Project X Aims to Give DeFi a Shot of Dopamine—Like 'Uniswap With Rizz'

By Erika Lee

Hyperliquid has rapidly become a major player in decentralized finance, but Project X aims to level the playing field on the layer-1 HyperEVM chain that powers it—and seeks to become the frontend for the ecosystem in the process.

In a space crowded with teams racing to build similar platforms, the team insists its strategy stands apart. Rather than focusing solely on technical innovation, Project X sits down with Decrypt for an exclusive interview on how it is taking a distribution-first approach to DeFi.

The team argues that while infrastructure has matured across wallets, on-ramps, and exchanges, the real opportunity lies in bringing crypto to a mass audience through better marketing, user experience, and incentive design.

“I think crypto is at this really interesting point,” a Project X contributor who goes by the name Bobby told Decrypt. “We’ve seen wallet infrastructure like Privy become strong enough to onboard normies. On-ramps and off-ramps are improving, as demonstrated by apps like Moonshot. Hyperliquid perps have basically commoditized what it means to build an exchange.”

A screenshot of the Project X interface. Image: Project X

“And soon, aggregation, bridging, and all the complexities of on-chain spot trading will be abstracted away too,” he continued. “The base layer is nearly strong enough, and when it is, everything will grow very quickly. The teams who will win are those who understand distribution and incentives really well.”

The project’s first phase centers on launching an automated market maker decentralized exchange on HyperEVM, with the goal of winning liquidity on the network before integrating HyperCore—an on-chain exchange similar to Coinbase or Binance. Once integrated, Project X will enable a routing system that automatically directs trades, such as buying 10 uBTC, to the cheapest platform (either HyperEVM or HyperCore), offering users the best rates—a novel feature unique to Hyperliquid.

Project X, the contributors say, is like “Uniswap with rizz.”

The team behind Project X believes that AMM DEXs have seen little meaningful innovation since 2021. While these platforms—including the likes of Uniswap and PancakeSwap—remain highly profitable, the team said that incumbents have grown complacent in the absence of real competition, leaving the space ripe for disruption.

“Our thesis is that over the next decade, the Lego blocks in crypto will shift,” the team added. “Until now, it’s been deep tech, building base infrastructure. But now, it’s moving toward user-facing, frontend-friendly products. The future Legos will be built by marketers who can attract and excite new users. That’s where we’re focused: culture, community, and virality applied to a profitable, but stagnant DeFi space.”

But strong distribution only works if the product delivers—and the Project X team said its emphasis on usability is just as critical. The team believes many competitors have nailed the UI, but still lack the UX needed to make DeFi accessible to everyday users.

“Good UX isn’t about how pretty the app looks,” said Bobby. “If you have to onboard from one place, swap, then bridge somewhere else, swap again, and complete eight different actions just to buy the coin you want—that’s a terrible experience. UX is how easily a user can complete the action they want with as little brainpower as possible—and as much dopamine as possible. Least effort, greatest reward.”

That philosophy guided how they designed the AMM DEX.

A screenshot of the Project X interface. Image: Project X

“I believe this is literally the best DEX in all of crypto for liquidity pooling,” pseudonymous Project X contributor Lamboland said. “We showed this to our IRL friends and they actually understood how to LP on Project X. They have no idea how to do it on other platforms.”

“We were talking to some builders who partnered with other EVM DEXs, and they had to manually onboard people—like literally teaching crypto users how to LP—because they just copied Uniswap’s UX. So we built our own version. You just drag the slider, see the APR go up or down, and click. It’s insanely simple. We kept asking ourselves: How can we make this simpler? How can we deliver more dopamine to people?”

Lower fees than Hyperliquid and better incentives are also part of their strategy to win over liquidity providers, they said.

“We take less fees than the leading HyperEVM DEX, so LPers earn more. Plus, our points system is designed so most rewards go to LPers,” Lamboland added. “I think Hyperliquid is going to tokenize a lot of assets that aren’t crypto, and people will LP them for the first time. Project X will be one of the top places to LP, whether you’re looking at UX, incentives, or novelty.”

Here’s another differentiating factor: the ability to list and LP more assets than on the Hyperliquid DEX itself. 

“Project X will capture the long tail of Hyperliquid assets, since Hyperliquid only allows one new spot listing every 30 hours,” Lamboland added. 

And with Hyperliquid’s ecosystem growing rapidly, the team believes there’s even more upside ahead. 

"Who knows what happens if Hyperliquid heavily airdrops HyperEVM users?" Lamboland said. "I don't want to bull-post too hard, but in my opinion, the Hyperliquid ecosystem is the best opportunity in all of crypto. That's why we chose to build here. We're also heavily inspired by the ethos of the Hyperliquid team.”

“We want to do to AMM DEXs what Hyperliquid did to perp DEXs,” he added.

Currently self-funded, Project X seeks to point excited users from its X account to the newly launched DEX to earn points, leveraging their visibility and understanding of Crypto Twitter to attract and onboard more users. With crypto’s infrastructure maturing, Project X’s team is betting that the next wave of winners won’t just master code—they’ll master culture.

“Attention is the scarcest asset in crypto,” the team said. “But rarely is it compounded into a sustainable DeFi product. We want to change that.”

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