For perp dex what really matters is the speed and stability under stress (no overloads, no tx rejections).
Hyperliquid won because achieved it with its own EVM L1 chain (and because it still allows no-KYC trading, of course) with very fast finality, ability to handle and finalise many TPS.
Traders won't really care about flawed decentralisation as long as UX is flawless.
100% I'm not trying to compete with hyperliquid, you pretty much can't atp, the point of this project is to provide a non-custodial seamless experience to bitcoiners, hyperliquid has probably less than ~0.1% or less of the bitcoin supply being bridged over and used on their protocol, most of their volume is in stablecoins. What I'm trying to do is match performance and UX but all you need is a bitcoin wallet where you don't need to use a bridge or give up custody, I think their may be demand for that. But the point is I am trying to target a specific cohort. Hyperliquid would never be able to do anything like this because they are an EVM based chain.
But you do realise running all that infrastructure is quite costly, right?
Perp dexes shut down not because they don't make money, they shut down because they don't make enough after all costs.
Just running it for the sake of culture won't last for long. You'll need to attract big volumes or have unreasonably high fees.