Institutional players have demonstrated their unwavering faith in the DeFi infrastructure and are backing the ecosystem to maintain its stranglehold on the future of FinTech, according to Morpho co-founder Paul Frambot and an April report from Bitcoin Suisse.
Frambot’s comments came as the dust settled on the KelpDAO hack that led to approximately $292 million in initial losses and more than $15 billion leaving the DeFi ecosystem in the days that followed.
Bitcon Suisse published its report in April 2026, with data from Hyperliquid’s L1 from November 2024, around the time it launched its Assistance Fund program, to February 2026.
However, Frambot and Bitcoin Suisse both added caveats. Frambot reported that institutional players have “completely lost confidence in pool/hub models,” and clarified that institutions and distributors “want control: over the code, over the risk, over compliance.”
DeFi TVL has remained stable in the $83-85 billion range after the initial panic that led to large-scale withdrawals from Aave to other protocols and complete market exits.
Aave and DeFi are on their way back
According to Paul Frambot, he has been “calling the biggest institutions lately” and their stance on DeFi remains unwavering. He claimed to have confirmed the inevitability of assets, payments and loans.
The bullish signals from institutional players come as the DeFi United Fund has raised almost $250 million $ETH obligations, with cross-protocol and inter-network participation from stakeholders with skin in the DeFi game.
The number of donations is approximately 102,646 $ETH out of 116,500 $ETH target: the amount of rsETH that hackers stole during the hacking event.
Earlier today, Justin Sun announced that the Tron Network and the HTX exchange will work together to invest $20 million of USDT in the Aave V3 market.
Other major donors who have already sent their pledges include Arbitrum DAO, Mantle, Aave DAO, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Kelp, Mantle, and the recently departed BGD Labs.
LayerZero and Ethena have also committed to donating unconfirmed amounts in support of the initiative.
Hyperliquid gets Bitcoin Suisse a thumbs up
Bitcoin Suisse published a 10-page report on Hyperliquid’s dominance in the decentralized perpetual trading scene. Even more impressive, however, is that the DEX trading platform has consistently started posting volumes that exceed those of some of the biggest names in centralized trading, a subset that has historically dominated the numbers due to their simpler interfaces and large liquidity reserves.
The report pointed to Hyperliquid’s $820 million in revenue by 2025 and its outperformance against leading venues such as the Solana Network and the Pump.fun meme launch pad.
In further evidence of its stranglehold on the trading domain, Bitcoin Suisse highlighted the protocol as accounting for 41% of the open interest of decentralized perpetual futures markets and between 5-7% of the total volume handled by CEXs, behind only Binance, OKX and Bybit and ahead of America’s largest exchange, Coinbase.
Hyperliquid has maintained its top position since the February data cap in the Bitcoin Suisse report, outperforming the next largest platform by approximately 1.5x-3x in terms of open interest and volume metrics. Hyperliquid now accounts for more than 50% of open interest and is expanding its lead in that area as well.
Hyperliquid is on track for future growth
Cryptopolitan reported earlier this month when Hyperliquid hit a new record of 6.9% of all perpetual futures trading, building on demand for RWA trading on its HIP-3 market, which also set a new record of $2.3 billion in the same month.
According to the Zug-based company, the perpetrator’s DEX platform is also already planning its next phase of expansion, HIP-4, to “transform Hyperliquid from a DEX to a financial infrastructure.” The new update is expected to bring a boom market sector forecast to Hyperliquid and compete against market leaders Kalshi and Polymarket.
Bitcoin Suisse has been around since 2013 and plays a crucial role in it The early development of Ethereumand also offers trading services for hyperfluid and monad.