Elysium, the Layer 2 network built by Kinetiq, launched its mainnet on November 9, 2026, according to ChainCatcher. The network aims to extend Hyperliquid’s application capacity and connect token issuance and automated market-maker liquidity with HyperCore’s spot order books and HIP-3 perpetual markets.
Its financial structure links two tokens without introducing a third: HYPE pays network gas fees, while Kinetiq’s disclosed plan allocates roughly half of sequencer revenue to buying back and burning KNTQ. At launch, however, transaction ordering rests with a single permissioned sequencer, and permissionless fraud proofs remain a future hardening measure.
Settlement, control and withdrawals
Elysium uses Arbitrum Orbit technology—Nitro and standard ArbOS—but settles to HyperEVM rather than Ethereum. HyperEVM is Hyperliquid’s smart-contract environment, operating alongside its HyperCore trading infrastructure.
The network uses an AnyTrust data-availability committee, with automatic fallback to posting full data on HyperEVM, and standard optimistic withdrawals. It runs Conduit’s G2 sequencer; the underlying infrastructure is described in the article as meeting SOC II Type 2 security standards.
The launch configuration includes a single sequencer, neutral priority-fee ordering and no privileged transaction lanes. MEV telemetry, Timeboost, BoLD-based permissionless fraud proofs and audits are listed as subsequent hardening measures, not completed launch features. That distinction matters: the initial network’s trust assumptions should not be confused with its intended future configuration.
Elysium targets 300 million gas per second, 30 million gas per block and a canonical block interval of about 100 milliseconds. The project compares that with HyperEVM’s approximately 30 million gas every 60 seconds, presenting a 600-fold capacity difference. These are stated targets and a project comparison, rather than independently verified operating results.
Standard EVM compatibility supports familiar tools and contracts, including MetaMask, Solidity applications and Uniswap-style pools.
Why Kinetiq is building it
Kinetiq issues the liquid-staking token kHYPE. ChainCatcher reported that the protocol had more than $1.2 billion in total value locked, with businesses spanning liquid staking, the institutional staking product iHYPE, the Earn yield product, the HIP-3 deployment platform Launch and its own perpetuals platform, Markets.
Its publicly identified co-founders include pseudonymous developer Omnia, co-CEO Magnus Lai and CTO Justin Greenberg. The article also cited a $1.75 million seed round led by Maven 11, with participation from Pier Two, Chorus One, IMC, Flowdesk and Susquehanna Crypto.
ChainCatcher frames Elysium as an attempt to address an imbalance within Hyperliquid: strong perpetuals activity alongside weaker spot trading and DeFi application activity. Citing on-chain monitoring, it reported that Hyperliquid’s spot volume relative to Binance had fallen to a 15-month low, while activity in the HIP-2 automated market-making mechanism was at its lowest since the fourth quarter of 2024.
The article also reported that PropAMM-led on-chain spot volume on Solana had persistently exceeded HyperCore spot volume by more than 30 times, while Robinhood Chain’s spot volume was about 10 times HyperCore’s.
Elysium’s proposed response is an asset-distribution path:
Token issuance → AMM liquidity → HyperCore spot order books → HIP-3 perpetual markets.
The design aims to let PropAMM-style applications access HyperCore order-book data. Whether that produces sustained spot liquidity, rather than simply more token launches, remains unresolved.
Where network revenue is intended to go
Elysium has no separate native token and no points program. HYPE is its sole gas token, tying transaction fees to Hyperliquid’s existing token economy.
According to the allocation plan disclosed by Kinetiq:
- Approximately 50% of sequencer revenue would fund open-market KNTQ buybacks and burns.
- Approximately 25% would go to applications that bring traffic to the network.
- The remainder would go to the Kinetiq Treasury.
These percentages concern sequencer revenue, not a stated allocation of net profit. ChainCatcher reported that KNTQ rose as much as 30% on the announcement day, but cautioned that any lasting value from the buyback mechanism would depend on actual network activity and revenue.
Broad launch support, but an issuance-heavy ecosystem
Before mainnet opened, projects including Uniswap, KyberSwap, 0x, OpenSea, Derive, xStocks, Wormhole and Mayan had announced support. Their coverage spans trading, liquidity, derivatives, NFTs, tokenized assets and cross-chain infrastructure.
ChainCatcher compared that reception with two other launches earlier in 2026: Circle’s institutional Layer 1, Arc, which launched on September 16 with more than 190 ecosystem partners and backing from 11 traditional finance and payments institutions, including Mastercard and Visa; and Robinhood Chain, which launched on July 1 with nearly 100 projects announcing support.
For Elysium, the article highlighted a particularly crowded token-launch segment. Within weeks of the testnet launch, more than a dozen launchpads had announced plans to participate and thousands of tokens had been created.
The reported launch ecosystem included:
- Liquidity and trading: Uniswap, KyberSwap, Aero and ArcherSwap.
- Token issuance: aka.fun, BunnyPad, PerpMe, Oxley, Neuriio and official partner Ascend, with approaches ranging from auction pricing and single-transaction launches to AI-agent issuance and social-account tokenization. The article noted that aka.fun had previously launched on Arc mainnet.
- Derivatives and prediction markets: Derive V3 and Speculate, the latter connecting to HIP-4 outcome markets.
- NFTs and games: AtlasHL, slymz, TORPOR, Frog Flip and Eloscape. Eloscape also supports Robinhood Chain and HyperEVM.
ChainCatcher nevertheless described the ecosystem as unbalanced: more than half of nearly 30 projects were launchpad or memecoin infrastructure. Its concern was that short-lived speculative activity might not establish the durable liquidity needed to strengthen Hyperliquid’s spot markets.
What remains unproven
Elysium’s launch brings together a recognizable application roster, a HyperEVM settlement design and a proposed revenue-sharing mechanism. Those elements do not yet establish sustained spot-market adoption or delivery of the planned security upgrades.
The source also reports repeated official warnings about purported Elysium token sales. Because the network has no token or points program, offers of an “Elysium token,” presales or points claims should be treated as suspicious, not as official network offerings.
The central test is whether Elysium can turn Hyperliquid’s existing users and trading liquidity into persistent spot activity and application revenue. Launch-day participation alone does not answer that question.
Source: ChainCatcher, by 谷昱, originally published November 9, 2026, at 17:47:41 (UTC+8).