In October 2024, I wrote about Pear Protocol and its ambition to make pair trading a core primitive in crypto. Since then, the team has made major progress from shipping a new execution engine powered by Hyperliquid, to raising a $4.1m round led by Castle Island Ventures (with Florin Digital participation), to rolling out new product lines designed to drive sustained volume growth. With these milestones in place, I wanted to revisit Pear and share an update on what’s changed over the last 12 months and what’s coming next.

TL;DR

• ◆Pear Protocol brings market-neutral pair trading to DeFi, enabling traders to go long/short (e.g. long HYPE, short BTC) in a single click.
• ◆The new Hyperliquid integration is a major product upgrade, enabling superior execution through deep native liquidity and advanced order types. Traders now benefit from <2 second confirmations, 0.1% slippage, reliable SL/TP, TWAP functionality for scaling into positions, and limit orders directly on the pair ratio.
• ◆Despite declining volumes on its earlier liquidity partners, Pear has consistently cleared >$10m in weekly volume and is now ramping towards $20m daily volume with its Hyperliquid engine. 
• ◆Looking ahead, Pear will benefit from Hyperliquid’s expansion into tokenized stocks and other assets via HIP-3, while launching new volume drivers including Agent Pear (AI-powered mean reversion opportunities), Actively Managed Vaults (AMVs), and an institutional-grade trading terminal.
• ◆Together, these initiatives position Pear for a 10x volume expansion and a leading role in the future of narrative-driven, market-neutral trading.

What has changed in the past 12 months?

1. Pear Protocol’s integration with Hyperliquid marks a major infrastructure upgrade

Previously, Pear solely relied on Symmio, a solver-based system dependent on third-party execution, to support its trading engine. While functional, Symmio has seen steadily declining volumes (~$100m/month) and suffered from execution challenges: high slippage (2–3%), slow confirmations (10–15 seconds), and unreliable stop-loss/take-profit functionality. These issues limited the appeal of Pear to high-volume and institutional traders. With the launch of its new Hyperliquid-powered engine on July 28th (following >$100m in beta testing), Pear now taps into Hyperliquid’s deep, natively integrated perp liquidity (i.e.: $216bn in volume in June alone). This transition removes the dependency on third-party solvers and dramatically improves execution quality:

• ◆Lower slippage: reduced from ~2-3% to ~0.1%.
• ◆Rapid execution: confirmations now in <2 seconds.
• ◆Reliable SL/TP: consistent execution of stop-loss and take-profit orders.
• ◆TWAP capability: easily scale larger trades using time-weighted average pricing.
• ◆Limit orders: To enter pair trades without constantly monitoring individual legs

2. The trading concept of pair trading has gone mainstream

Once seen as a niche concept that needed explaining (“make it make sense”), pair trading is now widely recognized as a powerful strategy (“it makes sense”). Traders increasingly view it as a core part of their toolkit alongside spot, perps, and options enabling narrative-driven, asset-specific bets while remaining delta-neutral.

From Jonah and Avi at 1000x debating Coinbase/Circle to Crypto Twitter’s never-ending ETH/BTC debates, pair trades are becoming part of the daily trading conversation. We believe that Pear Protocol is perfectly positioned to serve this shift, giving traders the tools to trade narratives with precision and flexibility. In addition, Pear offers new and expanded functionality not possible in equity markets today.

3. Pear Protocol has found product-market-fit

Despite declining volumes across its underlying liquidity engines (Vertex, GMX, Symmio), Pear has consistently cleared $10m in weekly volume in 77% of weeks since September 2024, a clear signal of product-market fit. In April 2025, Pear kicked off a targeted rollout of its Hyperliquid trading engine, offering early access to top traders and token holders. The results were immediate. Even during the beta phase, adoption accelerated as traders migrated to the new engine. With the full Hyperliquid integration officially live as of July, traction continues to build, validating both the product and the platform shift.

4. Pear raised $4.1m from a high-conviction VC syndicate

Despite a 95% drawdown in token price and tough market conditions, the Pear team has continued to ship products, grow its user base, and rally a loyal trading community. This consistent execution attracted strong investor interest, resulting in a $4.1m raise backed by a high-conviction syndicate including Castle Island Ventures, Compound VC, Florin Digital (aka us) and Sigil Fund.

Now, with fresh capital and momentum - what will Pear do next?

1. Significantly expanding the asset universe (via Hyperliquid’s upcoming HIP-3)

In the near future, Pear is expanding beyond crypto by tapping into tokenized stocks and other novel assets powered by Hyperliquid’s upcoming HIP-3 mechanism. HIP-3 enables community-voted perpetual listings, with over 280 new markets expected annually. By building on top of Hyperliquid, Pear piggybacks on this rapidly growing asset universe to offer trading pairs like HYPE/SPY and custom multi-asset strategies that simply don’t exist elsewhere. This unlocks new possibilities for advanced traders, liquid funds, and institutions seeking differentiated, narrative-driven strategies.

2. Expanding into institutional investors

While Pear’s initial focus has been on retail traders, institutional players now dominate liquid crypto markets accounting for over 85% of total trading volume. Hedge funds, prop desks, and structured product teams are driving billions in daily activity, and appetite for market-neutral strategies like pair trading is growing fast. To capture this demand, Pear is building an institutional-grade trading terminal tailored to fund-level execution. By serving this audience, Pear unlocks a vastly larger pool of capital expanding its addressable market by 5-10x and positioning the protocol to scale far beyond its retail base.

3. Driving volume through additional products

Like most B2C trading platforms, Pear faces the challenge of user retention as trading demands constant attention, and most users cannot stay plugged in all the time. To keep users engaged and generate more consistent volume, Pear is launching three new product lines:

• ◆Agent Pear: An AI-powered assistant that identifies high-conviction pair trades. With a 68% win rate as of last month, it helps users stay active without constantly monitoring the market.
• ◆Vaults (AMVs): Top-performing community members will also manage Actively Managed Vaults, allowing users to passively follow their strategies. Beyond engagement, these vaults also introduce sticky TVL that generates a steady stream of volume through the platform, providing a more predictable and scalable usage base.
• ◆API integrations: Pear is also developing an external execution API for mobile apps, wallets, telegram bots and DeFi aggregators that want to route their pair trades through an engine that has dedicated pair trading features like TP/SL, limit orders and single line position reporting.

To conclude, over the past year, Pear Protocol has proven its ability to execute, finding product-market fit, upgrading its core infrastructure, and securing the capital to scale. With Hyperliquid integration live, a new wave of assets on the horizon, and products built for both retail and institutional users, Pear is well-positioned to become the default venue for narrative-driven, market-neutral trading in DeFi.

General Disclaimer

This presentation is not an offer to sell securities of any investment fund or a solicitation of offers to buy any such securities. An investment in any fund, including the digital asset strategies  described herein, involves a high degree of risk. There is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved. There is the possibility of loss, and all investment involves risk including  the loss of principal. The author makes no representation as to the  accuracy or completeness of  such information. Opinions, estimates and projections in this presentation constitute the current  judgment of the author and are subject to change without notice. Any projections, forecasts and estimates contained in this presentation are necessarily speculative in nature and are based upon certain assumptions. The author holds the token described.

It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. Accordingly, any projections are only estimates and actual results will differ and may vary substantially from the projections or estimates shown. This presentation is not intended as a recommendation to purchase or sell any commodity, security, or asset. The author has no obligation to update, modify or amend this presentation or to otherwise notify a reader thereof in the event that any matter stated herein, or any  opinion, project on, forecast or estimate set forth herein, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.