Max Wong @ IOSG Ventures - Sept 2025

TLDR:

• Retail investing went mobile in tradfi (zero commissions + app UX), and that same behavior is spilling into crypto - retail wants fast, familiar, phone-native trading with low friction.
• Hyperliquid’s stack (HyperEVM + CoreWriter + builder codes) makes spinning up mobile frontends low-lift while preserving CEX-like execution and DEX advantages (self-custody, fast listings, fewer geo/KYC frictions).
• A wave of HL-native mobile frontends is live: BasedApp, Mass.Money, Dexari, Supercexy. Collectively they’re doing $50k per day ($1.5m MRR) and routing ~3–6% of HL perps volume, with different target segments (crypto-natives, web2 retail, pros).
• Why now: “hypergamblification” + creator content loops boost retail risk appetite; mobile apps compress onboarding, abstract crypto complexity, and add sticky features (copy trading, onramps, cards, money markets, yield).
• Thesis:
  • 1. Crypto mobile trading frontends benefit from strong tailwinds from the general web2 crowd and retail behaviours.
  • 2. For the crypto market to grow in size and volume, there needs to be a greater availability of crypto native mobile apps to mainstream web2 consumers.
  • 3. Real revenue with actual sustainability to scale and very low lift to scale as compared to web3 business models.

Over the past few months, there has been an increasing rise in mobile trading + defi apps targeted towards retail consumers, most of which are being built on Hyperliquid rails. This piece aims to explore this vertical, explore some apps dominating the market and give a thesis for such apps.

So What’s Going On?

In general, retail market participation in traditional investing has seen tremendous growth of the past decade. This begun in 2019, when many of the largest U.S. brokers cut equity commissions to zero to compete with Robinhood, collapsing the cost to trade and removing a key barrier for small accounts. Then 2020 poured fuel on it: lockdowns, stimulus checks, and an always-on mobile UX pulled millions of first-timers into markets. By 2022, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances showed an intense step-up in stock market participation; 58% of U.S. families held stocks directly or indirectly, and direct stock ownership jumped from 15% → 21%, the largest increase on record.

Retail activity also remained a visible share of day-to-day trading: at present, retail flow contributes roughly 20–30% of U.S. equity volume post-2020, well above pre-pandemic levels. The phenomenon is not just seen in the U.S. but globally as well: India’s investor base exploded from tens of millions pre-COVID to 200 mn+ demat accounts in 2025. And product pipes keep widening - record ETF inflows in 2024–25, plus fractional shares and app-native brokerage, gave retail simple wrappers to express views and stay invested. Put together, a cost shock (zero commissions), a distribution shock (mobile trading apps), and a liquidity shock (ETFs) have greatly expanded retail participation in public markets, and has made consumer investing apps a structural player in the markets.

Mobile Trading Apps