asset discovery functions, analysis tools and execution efficiency.Their goal is to become Axiom (a benchmark for professional trading) in the front end of mobile trading.
#Supercexy
Last but not least is Supercexy.The platform has not chosen a pure mobile front-end route, and is also optimizing the perpetual contract DEX trading experience on the web side, committed to providing a CEX-like usage experience, but is entirely based on Hyperliquid infrastructure.Its product suite integrates DeFi staking capabilities and money market access services, so the application mainly serves Web3 native traders.
Comprehensive perspective
Overall overview
Overall, the average daily consolidated revenue for all relevant mobile trading front-ends (including some unmentioned applications) is approximately $50,000, which is equivalent to approximately $1.5 million in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).These applications account for approximately 3%-6% of the total transaction volume of Hyperliquid perpetual contracts.For reference, Hyperliquid’s HLP vault accounts for about 5%.
Hyperliquid Mobile transaction front-end revenue
3. Summary
Core point
-
Cryptocurrency mobile trading front end benefits from strong tailwinds in Web2 groups and retail behavior
The “hyperspective” trend in society has fundamentally changed the behavioral patterns of retail consumers.As demonstrated by the growth of Polymarket and Kalshi, most users adopt high-risk preference strategies in the current environment.Against the backdrop of market speculative demand at historical highs, mobile trading applications have become the most directly beneficial product form.As mentioned above, the user growth and adoption rate of traditional financial mobile applications such as Robinhood, Wealthsimple, and TD Ameritrade have significantly improved, mainly due to their low entry barriers and their willingness to promote short-term high leverage and gambling products to users.Obviously, retail users need to obtain risk exposure and make capital allocations, and mobile trading applications have become the most reasonable solution.
Cryptocurrency mobile trading applications are essentially no different. If product discoverability can be effectively built, it can also benefit from these consumer behaviors.Robinhood, Wealthsimple, and Revolut all integrate encryption products into their applications.Even with extremely high fees, these crypto products in traditional financial applications are still widely adopted, indicating that retail users have a strong demand for convenient mobile encryption market access.Without a dedicated crypto mobile trading application, the Web3 market will hand over the huge value capture opportunity to Web2 competitors.
-
To achieve scale and transaction volume growth in the cryptocurrency market, it is necessary to provide more crypto-native mobile applications for mainstream Web2 consumers.
Since 2023, there has been basically no new retail capital inflows in the market.The current total market value of stablecoins is only about 25% higher than its all-time high in 2021, and this four-year growth rate is bleak for any industry – this is happening in the context of stablecoins ushering in the most favorable regulatory environment and the president strongly supports the crypto industry.
The market needs solutions to attract new retail liquidity, but it has not yet solved the major obstacles to new retail capital entry.The main obstacles are: First, the public believes that participating in the crypto market requires complex operational processes, and second, the lack of accessible applications that truly understand the needs of Web2 users.Web2 retail users do not use complex wallets or transfer funds across multiple chains.What they need is products packaged in a familiar way, offering easy deposit access and a friendly experience just like a Robinhood or Wealthsimple account.
Crypto mobile transaction front-end applications are the solution – they package products in traditional financial methods familiar to Web2 users, fundamentally eliminating the cognitive barriers to encryption complexity and lowering barriers to participation.This is the only effective way to get cryptocurrencies to break through the Web3 circle to gain mainstream exposure.
-
Compared with the Web3 business model, a real income model with real sustainable scale effects and extremely low expansion costs
The cryptocurrency mobile trading front-end marks the beginning of a new generation of applications in the Web3 market—a more sustainable and compliant path to development.Unlike previous traditional crypto products (whether it is infrastructure or DApps), most projects did not focus on scale expansion or revenue generation in the past because this was not the core incentive direction.Most founders’ Polaris metrics are to acquire initial users at any cost, no matter how inefficient or withdrawable its growth funnel is, and then raise venture capital, lock up tokens through off-market sales or wait for the end of the vesting period without improving the product.Typical cases include: Story Protocol ($IP), Blast, Sei Network ($SEI).
The front-end of crypto mobile transactions adopts the opposite strategy: use existing infrastructure to optimize scale, first realize revenue generation, and refinancing if necessary.By becoming an aggregator for different products and adopting a basic rate structure, this type of front-end has the structural advantage of integrating multiple vertical fields at extremely low cost, while focusing on the user experience interface to improve user acquisition and retention.This combination means revenue generated from day one and continues to grow exponentially as operations continue.The end result builds a more sustainable layer of real business and value for Web3, replacing the extractive model of the past.This will bring growing credibility to the entire Web3 industry.
