Verify a decision

{"actor":"system:backfill","investigation_id":"cb0e425b-0ec4-416e-bc70-00f4eb9e4883","kind":"publish","page_slug":"kinetiq","published_at":"2026-10-13T05:12:54.965Z","sequence_num":1,"snapshot":{"content_type":"investigation","entity_name":"Kinetiq","sections":[{"content":"Kinetiq describes itself as a liquid staking protocol on Hyperliquid's HyperEVM. Deposited HYPE is delegated to validators through a scoring system called StakeHub, and users receive kHYPE. According to a QuillAudits write-up, the protocol launched in July 2025. The same article cites TVL above $639 million at the time of writing and a peak above $2.28 billion, with about 82.5% of Hyperliquid staking market share. Alea Research reports that the KNTQ token launched in November 2025. DefiLlama's protocol API, read on 13 October 2026, showed about $1.00B in TVL ($979.2M on Hyperliquid L1 and $23.5M under Hyperliquid L1-staking). This is lower than the roughly $1.11B figure in the requester context, which was not independently reproduced; TVL changes continuously and the product breakdown (kHYPE, kmHYPE, Earn, Launch) could not be verified here. The team behind Kinetiq is not named in the sources reviewed.","heading":"Overview and scale","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"DefiLlama API - Kinetiq","type":"on_chain","url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/kinetiq"},{"credibility":2,"name":"QuillAudits - Kinetiq liquid staking on Hyperliquid","type":"research","url":"https://www.quillaudits.com/blog/staking/kinetiq-liquid-staking-on-hyperliquid"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Alea Research - Kinetiq HyperEVM liquid staking","type":"research","url":"https://alearesearch.io/insights/kinetiq-hyperevm-liquid-staking"}]},{"content":"Kinetiq's FAQ states the contracts were audited by Spearbit, Zenith, Pashov and Code4rena, lists a bug bounty (linked to a Cantina program), says administrative access is protected by multi-sig controls, and says contracts include emergency pause functionality, with Hypernative used for event monitoring. The FAQ does not name signers or thresholds or give the bounty size or scope, and the audit reports were not independently reviewed for this page. The QuillAudits article notes that privileged functions such as reward application and validator rebalancing are restricted to a MANAGER_ROLE, indicating reliance on a trusted role. These are project-reported claims, so confidence is limited.","heading":"Security posture and audits","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Kinetiq FAQ","type":"official","url":"https://kinetiq.xyz/docs/faq"},{"credibility":2,"name":"QuillAudits - Kinetiq liquid staking on Hyperliquid","type":"research","url":"https://www.quillaudits.com/blog/staking/kinetiq-liquid-staking-on-hyperliquid"}]},{"content":"Kinetiq's FAQ says Hyperliquid currently has no slashing mechanism but treats future slashing as a risk. It states kHYPE is not explicitly insured and that no external insurance coverage exists. Unstaking takes approximately 8-9 days, cannot be cancelled once started, and earns no rewards during the period; instant exit is available by swapping kHYPE on a supported DEX, which exposes holders to market price and liquidity. DefiLlama's token page estimates hypothetical bad debt of about $39.41M across lending venues (Morpho V1 and HyperLend Pooled named) if kHYPE were compromised. That figure is a modelled stress estimate, not an incident, and was taken from a search summary of the page rather than read directly.","heading":"Protocol risks: slashing, liquidity and insurance","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Kinetiq FAQ","type":"official","url":"https://kinetiq.xyz/docs/faq"},{"credibility":2,"name":"DefiLlama - kHYPE token page","type":"on_chain","url":"https://defillama.com/token/KHYPE"}]},{"content":"Searches for Kinetiq or kHYPE combined with exploit, hack, depeg, slashing and delisting returned no reports of such events, and no regulatory or court actions were found. Absence of results is not proof that none occurred, and the searches returned mostly aggregator pages. Users should check live exploit trackers and the project's official channels.","heading":"Incidents and enforcement history","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Kinetiq documentation","type":"official","url":"https://kinetiq.xyz/docs"}]}],"sources_used":[{"credibility":2,"name":"DefiLlama API - Kinetiq","type":"on_chain","url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/kinetiq"},{"credibility":2,"name":"DefiLlama - kHYPE token page","type":"on_chain","url":"https://defillama.com/token/KHYPE"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Kinetiq FAQ","type":"official","url":"https://kinetiq.xyz/docs/faq"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Kinetiq documentation","type":"official","url":"https://kinetiq.xyz/docs"},{"credibility":2,"name":"QuillAudits - Kinetiq liquid staking on Hyperliquid","type":"research","url":"https://www.quillaudits.com/blog/staking/kinetiq-liquid-staking-on-hyperliquid"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Alea Research - Kinetiq HyperEVM liquid staking","type":"research","url":"https://alearesearch.io/insights/kinetiq-hyperevm-liquid-staking"}],"summary":"Kinetiq is a liquid staking protocol on Hyperliquid's HyperEVM in which users stake HYPE and receive the kHYPE derivative token. DefiLlama showed roughly $1.00B in TVL when read on 13 October 2026. This review found no reported exploit, depeg or slashing event, but the evidence is thin and depends mostly on the project's own documentation.","timeline":[{"date":"2025-07","event":"Kinetiq launched, according to QuillAudits.","source":"QuillAudits","source_url":"https://www.quillaudits.com/blog/staking/kinetiq-liquid-staking-on-hyperliquid"},{"date":"2025-11","event":"KNTQ token launched, according to Alea Research.","source":"Alea Research","source_url":"https://alearesearch.io/insights/kinetiq-hyperevm-liquid-staking"}]},"v":1}