Elysium, the Layer 2 network built by Kinetiq, launched its mainnet on November 9, 2026, according to a report by Gu Yu at ChainCatcher. Its economic design links network activity to two existing tokens rather than introducing another one: HYPE pays for gas, while part of sequencer revenue is earmarked for KNTQ buybacks and burns.
The distinction matters. Elysium has no native token of its own and no points program. Its proposed economic contribution is to expand activity within Hyperliquid’s existing ecosystem, not to launch a separate gas-token economy.
Where the fees and incentives go
According to the plan disclosed by Kinetiq and described in the report, Elysium’s sequencer revenue is allocated as follows:
| Recipient or use | Share of sequencer revenue | Intended role |
|---|---|---|
| Open-market KNTQ buybacks and burns | Approximately 50% | Direct part of network revenue toward reducing KNTQ supply |
| Applications bringing traffic to the network | Approximately 25% | Reward applications for attracting activity |
| Kinetiq Treasury | Remainder | Retain revenue within Kinetiq’s treasury |
These are shares of sequencer revenue, not a stated allocation of total token supply or a guaranteed distribution amount.
HYPE and KNTQ therefore have different roles. HYPE is the network’s gas asset, tying transaction execution to its use. KNTQ is the beneficiary of the proposed buyback-and-burn allocation. Applications receive a separate traffic-related incentive.
The report said KNTQ rose as much as 30% on the day the news was announced. That price move does not establish whether the mechanism will generate lasting value. As the source itself noted, the outcome depends on actual transaction activity and revenue—not the allocation percentages alone.
Why Kinetiq is expanding beyond staking
Kinetiq issues the liquid-staking token kHYPE. At the time of the report, it had more than $1.2 billion in total value locked and had expanded into institutional staking through iHYPE, the Earn yield product, the Launch platform for deploying HIP-3 perpetual exchanges, and its own Markets perpetual-trading platform.
ChainCatcher identified its publicly visible co-founders as pseudonymous developer Omnia, co-CEO Magnus Lai and CTO Justin Greenberg. It also reported a $1.75 million seed round led by Maven 11, with participants including Pier Two, Chorus One, IMC, Flowdesk and Susquehanna Crypto.
Elysium adds network infrastructure to those businesses. The intended connection is between staking, token launches, trading and application activity, with HYPE usage and sequencer-revenue allocation linking that activity back to the existing ecosystem.
The market gap Elysium aims to address
The source framed Elysium as an attempt to strengthen Hyperliquid’s spot and DeFi markets, which it described as lagging behind its perpetual-futures business.
It cited onchain monitoring showing that Hyperliquid’s spot-volume share relative to Binance had fallen to a 15-month low, while activity in the HIP-2 self-market-making mechanism was at its lowest since the fourth quarter of 2024. The article also reported that PropAMM-led onchain spot volume on Solana had regularly exceeded HyperCore spot volume by more than 30 times, and that Robinhood Chain’s spot volume was roughly 10 times HyperCore’s.
Elysium’s proposed asset pathway is:
Token issuance → AMM liquidity formation → HyperCore spot order books → HIP-3 perpetual markets.
The plan also seeks to let PropAMM-style applications access HyperCore order-book data directly. These are intended connections, not evidence that deeper spot liquidity or sustained application demand has already emerged.
Capacity targets and launch-stage trade-offs
Elysium uses Arbitrum Orbit, including Nitro and standard ArbOS, but settles to HyperEVM rather than Ethereum. The report describes it as working alongside HyperCore, Hyperliquid’s trading environment.
Its stated performance targets are:
- 300 million gas per second;
- 30 million gas per block;
- A canonical block interval of approximately 100 milliseconds.
The official comparison cited in the article puts HyperEVM at approximately 30 million gas every 60 seconds, producing the stated 600-fold capacity difference. That is a comparison of gas-processing capacity, not a demonstrated 600-fold increase in users, transaction demand or revenue.
Data availability uses an AnyTrust committee, with automatic fallback to publishing full data on HyperEVM. Withdrawals follow the standard optimistic withdrawal mechanism. The network runs Conduit’s G2 sequencer; the source describes the underlying architecture as meeting SOC II Type 2 security standards.
At launch, Elysium used a single permissioned sequencer, neutral priority-fee ordering and no privileged transaction channels. MEV telemetry, Timeboost, BoLD-based permissionless fraud proofs and audits were listed as subsequent hardening work. Those roadmap items should not be confused with protections already operational at launch.
Standard EVM compatibility supports familiar tools and applications, including MetaMask, Solidity contracts and Uniswap-style pools.
Early applications—and the demand question
Before mainnet opened, projects announcing support included Uniswap, KyberSwap, 0x, OpenSea, Derive, xStocks, Wormhole and Mayan. The reported ecosystem covered trading, liquidity, derivatives, NFTs, tokenized assets and data services.
Token-launch infrastructure was particularly prominent. ChainCatcher reported that more than ten launchpads had announced plans to join within weeks of testnet launch and that thousands of tokens had been created. Named launch platforms included aka.fun, BunnyPad, PerpMe, Oxley, Neuriio and official partner Ascend. Their approaches included auction pricing, single-transaction launches, autonomous AI-agent issuance and social-account tokenization.
Other named participants included liquidity projects Aero and ArcherSwap; Derive V3 and Speculate in derivatives and prediction markets, with Speculate connecting to HIP-4 outcome markets; and NFT or gaming projects AtlasHL, slymz, TORPOR, Frog Flip and Eloscape.
The source’s concern was the composition of that activity: more than half of nearly 30 projects were launchpads or meme-related infrastructure. It questioned whether applications with short user lifecycles and limited retained value could sustain Elysium’s broader spot-market ambitions.
For the token mechanism, this is the central uncertainty. A large number of launches does not by itself establish durable demand. The buyback allocation depends on revenue, and revenue depends on activity that continues beyond the network’s opening phase.
No Elysium token or points claim
The article reported repeated official warnings that purported Elysium tokens, presales and points claims were suspicious. Elysium’s stated launch design included neither its own token nor a points program. Such offers should not be mistaken for participation in the network’s disclosed economic model.
Elysium’s meaningful test is whether its added capacity and application incentives can generate sustained spot-market and application use. HYPE gas payments and KNTQ buybacks define how some of that activity would flow through the ecosystem; they do not guarantee that the activity will materialize.
Original reporting: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher. Published November 9, 2026, at 17:47:41 (UTC+8). This article preserves that reporting-date context.