Jeffrey Yan

Jeffrey Yan (also known as Jeff Yan) is the founder of Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures built on a custom Layer 1 blockchain. A first-generation Chinese-American raised in Redwood Shores near Palo Alto, California, he represented the United States at the International Physics Olympiad (silver 2012, gold 2013) before studying mathematics and computer science at Harvard (AB/SM, graduated 2017). After a brief stint at Hudson River Trading, he founded Chameleon Trading, a crypto market-making firm, then shut it down after the FTX collapse to build a self-custodial alternative. Hyperliquid launched in 2023 with a lean team of about eleven, took no outside venture funding, and grew into one of DeFi’s highest-volume and most profitable protocols. Yan is the public face of the project; most teammates remain pseudonymous. The team relocated from Puerto Rico to Singapore in 2024.

Grew up in Redwood Shores, California, raised largely by his mother (an accountant) after his parents divorced. Excelled in math and physics at Palo Alto High School, made the U.S. Physics Olympiad team, then earned silver (2012, Estonia) and gold (2013, Copenhagen) at the International Physics Olympiad. Graduated Harvard with degrees in mathematics and computer science; interned at Google X, Tower Research Capital, and Nuro before joining Hudson River Trading full-time in late 2017.

• •Won IPhO gold in 2013 at age 18, placing 24th worldwide; exact public birth date is not confirmed—year ~1995 is inferred from that age and later profiles listing him as 31.
• •His X handle @chameleon_jeff references Chameleon Trading and a childhood interest in chameleons.
• •Hyperliquid was bootstrapped from Chameleon Trading profits and famously took no venture capital.
• •Named to CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list for quietly shaping DeFi with a team of roughly a dozen.

First-generation Chinese-American; raised primarily by his mother in Redwood Shores, California, with a younger sister. Credits her with the Chinese idiom “rén wài yǒu rén, tiān wài yǒu tiān” (beyond people there are greater people; beyond the sky there is more sky).