Why this private equity veteran is going all in on Hyperliquid

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David Schamis has quite the resume. Stretching back 25 years in finance, his career’s seen him operating “in the room”, with Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and AIG as they scrambled in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis. He even invested in bitcoin back in 2015 (somewhat as a response to the financial collapse), and in 2021, his private equity firm, Atlas Merchant Capital, invested in Circle, which today has a market cap of about $20 billion. 

Now, he’s bringing those honed financial services chops to the nascent-but-trending digital asset treasury (DAT) space with Hyperliquid Strategies. Launched in December 2025, the treasury firm trades on Nasdaq and focuses on providing exposure to the popular Hyperliquid decentralized exchange. 

“Our core is financial services. We consider Hyperliquid Strategies very much part of our mandate,” Schamis told me recently on the Talking Tokens podcast. “We thought this fit perfectly into what we did.” 

The new venture comes as DATs expand across public markets as traditional players demand exposure to decentralized finance. This has caught the attention of private equity shops like Schamis’, given the potential for upside driven by technology advancements. 

But that’s a relatively recent phenomenon. Up until about a year ago, traditional finance was pretty divided from crypto. “There weren’t a lot of people in between,” Schamis said.

But more of these traditional players are coming onboard now, and Schamis expects other PE shops to follow suit. “Traditional private equity firms are going to start doing more stuff in crypto over time. That’s how industries grow up,” he said.

Right now, Schamis sounds pretty excited about how things are going, thanks in part to the dovish regulatory stance around stablecoins, but also with how quickly the markets seem to be attracting money into real-world assets, and the other trading avenues they’ll open up. 

Perpetual futures’ big break could come via RWAs

Perpetual futures are hot in crypto right now, especially as decentralized exchanges like Hyperliquid, which currently sees north of a hundred billion in 30-day perp volume. 

“To me, the opportunity for [perps] to break through is particularly for real world assets around equities,” Schamis said. “The question is not, ‘Will it be as popular as futures?’, but ‘Will it be as popular as options?’” 

For example, centralized exchanges see a massive amount of their trading and revenue from equity options transactions, Schamis pointed out. 

Illustrating that point: Robinhood’s transaction-based revenues increased 129% in the third quarter to $730 million from a year earlier, primarily driven by a 300% spike in crypto revenue, which surged to $268 million. Meanwhile, options revenue rose 50% to $304 million, and equities revenue increased 132% to $86 million, according to its Q3 earnings report.

“People love it,” Schamis said. “Equity options are just sort of levered equity.” 

But the problem with trading options is you can’t just start doing it on a whim. The high level at which the markets operate means that one has to know a lot on the topic to have an edge. “Often the smartest people are equity derivative traders,” Schamis said. “So if you’re a retail investor and you want to buy call options on NVIDIA or whatever, the other side of that trade is the smartest dudes in the world. That’s kind of a scary place to be.” 

Which makes perpetual futures a simpler option for those who want to trade but don’t want to make their entire life about investing. “You buy a perp, you can do it with leverage…you can do less leverage, you can do more leverage,” he explained.

That’s not to say there isn’t risk, however. Hyperliquid leverages up to 40x, which puts a lot at stake, but Schamis feels the visibility perpetuals provide can help traders measure how much they want to risk. “The point is, when you buy a perp, it tells you right up front what price you’re paying, how much leverage you have and what price you would effectively lose all your money,” he said. 

Looking to the future, Schamis expects more of the world to “ride on the crypto rails,” which he considers as “generally a good thing.” 

He named both Circle and Hyperliquid as examples of the “nuts and bots,” the backend of the future and how “a lot of the system works.” 

“We think there’s so much of a bigger opportunity for other real world assets to come onchain via Hyperliquid,” Schamis said. Sure there’s U.S. equities, but then on the other end of the spectrum, there can be traditional perp trading on less common RWAs, like Birkin bags. 

“It sounds crazy, but that's the future we’re going into. The ability to trade different kinds of assets, real world assets onchain,” Schamis said.

Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.

For today’s episode, I interviewed David Schamis, CEO of Hyperliquid Strategies and Atlas Merchant Capital Founding Partner and CIO.

He breaks down the rapid rise of Hyperliquid, the decentralized exchange powering billions in annual free cash flow without raising a dollar of outside capital. David explains how perps became crypto’s dominant trading product, why Hyperliquid’s architecture prevents FTX-style failures, and how real token buybacks created an equity-like model for protocol growth.

He also shares what US-based investors misunderstand about access, the role of Hyperliquid Strategies as a publicly listed vehicle for exposure, and why he believes Hyperliquid is becoming the “AWS of exchanges” where builders can launch everything from tokenized equities to prediction markets. David reflects on navigating the 2008 financial crisis, how those lessons shaped his conviction in non-custodial systems, why private equity is warming up to crypto, and what it means for global market structure as real-world assets move onchain.

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Please note this content is for informational and educational purposes only. Any views shared should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research. We may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this newsletter.