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Movement had a token launch and an ETF filing all before its mainnet. When it comes to going to market, Movement just can’t stop moving. Also, Hyperliquid's HLP vault is beset by a liquidation event.

Hyperliquidated:

Hyperliquid’s popular HLP vault took a $4m hit overnight, wiping out most profits from the past month. A high-leverage ETH long was liquidated, triggering a cascade of forced selling. The user behind the position had withdrawn margin while sitting on unrealized profits, reducing their collateral buffer. When ETH's price moved against them, the position was liquidated, leaving HLP to absorb the losses.

While some called it an “attack,” Hyperliquid clarified it was not an exploit but rather an aggressive trading strategy. The attacker — or opportunist, depending on perspective — may have hedged their exposure by shorting on another exchange, profiting as HLP unwound its $300m ETH position.

In response, Hyperliquid lowered max leverage to 40x for BTC and 25x for ETH to mitigate similar risks. Despite the loss, HLP’s long-term PNL remains positive at ~$60m. The incident highlights the inherent risks of high-leverage DeFi strategies.

— Macauley Peterson

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Movement launches mainnet

Movement finally launched its mainnet (beta) yesterday.

It’s another Ethereum L2 in the sea of L2s. Who cares?

I can think of at least five reasons why Movement is standing out in the crowded field of layer-2 blockchains.

Number #1: Movement’s founders are Gen-Z-young and have raised a lot of money.

Number #2: Movement is brazenly open about the fact that its “go-to-market” strategy involves cozying up with DC policymakers to build “political and enterprise relationships.”

Movement co-founder Rushi Manche is publicly posting pictures with Donald Trump Jr. and crypto czar David Sacks, and has somehow sold more than two million MOVE to the Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial (WLFI) project since January, which was valued at ~$1.9 million at the time.

All without even a live mainnet.

Number #3: Movement’s tech has some novelty. 

It’s the third blockchain project, after Aptos and Sui, to leverage the Move Virtual Machine from Meta’s deceased Diem project as its execution environment. Unlike Aptos and Sui, though, Movement is a L2 chain that settles on Ethereum, though it doesn’t necessarily inherit Ethereum’s security.

Number #4: Movement made the unusual decision to airdrop its MOVE token back in December 2024, long before its mainnet was live. The token launched at a market cap valuation of $1.5 billion, and has held up rather well at $1.2 billion today despite the recent market crash. 

This is a striking departure from the norm. The well-worn playbook for most projects is to dangle the lure of a token before airdrop farmers to pump TVL numbers.

Berachain teased its token and mainnet for so long that a “Q5 launch” became a running joke. The Solana lending app MarginFi did the same with its token in 2024, resulting in backlash against what was perceived as an airdrop that was never going to arrive. MarginFi eventually lost more than 50% of its TVL.

Number #5: In a recent development, Movement is vying for a MOVE ETF after a public filing with the SEC yesterday under the REX-Opsrey funds. Crypto VCs counsel that “the token is a product,” and Movement really took that literally.

For a pre-launch project, Movement has done exceptionally well to stand out.

How is Movement doing after one day since launching? I realize it’s unfair to evaluate a project one day after mainnet launch, but let’s check in on it anyway.

Based on its block explorer, there are at least 1.5k unique addresses which generated 233k transactions, in sharp contrast to its testnet performance of nearly 1 million active addresses and 15.5 million transactions.

The chain has about $250 million in TVL, according to a press release.

Got questions? Hop onto the 0xResearch X Space with Movement co-founder Rushi Manche on Friday to ask him anything.

— Donovan Choy

Disclosure: Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz is an angel investor in Movement Labs.

Solana’s SIMD-0028 vote reaches quorum

The governance saga that has been the subject of debate on Crypto Twitter, SIMD-0028, is nearing an end.

The proposal to reduce network inflation by 80% has officially met quorum. As of 11 am ET, 578 validators have voted, representing 43.6% of total SOL staked. With 71.85% of those votes cast in favor, the proposal is on track to pass unless significant new opposition emerges before epoch 755 concludes on Friday.

An interesting dynamic in this vote was the potential strategic decision by some validators to refrain from voting entirely rather than casting a “no” vote. Since Solana’s governance requires a quorum for a proposal to pass, this game-theoretic approach aimed to suppress participation to prevent the proposal from reaching the threshold. Although this effort ultimately fell short, it may have Solana researchers revisiting voting rules in the future.

Critics of the measure argue that reducing emissions could harm validator profitability and network decentralization as smaller operators may struggle with lower rewards. Others warn of potential impacts on Solana’s DeFi ecosystem and staking incentives. Proponents, however, highlight the reduction in sell pressure and the long-term benefits of lower inflation.

With institutions eyeing Solana for potential US ETF listings later this year, the timing of this vote has also drawn attention. If SIMD-0028 is implemented, its effects will unfold gradually over several months, with a smoothing period of about 100 days post-activation.

I expect the aftermath of this vote to be a hot topic at Blockworks’ upcoming Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in New York.

— Macauley Peterson

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