Original Title: Arthur Hayes predicts 150 for HYPE: Can Hyperliquid's trading boom make it happen?
Original Author: Ishika Kumari, AMB Crypto
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: Against the backdrop of increasing macro uncertainty and a prolonged downturn in sentiment in the crypto market, a curious divergence is emerging: investor sentiment remains in the "extreme fear" zone, while the prices of certain assets have started to rise slowly.
Recently, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid (HYPE) has become the focus of community discussion. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes publicly set a target price of $150 (about 5 times the current price), attracting market attention. As of March 12, 2026, the HYPE price is about $36, with a 24-hour increase of about 5% and a cumulative increase of over 11% in the past week.
Various explanations have been provided by the community regarding the rationale behind its rise: for example, the platform uses about 97% of its revenue for buybacks and token destruction, forming a value-capturing mechanism directly linked to trading activity; the HIP-3 mechanism allows users to create more types of perpetual markets on-chain, expanding potential trading demand; meanwhile, a lower ADV/OI ratio is also viewed by some market participants as a signal of more "real" trading volume.
This article summarizes the views of Arthur Hayes and several community participants, attempting to understand the structural reasons behind HYPE's recent strength in a market environment where sentiment remains cautious.
The following is the original text:
The crypto market is currently in a rather delicate state: prices are slowly rising, but investor sentiment remains extremely low.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains in the "extreme fear" zone. However, for seasoned market participants like BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, this divergence between prices and sentiment releases another signal.
Arthur Hayes: HYPE target price of $150
Hayes believes that instead of focusing solely on short-term price fluctuations or recklessly shorting the market, it is better to shift attention to decentralized exchanges (DEX).
He reviewed past market cycles and pointed out that during the sideways market of 2023, although traders as a whole performed poorly, trading platforms like GMX still achieved sustained growth through trading fees.
In his view, as more and more trading activities shift on-chain, Hyperliquid (HYPE) could also follow a similar development path.
In contrast, institutions like Tether or Circle typically retain profits within the company; whereas Hyperliquid adopts a different mechanism—about 97% of revenue is used to buy back and destroy HYPE tokens, thereby reducing market circulation and providing long-term support for the price.
Based on this business model, Arthur Hayes believes HYPE's price has the potential to rise to $150.
"My target price for HYPE in August 2026 is $150. Calculated at about $30 when I wrote this article, that means approximately 5 times the upside potential."
Related reading: "Why HYPE is a 5x potential asset?"
What conditions are needed for Hyperliquid to explode?
However, for this target price to have a basis in reality, Hyperliquid still needs to achieve stronger growth. Currently, the platform's annualized revenue is about $843 million, but to support such a valuation, revenue would roughly need to increase to about $1.4 billion.
One key growth driver could come from HIP-3.
HIP-3 allows users to create permissionless perpetual contract markets on-chain and directly anchor underlying assets to traditional assets such as the NASDAQ-100 Index or precious metals. To launch such markets, users need to stake 500,000 HYPE tokens.
Although this mechanism was launched not long ago, HIP-3 has already contributed about 10% of Hyperliquid's revenue. If more traders begin to hedge traditional asset risks on-chain in the future, this business segment could see significant expansion.
The community is generally bullish on HYPE
Echoing Hayes's view, a user on X stated, "Even if the world is at war, holding HYPE might be the best decision."
Tweet content: Why holding HYPE might still be the best decision even if the world is at war. Although the entire crypto space is surrounded by various negative news, HYPE remains one of the best assets.
The Hyperliquid team has timed the launch of the HIP-3 market perfectly. At this stage, the overall interest in the crypto community has significantly dwindled, with panic levels hitting historical highs, even lower than during the FTX collapse. On Hyperliquid, when ranking by daily trading volume, only 10 out of the top 30 trading pairs are crypto-related, while the rest are stock market assets.
HIP-3 is an astonishing breakthrough and will remain significant in the coming years; Hyperliquid will too—it offers the highest liquidity, no KYC, and 24/7 trading.
Jeff is the first to establish such a business model: the tokens themselves have real significance in this system. While 99% of projects gradually disappear after launch, HYPE continues to thrive.
Additionally, another user mentioned, "As long as global supply shortages lead to a surge in commodity prices, Hyperliquid will capture the monetary speculation demand. Trading fees and profits from settlements will flow to HYPE, making its performance outpace the market. We’ve seen this situation in gold a few weeks ago, and now we see the same phenomenon in CL (crude oil)."
Another important indicator supporting the bullish view is the ADV/OI ratio (Average Daily Volume / Open Interest).
Arthur Hayes cited this indicator, stating: "Among the top five perpetual contract DEXs, Hyperliquid's trading volume is the most authentic because it has the lowest ADV/OI ratio."
However, Hayes also believes that as time passes and market conditions change, Hyperliquid's visible share in overall daily trading volume (ADV) will continue to rise.
&HYPE: Price and On-Chain Indicators
Meanwhile, at the time of writing, HYPE's trading price is around $34.98, which has risen by 13.37% in the past 24 hours. However, although the price performance is strong, on-chain data indicates that market sentiment remains relatively cautious.
Santiment's data shows that between mid-January and mid-February, there was a noticeable divergence between developers' building progress and market sentiment: project development activity continued to advance, but market sentiment towards the project did not warm up simultaneously.
Source: Santiment
Nonetheless, investor sentiment remains negative, mainly because traders are more focused on short-term price fluctuations. Only recently has market sentiment started to recover, indicating that the market may finally be beginning to recognize the platform's increasingly robust utility and revenue model.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time Hayes has shown strong confidence in HYPE. As early as February 21, the BitMEX co-founder stated on X that he was continuously increasing his holdings in HYPE and set a target price of $150.
In his previous assessment, this target price was expected to be achieved by July 2026; in the latest forecast, the time frame has been pushed back to around August 2026. However, the premise is that the protocol needs to achieve about $1.4 billion in annual revenue.
Final Summary
Indicators like Hyperliquid's lower ADV/OI ratio suggest that its trading activity is more driven by real users, rather than artificially created false trading volume.
Meanwhile, market sentiment remains cautious, indicating that investors are still waiting for clearer signals to confirm that the platform can achieve sustained growth.
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