Transforming Ideas into Financial Products: Paragon's Pursuit of 'S&P 2.0'

In April 2026, Paragon launched a perpetual index market on Hyperliquid. Currently, it offers three types of cryptocurrency index futures, including a product that indexes the 'share of Bitcoin in the total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market.'

Why focus on the cryptocurrency index market, and what are the future plans? We spoke with founder El-Magbri to unravel the essence of 'What is Paragon?'

──Could you tell us about Mr. El-Magbri's background and what led you to enter the cryptocurrency industry?

El-Magbri: I started trading cryptocurrencies during my university days, which eventually led me to join the industry full-time around 2019. I contributed to building financial management tools within the Solana ecosystem and launching the data analysis site for RWA (Real World Assets) tokens, including stablecoins, called 'RWA.XYZ'.

Before founding Paragon, I established a product lab called 'Meridian Labs', specializing in developing capital market technologies related to blockchain, such as a derivatives matching engine and Staking-as-a-Service (SaaS).

In June 2025, I sold Meridian Labs to Galaxy Digital and initiated Paragon.

──What was the background behind the founding of Paragon? 

El-Magbri: After selling the product studio, I was actively trading myself. I have always been interested in the market, and I regularly used Bitcoin dominance and Total2 (the total market cap excluding Bitcoin) in my chart analysis and workflow.

During this process, I felt a disconnect because, while many people follow the S&P 500 or the Nikkei 225, there were no financial products or ETFs that directly reflected the charts we observed daily.

At that moment, I thought that just as there are financial products like the S&P 500, we could achieve something similar for cryptocurrency indices by leveraging ecosystems like Hyperliquid and HIP-3.

What Paragon aims to achieve is to transform such ideas into tradable financial products.

In today's world, where new asset classes like AI and computing are constantly emerging, Paragon seeks to define the standards and methodologies for the new generation of on-chain markets.

──Could you tell us about Paragon's unique strengths and advantages? 

El-Magbri: We aim to create 'buy' and 'sell' buttons for themes that traders are focusing on. We consider ourselves an evolved version of S&P Dow Jones Indices, or 'S&P 2.0'. This is because we are building tradable benchmarks that can immediately adapt to market trend changes and the formation of new assets.

Often, before forming an opinion on individual stocks, one first considers the direction of trends or asset classes. Enabling the trading of these general trends is the toolkit Paragon seeks to provide.

For example, in traditional financial trading, one can hold positions in the Nikkei 225, SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), or Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and trade from a macro perspective. However, we believe such tools do not yet exist in the world of cryptocurrencies. Paragon aims to offer this 'toolkit for trading trends'.

Additionally, our team's background is a strength. I come from the validator and oracle infrastructure domain, and our CTO has extensive experience in operating blockchain network oracles.

Everyone in our organization has rich experience in high-performance DeFi and HFT (high-frequency trading) related capital markets, which gives us a significant advantage in our HIP-3 deployment.

──Why focus on deployment on Hyperliquid and the currently deployed index futures?

El-Magbri: Hyperliquid embodies the next-generation on-chain ecosystem that can be built as a platform, rather than just connecting disparate parts. Utilizing the widespread presence of USDC and the liquidity of the order book was the shortest route to finding PMF (product-market fit).

Regarding index futures, we focus on where people's interests lie. Bitcoin dominance, for example, is regularly discussed and charted on platforms like TradingView and Discord.

Defining existing mental models and making them actionable is a very straightforward PoC (proof of concept). We plan to continue this approach across various asset classes.

──Do you plan to launch other index futures in the future? Also, have you set a specific launch date?

El-Magbri: We are currently planning several products. Recently, we registered the ticker symbol '$H100' on Hyperliquid. We aim to introduce the platform's first 'tradable computing asset'.

Additionally, we are developing new DeFi primitives for the Hyperliquid ecosystem to enable more efficient asset management and strategy execution in DeFi. We expect to announce this soon, so please stay tuned.

Regarding additional futures pairs, we plan to expand in a direction close to our initial crypto-native index efforts. For example, other dominance indicators and stablecoin dominance are very intriguing and highly useful.

Again, the core concept of Paragon is to make 'what people are currently interested in' tradable. This means that as long as we can build data feeds for what's trending in timelines and news, there is potential to establish them as products.

──Currently, you are offering features like 50x leverage that appeal to professionals. Do you have a vision to expand into products for the general public, similar to how the current S&P 500 allows for 'savings-like' accumulation of crypto asset indices?

El-Magbri: Our leverage is flexible and can be adjusted, so it can accommodate those who wish to operate with lower leverage. Expanding into retail products is indeed essential.

We don't see ourselves merely as a crypto asset company; rather, we position ourselves as a project building market infrastructure. One of our initiatives is to attract new users to Hyperliquid who have never participated before, creating an environment where ordinary people who have never traded on Hyperliquid can join.

To achieve this, we are also collaborating with partners to provide a more traditional finance-oriented, retail-friendly frontend. This clearly indicates that our retail expansion is an ongoing, concrete plan.

──What benefits do users gain from using Paragon? If you have any unique incentive designs or plans, please share.

El-Magbri: As we are in the launch phase, we frequently hold trading competitions and implement incentive programs.

However, what I want to emphasize most is that our product solves the issue of accurately representing targeted trades in a single position.

For example, in traditional finance, if you have the idea of 'going long on gold and short on tech stocks,' you can express your macro view in a single position by going long on the S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) or shorting the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ). Similarly, we provide traders with more direct exposure to their investment hypotheses.

Traditionally, managing multiple stocks or positions could become complex.

However, if you believe 'Bitcoin will outperform altcoins' or 'altcoins will outperform,' using our index allows for cleaner trading with less operational burden. This is precisely the value we offer.

──How do you perceive the current challenges of DeFi and perpetual DEXs? Additionally, how does Paragon plan to address these issues? 

El-Magbri: Recent hacking incidents suggest that the core issue often stems from 'human error,' which is frequently exploited by AI. Mistakes in multi-signature settings or inadequate device management are common causes, and I believe that with proper security measures, such threats can be effectively mitigated.

Moreover, not limited to DeFi, there seems to be a lack of 'product-centric thinking' in the current cryptocurrency market. There are too many complexities unrelated to resolving friction or solving problems.

Ideally, every product should focus on 'what it improves' and 'which problem it solves.' However, in the current crypto space, the order is sometimes reversed, with mechanisms and financial designs taking precedence.

Considering this backdrop, one of the significant challenges in the crypto industry is the insufficient penetration of a 'product-first' mindset. As this improves, the market should mature further.

──What are Paragon's future prospects? How do you envision the future of Paragon?

El-Magbri: As mentioned earlier, Paragon positions itself as an entity akin to 'S&P 2.0.' We aim to define the 'standards' and 'methodologies' for how future markets will function.

Our mission is to 'transform ideas into financial products.' We see this role as a significant business opportunity over the next decade.

Furthermore, Paragon's goal extends beyond creating valuable protocols in the crypto space. We aspire to become the core infrastructure of the market and the foundation for 'tradable consensus.'

There are two intriguing aspects of our business. First, we can devise our own methodologies to define the frontier of new ideas. Second, we can tackle the advanced engineering and mathematical challenges involved in operating futures markets to make them function as actual markets.

In essence, we are committed to the entire process from defining ideas to building the market infrastructure that drives them. This is our long-term vision.

Currently, Paragon's market is accessible through the Hyperliquid front-end. We will continue to announce new markets there, so please stay tuned.

For more details: Paragon.trade

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