HYPE is no longer simply regarded as a high-performance perpetual DEX token, but rather a on-chain trading system.

Author: Ma He, Foresight News

On May 21, HYPE's price briefly exceeded $56, hitting a new high since September 2025 with a 24-hour gain of over 20%!， and its market cap surpassed $14.3 billion. According to the latest ASXN data, it has 1.2 million total users and $4.33 trillion in total trading volume.

Amidst the volatility of major assets like Bitcoin, why has HYPE shown such a strong independent trend? Perhaps it's no longer driven solely by market beta, but the result of the protocol's transformation from a high-performance Perp DEX to an "on-chain financial super terminal"—multiple positive feedback loops from trading volume, fee revenue, buyback mechanisms, product iterations, and institutional compliance channels are reshaping HYPE's valuation framework.

HYPE is no longer simply regarded as a high-performance perpetual DEX token, but is revalued as an on-chain trading system capable of capturing all asset classes including crypto, commodities, RWA, and even prediction markets.

From HIP-3 to HIP-4 Prediction Markets

Since Hyperliquid's TGE and large-scale airdrop in late 2024, HYPE's initial price was around $3.81. On September 18, 2025, HYPE hit an all-time high of $59.46, then corrected to around $20 following the market. However, the foundation for HYPE's independent trend was truly laid by the HIP-3 upgrade in October 2025.

This proposal allows any user staking 500,000 HYPE to permissionlessly deploy perpetual contract markets, expanding the platform from pure crypto perps to commodities, stock indices, RWA, and even pre-IPO assets. Within a few months, HIP-3 markets absorbed over $1 billion in OI, $25 billion in trading volume, and $3 million in fees; daily trading peaks for commodities like silver and oil exceeded $1 billion. In May 2026, RWA perpetual OI hit new highs repeatedly, with non-standard assets like S&P 500 and SpaceX futures becoming new growth drivers—RWA pairs once accounted for 23 of the platform's top 30 trading pairs.

HIP-4 further raised the entry threshold: deploying prediction markets requires staking 1 million HYPE (higher than HIP-3's 500,000), staking seats support rolling and periodic markets, can be reused after settlement, and face slashing penalties (oracle manipulation, abnormal market conditions, or long downtime). This design increases HYPE staking demand and integrates prediction market fees into the protocol's buyback logic, forming a closed loop of "product expansion → more participants → higher fees → stronger buybacks".

24/7 On-Chain Trading of TradFi Assets

Hyperliquid's underlying advantage lies in its HyperBFT consensus: 200,000 orders per second, 0.07-second block confirmation, and a fully on-chain order book. This allows the platform to seamlessly capture global macro events—during weekends or U.S. stock market closures, traders can hedge in real time when gold/silver surge or Middle East tensions push up oil prices.

Since the end of 2025, the commodity trading frenzy led by gold and silver has directly pushed up HYPE: silver perpetuals once exceeded $1 billion in daily trading, driving overall volume.

More importantly, RWA trading is freeing the platform from "crypto inward competition": RWA OI has reached a historical high of $2.6 billion, doubling from two months ago. This growth directly decouples HYPE's valuation from pure crypto cycles and instead ties it to global real asset trading demand.

Compared to CEXs, Hyperliquid's transparency and permissionless nature allow institutions and retail investors to trade RWA assets on the same ledger, making it a "safe haven in the bear market" in 2026.

Buybacks + USDC Yields + ETFs

The most solid driver of HYPE's surge lies in its unique "buyback flywheel". The protocol explicitly stipulates that 97%!（(MISSING)up to 99%!）(MISSING) of trading fees flow into the Assistance Fund, which continuously buys HYPE on the open market for destruction or long-term holding.

As of mid-May 2026, the fund has repurchased over $1 billion worth of HYPE, with 2025 alone seeing repurchases exceeding $645 million (accounting for 46%!)(MISSING) of the industry's total repurchases. Its current holdings correspond to a market value of over $2 billion, with an early average purchase price of around $14, resulting in significant paper profits. Data from May 17-18 shows the fund's single-day purchase volume reached 38,000 HYPE.

According to The Block data, since May 17, Hyperliquid's fee revenue has exceeded $10 million, accounting for 42.2%!of(MISSING) the market share and leading all public chains.

The USDC treasury deployment on May 16 added a new engine: with Coinbase as the capital deployer and Circle providing CCTP infrastructure, after both parties stake HYPE to activate AQAv2, it is expected that 90%!U(MISSING)SDC reserve yields (assuming a $4.7 billion scale and 3.8%!annual(MISSING) return) will belong to the protocol, generating approximately $160 million in annual revenue and a daily buyback potential of $440,000.

This mechanism means HYPE repurchases no longer rely solely on trading volume; it adds a programmatic buying demand of "stablecoin deposit attraction → reserve yield → protocol share", greatly enhancing the flywheel's stability and predictability.

The ETF channel opens the door for compliant capital. In May, 21Shares THYP and Bitwise BHYP ETF products were launched. Additionally, Bitwise explicitly promised to use 10%!of(MISSING) BHYP's management fees to buy and stake HYPE—this is equivalent to locking in a long-term buying channel for the protocol that automatically scales with ETF size, transforming HYPE from a pure crypto asset to a TradFi-priced asset.

As of May 21, hypurrscan data shows the Assistance Fund has become the industry's largest repurchaser:累计 repurchased over $2.49 billion worth of HYPE since 2025.

a16z Becomes HYPE's 6th Largest Holder with an Average Price of $38.7

On-chain tracking by AI Yi shows that as of May 20, a16z-associated wallets have purchased a total of 2.11 million HYPE (worth approximately $90.87 million) since April 14, 2026, becoming the 6th largest holder, with most in staked status.

Its associated addresses:

· Accumulated 206,000 HYPE ($9.95 million) in the past 11 hours;

· Accumulated 2.35 million HYPE ($102 million) since April 16;

· Accumulated 4.92 million HYPE ($183 million) since 2026;

· Started large-scale accumulation in August 2025, with a total position of 9.18 million HYPE ($356 million) at an average price of $38.77.

In April this year, Arthur Hayes publicly stated that "HYPE is expected to reach $150 by August", with the core logic being the exponential expansion of DEX derivative volume and repurchase scale.

On the regulatory front, the SEC is developing an "innovation exemption" framework that allows tokenized stocks to trade in specific scenarios without full broker/exchange registration. This potential positive will further open up Hyperliquid's imagination in areas like stock tokenization and pre-IPO.