Wintermute-Linked Wallet Won About 76% of Hyperliquid's Priority Data Auctions
A wallet linked to Wintermute won about 76% of the highest-priority data auctions on Hyperliquid over the past month. According to Foresight News, Bloomberg reported that the crypto market maker has become the main user of the auction mechanism, which lets traders pay to view incoming buy and sell orders milliseconds before the exchange processes them, giving algorithms time to adjust quotes or hedge on other platforms. Blockchain analytics platform Loris Tools identified the wallet's auction wins.The mechanism has raised questions about whether it favors large trading firms. DRW founder Don Wilson has questioned whether it is fairer than server colocation at traditional exchanges and whether it can meet U.S. regulatory requirements. The founder of Loris Tools said taking full advantage of the speed benefit requires a direct connection to nodes operated by the Hyperliquid Foundation, access to which is subject to trading-volume and token-staking requirements.Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the auctions are more transparent than the low-latency networks and server colocation used in traditional finance, and that the firm uses the service mainly for cryptocurrency trading. Hyperliquid Labs said anyone can bid and that all priority-fee payments are publicly recorded on-chain.