Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Paragon wants to build a "ticker factory" on Hyperliquid: perpetual futures for anything that can be measured, launched as soon as the trade becomes relevant. Taha El-Magbri, founder of Paragon, joins The Defiant to explain how it works.
Paragon launched with three crypto-native indices — a Bitcoin index, a total market index, and an altcoin index — built to trade like SPY or QQQ options: a way to bet on, or hedge, crypto risk appetite as a whole. The project runs on HIP-3, Hyperliquid's framework for permissionless futures listings, which requires deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE that can be slashed if they fail to deliver core exchange infrastructure.
We discuss:
Paragon's index products and how traders use them
Why the team built on Hyperliquid and HIP-3 instead of bootstrapping its own exchange
Running in-house oracle infrastructure and onboarding a top market maker
Competition among HIP-3 deployers as open interest grows from $1B to ~$3B
Whether Hyperliquid killers like Aster and Lighter pose a real threat
The CFTC's posture on crypto perps and a possible US pathway for Hyperliquid
Why perps keep winning: removing friction from options and futures trading
What's next — including whether compute can be "perpified"
No Paragon token yet: why the team is following the Hyperliquid buyback playbook
Follow [guest handle] and Paragon: [links]
📰 Subscribe to The Defiant newsletter: thedefiant.io/newsletter
🌐 Read more: thedefiant.io
Paragon wants to build a "ticker factory" on Hyperliquid: perpetual futures for anything that can be measured, launched as soon as the trade becomes relevant. Taha El-Magbri, founder of Paragon, joins The Defiant to explain how it works.
Paragon launched with three crypto-native indices — a Bitcoin index, a total market index, and an altcoin index — built to trade like SPY or QQQ options: a way to bet on, or hedge, crypto risk appetite as a whole. The project runs on HIP-3, Hyperliquid's framework for permissionless futures listings, which requires deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE that can be slashed if they fail to deliver core exchange infrastructure.
We discuss:
Paragon's index products and how traders use them
Why the team built on Hyperliquid and HIP-3 instead of bootstrapping its own exchange
Running in-house oracle infrastructure and onboarding a top market maker
Competition among HIP-3 deployers as open interest grows from $1B to ~$3B
Whether Hyperliquid killers like Aster and Lighter pose a real threat
The CFTC's posture on crypto perps and a possible US pathway for Hyperliquid
Why perps keep winning: removing friction from options and futures trading
What's next — including whether compute can be "perpified"
No Paragon token yet: why the team is following the Hyperliquid buyback playbook
Follow [guest handle] and Paragon: [links]
📰 Subscribe to The Defiant newsletter: thedefiant.io/newsletter
🌐 Read more: thedefiant.io
