Valantis Acquires stHYPE, Expands Footprint in Hyperliquid’s Liquid Staking Market

Valantis, a modular decentralized exchange protocol, has acquired stHYPE, the second-largest liquid staking protocol on Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM blockchain. The deal, announced on August 19, brings stHYPE fully under the Valantis ecosystem as the firm moves toward deeper liquidity integration and new modular yield features.

Details of the Acquisition

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Valantis confirmed it will take over stHYPE’s development, operations, and communication, with Addison Spiegel — founder of Thunderhead, the entity behind stHYPE — joining as an advisor. Thunderhead’s six-member team will not be absorbed into Valantis.

stHYPE currently holds over $200 million in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama, making it the second-largest liquid staking platform after kHYPE, which dominates Hyperliquid’s staking landscape with more than $1 billion in TVL.

Valantis, which initially launched to help developers build decentralized exchanges using composable modules, has pivoted toward building its own products. It recently introduced an LST-focused DEX that supports trading between stHYPE and kHYPE. These pools collectively have nearly $70 million in TVL and over $500 million in cumulative trading volume.

Integration and Roadmap

With stHYPE under its management, Valantis plans a phased roadmap:

• Phase 1: Migration to CoreWriter, a monitoring system to improve transparency and security of off-chain infrastructure.
• Phase 2: Evolution of stHYPE into a modular liquid staking token, allowing multiple staking addresses and permissionless integrations with trading, lending, and derivatives on HyperCore, Hyperliquid’s perpetuals exchange.

Valantis co-founder and CTO Ed Carvalho said the acquisition enables “full vertical integration of an LST protocol and a DEX protocol,” which he argues will lead to deeper liquidity and more efficient markets.

Competitive Landscape

The acquisition comes at a time of heightened competition in Hyperliquid’s liquid staking market. Protocols are no longer competing solely on staking yields, but also on liquidity depth, integrations, and DeFi accessibility.

By unifying stHYPE with its DEX infrastructure, Valantis is seeking to challenge kHYPE’s dominance while positioning itself as a hub for liquidity, trading, and staking in the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

Backing and Strategy

Valantis is supported by investors including Kraken Ventures, Figment Capital, and Robot Ventures. In 2023, the project raised $7.5 million at a $40 million valuation. Carvalho also noted that future developments could include expanding beyond Hyperliquid staking rewards, leveraging HIP-3 features, and introducing fee discounts for market makers.

Meanwhile, Thunderhead has been profitable since inception and without external funding, will continue to operate independently, though Spiegel will advise Valantis as stHYPE transitions under its new leadership.

Biggest Crypto Acquisitions In 2025

Rank	Acquirer	Target	Estimated Value
1	Coinbase	Deribit	~$2.9 billion
2	Kraken	NinjaTrader	$1.5 billion
3	Ripple	Hidden Road	$1.25 billion
4	Robinhood	WonderFi	~$179 million
5	MoonPay	Helio (and Iron)	~$175 million
6	Swyftx	Caleb & Brown	Multi-million-dollar deal
7	Infinite Node Foundation	CryptoPunks Collection	$20 million