Kinetiq
About
Kinetiq is a liquid staking protocol built natively on Hyperliquid, enabling users to stake HYPE and receive kHYPE — a reward-accruing liquid staking token that stays usable across DeFi. Beyond liquid staking, the protocol powers the Markets by Kinetiq perpetual futures exchange, an institutional staking product (iHYPE), and the KNTQ governance token that captures value from all protocol revenue streams.
Where Does Yield Come From?
How kHYPE earns yield
When you hold kHYPE (the liquid staking token for HYPE), your yield comes from Hyperliquid network staking rewards. Here's how it works:
Kinetiq takes the HYPE you've staked and delegates it to validators (the entities that secure the network). Instead of picking validators manually, Kinetiq uses an automated system called StakeHub — it scores validators on performance and spreads your stake across the best ones. It keeps monitoring and rebalancing automatically.
The validator rewards flow directly into the exchange rate of kHYPE. That means your kHYPE token grows in value relative to HYPE over time — no need to claim anything manually or deal with rebasing tokens.
Fees and distribution
A 10% fee is taken from staking rewards. Here's where it goes:
- 70% of that fee is used to buy KNTQ (the protocol's governance token) on the open market, and those tokens are distributed to people who stake KNTQ (sKNTQ holders).
- 30% goes to the Kinetiq treasury.
Unstaking
If you want to unstake, there's a waiting period of roughly 8–9 days (1 day for a delegation lockup, then 7 days in an unstaking queue).
Extra yield: the Earn vault (vkHYPE)
Beyond basic staking, you can deposit kHYPE into the Kinetiq Earn vault (powered by Veda and managed by Seven Seas). This gives you vkHYPE, which automatically distributes your kHYPE across various DeFi strategies — such as lending on Hyperlend, plus strategies from Felix, Project X, Pendle, Harmonix, Hybra, and others. These strategies earn extra token incentives that auto-compound.
The Earn vault only charges a 20% performance fee on profits (no management fees or entry/exit fees).
How the KNTQ token captures value
The KNTQ token gets its value from several sources, all of which buy back KNTQ from the open market and distribute it to sKNTQ holders (people staking KNTQ):
- 100% of disposable income from the Markets by Kinetiq exchange
- 100% of Kinetiq's share from Launch revenue
- 100% of validator commissions earned by the protocol
- A burn mechanism on KNTQ trading fees
All the KNTQ acquired through these channels is shared proportionally among sKNTQ stakers.
Audits
| Audit / Date | Findings | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The review found no exploitable security vulnerabilities; all six issues are informational code-quality recommendations. The protocol's codebase demonstrates a solid security baseline at the time of review. | |
Spearbit09-12-2025 |
| The review identifies one high-severity issue (locked operator bond) and one medium-severity issue (withdrawal delay bypass) alongside numerous lower-severity findings, but no critical vulnerabilities were found; the protocol carries residual design and operational risks that should be addressed before deployment. |
Pashov Audit Group19-11-2025 - 23-11-2025 |
| The audit found no critical or high-severity vulnerabilities, but the 5 medium-severity findings around rebalance lifecycle and fund locking represent significant operational risks that should be addressed before mainnet deployment. The 8 low-severity items highlight additional edge cases and design limitations that warrant attention for production readiness. |
Spearbit24-06-2025 |
| The audit reveals significant high-severity accounting and initialization issues that could lead to protocol insolvency if left unaddressed, alongside several medium-severity access control and logic flaws. All critical and high-risk items require remediation before mainnet deployment for safe operation. |
Code4rena (C4)07-04-2025 - 16-04-2025 |
| The audit identified 3 High and 5 Medium severity issues in Kinetiq's staking contracts, with the most critical being a fund-locking vulnerability in the buffer mechanism. All findings are linked to their original submissions and include judge and sponsor context, but the report does not state whether issues were resolved before deployment. |
Pashov Audit Group26-02-2025 - 06-03-2025 |
| The audit uncovered 8 high-severity vulnerabilities spanning fund locking, incorrect exchange rates, and withdrawal failures, indicating significant residual risk that must be remediated before mainnet deployment. All findings should be addressed to ensure safe operation of the Kinetiq LST protocol. |
Backers
The KNTQ tokenomics documentation on the official Kinetiq website mentions that "core contributors and investors" are allocated a portion of the 1,000,000,000 KNTQ supply and share a vesting schedule of a 1-year cliff followed by 2 years of monthly linear vesting (3 years total). However, no specific investor names, funds, venture capital firms, or institutional backers are disclosed anywhere on Kinetiq's official website, documentation, or GitHub. No fundraising rounds (seed, strategic, private sale), investment amounts, or dates are stated on any first-party sources reviewed.
Legal
Status and notes
The Terms of Use state the Platform is "provided and operated by Kinetiq Labs", while the Privacy Policy names "Kinetiq Research" as the Company. The footer on all pages shows "© 2026 Kinetiq Research". The Privacy Policy mentions Panama in the context of international data transfers ("generally do not transfer personal data outside your country of origin or Panama"), suggesting a potential Panama nexus. The GitHub organization profile lists Singapore as its location. No explicit legal form (e.g., LLC, foundation, association, corporation), registration number, or registered address is disclosed on any official source.