Author: Catrina Wang

Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: As Crypto Twitter overwhelmingly appears bullish on HYPE, crypto analyst Catrina Wang stands on the opposite side. She argues from four dimensions: token unlock selling pressure, marginal buyer absence, hacking risks, and key person risks, stating that HYPE is unlikely to double on the current $40 billion FDV basis. The article does not deny the excellence of the Hyperliquid product itself but offers a calm valuation anchoring on its price trajectory.

I know this article won’t earn me any friends. Many of my favorite people in the crypto space are super bulls on HYPE, and I have no motivation to be bearish on it. However, I am writing this article because amidst the feverish sentiment in CT, someone needs to step up and provide a calm perspective. Here is my complete analysis of the contrarian viewpoint on HYPE.

Let’s be clear: I do not deny that HYPE is absolutely one of the most impressive projects currently. The following content does not evaluate Hyperliquid's fundamentals as a business but simply makes an objective judgment on its price trends.

Simply put: HYPE is not undervalued. I do not think it can double on the current price (40 dollars). When market sentiment warms up, there may be a brief surge, but within one standard deviation, the price of HYPE should stabilize below $80 in the long term. And this is already a relatively optimistic estimate. The reasons are as follows:

1. 75% of unlocked tokens leading to 3x selling pressure

The current FDV of HYPE is $40 billion, with only 25% in circulation, and unlocks continuing until 2028.

Comparing with traditional exchanges:

• CME's all-time market value of $118 billion, about 3 times HYPE's current FDV
• ICE's all-time high of $107 billion, about 2.5 times
• NASDAQ's all-time high of $57 billion, about 1.5 times

Those buying HYPE today must assume one of the following to earn 2x:

Either the Hyperliquid team never sells, or the market must flood in 6 times the current new buying power to absorb the 3 times net increase in selling pressure from the team's future unlocks.

In other words, HYPE needs to surpass NASDAQ, approaching CME's all-time market value. CME is the world's largest derivatives exchange, with an annual nominal trading volume exceeding $1 quadrillion, backed by a regulatory moat of 130 years.

2. Where do buyers come from?

Consider two groups of people: retail and institutional.

Retail side: When the whole world and their grandmothers know that HYPE is the benchmark project in the crypto space, what “secrets” or “alpha” can trigger new purchases? HYPE is no longer a secret. There may still be some funds observing, but how many can there be?

Institutional side: This area could indeed drive the market. Institutional buyers fall into two categories:

1. Wall Street hedge funds or mutual funds. I am very skeptical that Web2 hedge funds would touch HYPE because it is non-compliant. No KYC, realizing rapid expansion through regulatory arbitrage – these are characteristics of Hyperliquid's explosive growth, but would a fund or mutual fund really dare to underwrite it? You might say that buying through PURR is a pathway, but that depends on their risk appetite, and I won’t comment on that.

Even if Web2 mutual funds and endowments actually bought in, what do you think these Wall Street veterans would use to value HYPE? The answer is NASDAQ (1.5 times HYPE's ATH) and (rather begrudgingly) CME (less than 3 times HYPE's ATH).

2. Crypto hedge funds. Go ask any reliable hedge fund manager on CT: when HYPE reaches a market cap of $80 billion, will they still hold? Even if they want to, they must sell some to fulfill their fiduciary duties to LPs. Expecting a non-compliant perpetual contract exchange to be more valuable than CME (CME has 130 years of regulatory moat and the Lindy effect) is simply insane in the eyes of LPs.

So tell me: where do marginal buyers come from? And we need a lot of marginal buyers.

3. Escalating hacking risks

In the context of the upcoming capabilities of the Lazarus Group and similar Mythos-level AI hackers, if someone were to target the crypto industry, where do you think the biggest honeypot is?

4. Key person risk

The key person risk in Hyperliquid is among the most severe in the entire crypto industry. Jeff Yan leads an 11-person team, adhering to a product-first philosophy that does not accept VC. All infrastructure (matching engines, validator code, execution logic) is internally built. Can anyone point to the documentation for knowledge transfer on the backend? What if something goes wrong (knock on wood), what then?

Yan is the sole strategic and technical pillar of a protocol processing over $10 billion daily. There are no public co-founders, no visible succession plan, no governance oversight. I genuinely hope Jeff spends a substantial portion of the profits on security and personal protection.

5. Crypto traders are inherently profit-driven

Blockchain interoperability is a bug, not a feature, for projects looking to retain users. At some point, traders will feel that HYPE's upside potential grows too slowly and will rotate liquidity to the next 10x target. Network effects are not durable in the crypto space, I've written about this topic before.

To summarize, if I were a retail investor:

Planning to hold crypto assets long-term? Why choose HYPE? It has about 3 times net supply pressure due to 76% of tokens still locked. Bitcoin at $70,000, with 100% in circulation, fully decentralized and completely irreplaceable, isn’t it tempting? HYPE needs 3 times new buying power just to maintain its current price.

Want to gamble for a 10x? Why choose a token with a $40 billion FDV that everyone is calling out, competing DEXs springing up everywhere, and every KOL shouting about their positions? You might as well choose a LINDY meme coin that’s dropped over 90% from its peak, has meme attributes, and volatility diverging in the right direction.

As for comparing HYPE to BNB? This analogy doesn’t hold:

1. BNB is 100% in circulation, with no net selling pressure. HYPE has only 24% circulating.
2. Binance is willing to do a lot of "king-making" for BNB. Hyperliquid is left to run on its own.
3. The most critical question regarding price remains "who are the marginal buyers." For rational institutional buyers, the valuation anchor is CME/NASDAQ, not BNB.

"Go ask those KOLs who are calling out whether they would still buy HYPE now? HYPE has made many of them wealthy. So ask yourself: who is their exit liquidity?"