Kyle criticized Hyperliquid, sparking a heated debate, as FWDI faced backlash due to poor performance and was mocked in retaliation.

**February 9** Kyle Samani—former Multicoin co-founder and board chair of Forward Industries (FORD)—criticized Hyperliquid in a post, sparking heated community debate. His take: *“Hyperliquid epitomizes crypto’s worst traits in many ways. The founder fled his home country to build it; it openly enables crime and terrorism; it has closed-source code and is permissioned.”* Yunt Capital analyst Steven pushed back: *“Yes, Hyperliquid embodies most of crypto’s downsides—including VC rejection, democratizing liquidity via HLP, growing its community with the largest token airdrop in history ($9B), and using all $960M in HL revenue to buy back tokens instead of pocketing any. Updated data on Hyperliquid’s Aid Fund buyback shows the fund holds 40M HYPE tokens, funded by long-term protocol revenue.”* Hyperliquid community member Luke Cannon mocked Samani’s role as chair of Solana’s largest treasury firm Forward Industries (FWDI): *“FWDI has all the problems of a DAT company—its stock tanked after a pump, wiping out billions in investor funds while the team still pocketed millions. You were directly involved in this, yet you claim moral superiority.”*