The Competition Is On. Who’ll Win the USDH Ticker on Hyperliquid? - Ep. 899

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The battle for Hyperliquid’s USDH ticker is a referendum on what crypto wants to be: a community-first public good, or a globally scaled, institution-ready product. With the clock ticking toward the proposal and voting deadlines, Agora’s Nick van Eck and Paxos Labs’ Bhau Kotecha lay out their cases—100% revenue back to users vs. 95% with enterprise distribution, “Hyperliquid alignment” versus “bring it to the masses,” and what each would build on day one if they win. We also dig into liquidity, slippage claims, validator dynamics, and how a single ticker could shape the future of onchain markets. Thank you to our sponsors ⁠⁠Mantle⁠⁠! Guests: Nick van Eck, CEO and Co-founder of Agora Bhau Kotecha, Co-founder of Paxos Labs Links: Unchained: Stablecoin Issuers Enter Bidding War to Launch Hyperliquid’s USDH Sky Joins Bidding War to Launch Hyperliquid’s USDH Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro ⏱️ 0:45 How Laura breaks down the background of the proposals 💵 2:12 Why the USDH ticker matters so much for Hyperliquid 🌊 4:04 Why Hyperliquid is an ecosystem “you need to be in” 📜 5:38 How Agora explains its proposal to return all revenue 🏦 10:08 How Paxos makes its case for enterprise distribution 🤝 14:03 Why “Hyperliquid alignment” is central to this debate 🎁 17:05 Why Agora says it’s willing to give back 100% of revenue—what’s in it for them 💸 19:26 Why Paxos is pushing for 95% revenue back instead of 100% 🚀 24:03 What each side would build on day one if they win ⚖️ 31:49 How to characterize the differences between the two proposals ❓ 34:11 What it would mean if neither Agora nor Paxos wins 📉 39:23 Whether Paxos’s PYUSD suffers from slippage and liquidity issues 🗳️ 42:08 What voters should really consider when choosing a proposal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This has been like the first time that like governance has been like fun, you know, it feels like years.
0:05.0	And I think, you know, frankly, like the competitiveness of the proposals is going to deliver like a really awesome outcome from the hyperliquid community regardless of what happens.
0:18.4	Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host,
0:23.1	Laura Shin. Mantle is pioneering blockchain for banking, a revolutionary new category at the intersection
0:29.7	of TradFi and Web3. Follow Mantle underscore official to learn more. So I'm here with Nick Vanek, CEO and co-founder of Agora, and
0:40.0	Bo Cotecha, co-founder of Paxos Labs. Welcome, Nick and Bo. Thank you. Thanks for having us.
0:45.8	So in case you were busy, you know, touching grass this weekend or you're living under a rock,
0:51.4	there was a frenzy when the Hyper Liquid Foundation announced
0:55.6	that I was going to have voting for the SDIH ticker in Hyper Liquid for a stable coin. So that
1:02.8	prompted a slew of proposals over the weekend, including by both of your companies, Agora and
1:07.6	Paxos. And, you know, quick glance, they seem to be the ones that are getting
1:12.1	the most engagement. There's some others that also have high engagement. You know, but just for
1:18.6	listeners who, like I said, if you, if you happen to actually enjoy your weekend, you may not know
1:23.8	that basically there's deadlines coming up. So there's the reason why there's a lot of
1:29.0	activity about this right now. So the first deadline is the proposal deadline, which is September 10th
1:34.6	at 10 UTC. Validators then have one day to declare which proposal they're going to be back,
1:40.8	be backing. And so then users will have until September 14th to move their
1:47.0	stake to a validator that supports the proposal that they would like to vote for. So, you know,
1:53.4	Nick and Bo, why don't we just start with this one basic question before we dive into your proposals.
2:00.7	Why is the USDAH ticker so important here?
2:04.6	Because that's literally the only thing this competition is about is that particular ticker.
2:08.6	So, Nick, why don't you, why don't you start?
	...

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