KIP-3 Launch is live: Exchange-as-a-Service for HIP-3 markets

KIP-3 Launch by Kinetiq is now live.

This marks the next major step for Kinetiq’s Hyperliquid-native infrastructure stack, giving HIP-3 deployers a direct path to launch builder-deployed perpetual exchanges by crowdsourcing HYPE stake through exchange-specific liquid staking tokens.

Launch was announced as Kinetiq’s Exchange-as-a-Service platform for HIP-3. Now, that infrastructure is live.

HIP-3 gives external teams the ability to deploy and operate their own perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid. Deployers can define markets, manage exchange parameters, build their own trading experience, and earn from the activity they create.

But launching through HIP-3 requires serious stake.

That requirement protects the system, but it also creates a barrier for teams with strong market ideas, communities, liquidity relationships, or distribution, but without 500,000+ HYPE ready to stake into a deployment.

Launch solves that.

With KIP-3 Launch live, deployers can bootstrap the stake required for HIP-3 through isolated staking pools, while contributors receive exchange-specific LSTs tied to the venues they choose to support.

Why Launch

Kinetiq was built around a simple idea: staking HYPE should not force users to choose between rewards, liquidity, and access.

With kHYPE, users can stake HYPE, earn staking rewards, and remain liquid across DeFi. Launch applies the same logic to HIP-3.

Deployers need stake to launch. Contributors want targeted exposure to the exchanges they believe in. Traders want more markets, more venues, and more competition.

Launch connects those pieces.

Instead of forcing each HIP-3 deployer to source the full stake requirement alone, Launch allows contributors to stake HYPE into an exchange-specific pool. Each pool supports one deployment, and each contributor receives an exchange-specific liquid staking token representing their position in that pool.

That gives deployers a cleaner capital formation layer, contributors a more direct way to back specific exchanges, and traders a broader universe of markets built natively on Hyperliquid.

HIP-3 opened the door and Launch gives builders a way through it.

How Launch works

Each Launch deployment has its own staking pool.

Contributors stake HYPE into the pool for the exchange they want to support. The pool helps the deployer reach the stake required for HIP-3. In return, contributors receive an exchange-specific LST, or exLST, tied to that deployment.

The important part is isolation.

The pools are separate. The rewards are separate. The risks are separate.

A contributor backing one venue is not taking pooled risk across every Launch deployment. Their position is tied to the exchange they chose to support.

That is cleaner for users, cleaner for deployers, and cleaner for the long-term structure of HIP-3.

What Launch unlocks

Launch changes who can realistically build on HIP-3.

Before Launch, the hardest part of deployment was not always technical execution. It was capital. A team could have the right market thesis, the right community, and the right distribution, but still face a hard barrier at the stake requirement.

Now, teams can coordinate stake with the users who want their exchanges to exist.

That opens the door to more specialized perp venues, more asset-specific markets, more community-backed exchanges, and more experiments that do not need to wait on centralized listing processes.

For deployers, Launch provides the staking, LST, validator, and integration infrastructure needed to launch through HIP-3.

For HYPE contributors, Launch creates a way to support specific exchanges instead of only taking broad staking exposure.

For traders, Launch means more venues, more assets, and more onchain choice.

Not one exchange listing everything.

Many builders launching the markets they understand best.

How Launch flows back to KNTQ

Launch also expands the Kinetiq protocol economy.

KNTQ is the governance token of Kinetiq and the value accrual layer for the full stack: liquid staking, Markets, and Launch.

Launch revenue follows a simple model: 100% of Kinetiq’s share of Launch revenue, equal to 10% of the deployer share, is used for KNTQ buybacks.

For example, if a deployer generates $1M per month in deployer-share fees across its HIP-3 markets, Kinetiq receives $100k. That full $100k is used to buy back KNTQ.

That means Launch is not just another product beside the protocol. It is another revenue layer connected back to the same value accrual model that powers the Kinetiq stack.

More Launch deployments can mean more venues. More venues can mean more trading activity. More activity can mean more protocol revenue routed through KNTQ buybacks.

KNTQ ties the system together.

Launch is now live

Kinetiq started with liquid staking.

Markets expanded the stack into HIP-3 deployed onchain perpetuals.

Launch now gives other teams the infrastructure to create their own HIP-3 exchanges using Kinetiq’s staking and LST architecture.

KIP-3 Launch is live for deployers who want to build without rebuilding the coordination layer from scratch.

It is live for contributors who want to back specific exchanges with HYPE.

It is live for the next wave of Hyperliquid-native markets.

The era of gated market creation is ending.

The era of user-backed onchain exchanges has begun.

Welcome to Launch.

About Kinetiq

Kinetiq is Hyperliquid’s leading liquid staking protocol.

Users can stake HYPE, receive kHYPE, earn staking rewards, and remain liquid across DeFi. Kinetiq also operates Markets, a HIP-3 deployed onchain perpetuals venue, and Launch, an Exchange-as-a-Service platform that allows HIP-3 deployers to crowdsource stake through exchange-specific liquid staking tokens.

KNTQ is the governance token of the Kinetiq protocol and the value accrual layer for the Kinetiq stack. Validator commissions, Markets trading fees, builder code fees, and Launch revenue fund KNTQ buybacks, with acquired KNTQ distributed to sKNTQ holders.

• Learn more about Kinetiq: kinetiq.xyz
• Explore Launch: kinetiq.xyz/docs/launch
• Trade on Markets: markets.xyz