Crypto Traders Lost Money on Purpose to Farm a Token

Papertrade, a synthetic perpetuals venue on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid’s smart-contract layer, booked $56 million in revenue from October 10 to 17 and paid more than $50 million to stakers of its PAPER token. PAPER is minted only when a trader closes at a loss or is liquidated, and staking it earns a share of the protocol’s USDC distributions. GSR research analysts Carlos Guzman and Slater Santer reported that the mint rate fell from 100 PAPER per dollar of qualifying loss to 11 by October 19, and new mint rules took effect October 21. They put launch-week revenue at 3.2 times Hyperliquid’s $17.5 million and launch-day revenue at $25 million.