Foresight News Global

P.S. It’s also undervalued.

Hyperliquid is one of the most important crypto projects to emerge in years. Its native token, HYPE, is the best-performing large-cap crypto asset of 2026, up 77% YTD. And yet I still think investors are underestimating its impact and its value. For this week’s CIO Memo, I thought I’d explain why.

There are three things to know.

1) Hyperliquid Is the New Super-App

The most important regulatory speech given about crypto was SEC Chair Paul Atkins’ November 12, 2025 speech, “The SEC’s Approach to Crypto Assets: Inside ‘Project Crypto.” If you haven’t read it, please stop reading this memo and do so.

Atkins leads what many consider the most important financial regulator in the world, and this speech lays out his vision for the future of financial markets: He foresees nearly all markets moving onchain in the next five years.

One thing that Atkins specifically calls for in his speech is “super-apps”:

“As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of ‘super-apps’ in finance that allow for the custody and trading of a variety of asset classes within a single regulatory license.”

When I first read that line, I assumed he was talking about firms like Robinhood and Charles Schwab expanding beyond stocks to offer trading in other assets. But he was actually talking about something else:

“I have asked Commission staff to prepare recommendations for the Commission to consider that would allow tokens tied to an investment contract to trade on non-SEC regulated platforms [emphasis added], including those intermediaries registered at the CFTC or through a state regulatory regime.”

Which brings us to Hyperliquid.

What started as a perpetual futures exchange only for crypto assets now does nearly half its volume in non-crypto assets, including commodities, S&P 500 futures, pre-IPO stocks, and more. By the end of the year, I expect this will increase to 70%. They’ve now added prediction markets, too, which will give traders new ways to hedge real-world risk. In other words, Hyperliquid has become the “super-app” Atkins envisioned—a “non-SEC regulated platform” offering investors exposure to “a variety of asset classes.”

All of that said, Hyperliquid still needs to mature: It’s not currently available to U.S. users and it needs to integrate itself into the U.S. regulatory system. But that hasn’t stopped it from becoming one of the fastest-growing financial businesses I’ve ever seen.

The blazing growth—it did $170 billion in trading volume in the past month—has come from Hyperliquid’s decision to go after a market that’s much bigger than crypto. It isn’t trying to be the next Binance; it wants to be the largest and most valuable trading venue in the world.

2) Hyperliquid and the Rise of “Gen 2” Crypto Tokens

The Hyperliquid token, HYPE, started trading on November 29, 2024—a week after former chair Gary Gensler announced his departure from the SEC. It was one of the first major crypto projects to launch in this new era.

Under Gensler, crypto projects lived in fear of being deemed securities, which could expose developers to unlimited personal liability and risk. Crypto entrepreneurs in first-generation DeFi apps like Uniswap and Aave adapted to this by launching “governance tokens” that had little or no economic tie to the underlying blockchain or application. By removing any expectation of profit—a key legal test for whether an asset is considered a security—founders could limit their legal risk.

In the Atkins era, that paranoia has given way to greater clarity. Atkins’ speech lays out a different vision for when a crypto token constitutes a security, and it makes space for tokens that can gather value. Gen 1 tokens like Aave are changing their governance to adapt, but Hyperliquid represents something else: a “Gen 2” token designed from Day 1 to accrue value. Notably, 99% of trading fees generated on the Hyperliquid platform go directly to buying back HYPE. More trading → more buybacks → more value accrual. No ambiguity.

In the future, I suspect this will be the norm for token design. In the meantime, it’s one of the reasons Hyperliquid is the best-performing large-cap crypto asset in the world over the past year.

And it leads us directly into Point 3.

3) Hyperliquid Is Undervalued

I think HYPE is one of the most mispriced assets in crypto today. The mispricing stems from two errors.

The first is a category error. The market is valuing Hyperliquid as a perpetual crypto futures exchange that happens to be growing quickly. But it should be valued as a global super-app covering all assets: crypto, equities, commodities, FX, prediction markets, structured products, and more. Its addressable universe is not the $3 trillion crypto market, but the $600 trillion market for global assets. Those are two completely different businesses. Today’s prices suggest you’re being offered the second at the cost of the first.

The second mispricing is an anchoring error. Crypto investors have been (painfully) taught over the years that tokens don’t accrue value. They’ve watched countless projects grow in users, volume, and real-world utility while the tokens stagnate—or worse. And even though they hear that HYPE is different, they don’t fully believe it. So mentally, they lump HYPE together with UNI, when it should be more closely compared to Robinhood or CME stock, given its 99% buyback.

Right now, Hyperliquid’s annual revenue is estimated at $800 million to $1 billion. At a market cap around $10–11 billion, you are paying roughly 10–14x that buyback stream. For a fast-growing business, that is incredibly cheap. To use our previous analogy, Robinhood trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 37, and CME at 24, although neither is growing anywhere near as quickly as Hyperliquid. It’s not a one-for-one analogy—equity holders have stronger legal rights than token holders, for instance—but adjusted for growth, I’d argue it shows how far off the market is.

Hyperliquid and the Future of Innovation

For much of the past decade, many of crypto’s innovative projects wore a costume: tokens that didn’t accrue value. Foundations that didn’t own anything. Builders that danced around the SEC. The Atkins-era SEC has put an end to the masquerade: Projects can now look like the decentralized business operations they actually are.

Hyperliquid is the first big project that took the permission and ran with it. The product covers every asset class. The tokens capture real value. The revenue is real and the buyback is mechanical. None of this guarantees Hyperliquid will win—competitors will come, regulators can change course, etc.—but it’s an early, credible look at what crypto becomes when it’s allowed to grow up.

Most of the time, watching the future arrive is expensive. Every once in a while, the market hands you a discount.

Risks and Important Information

No Advice on Investment; Risk of Loss: Prior to making any investment decision, each investor must undertake its own independent examination and investigation, including the merits and risks involved in an investment, and must base its investment decision—including a determination whether the investment would be a suitable investment for the investor—on such examination and investigation.

Crypto assets are digital representations of value that function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a store of value, but they do not have legal tender status. Crypto assets are sometimes exchanged for U.S. dollars or other currencies around the world, but they are not currently backed nor supported by any government or central bank. Their value is completely derived by market forces of supply and demand, and they are more volatile than traditional currencies, stocks, or bonds.

Trading in crypto assets comes with significant risks, including volatile market price swings or flash crashes, market manipulation, and cybersecurity risks and risk of losing principal or all of your investment. In addition, crypto asset markets and exchanges are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange investing.

Crypto asset trading requires knowledge of crypto asset markets. In attempting to profit through crypto asset trading, you must compete with traders worldwide. You should have appropriate knowledge and experience before engaging in substantial crypto asset trading. Crypto asset trading can lead to large and immediate financial losses. Under certain market conditions, you may find it difficult or impossible to liquidate a position quickly at a reasonable price.