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

Written by: Ma He, Foresight News

On May 21, HYPE's price once broke through 56 USD, hitting a new high since September 2025, with a 24-hour increase of over 20% and a market capitalization surpassing 14.3 billion USD. According to the latest ASXN data, the total number of users is 1.2 million, with a total trading volume of 4.33 trillion.

While mainstream assets like Bitcoin are fluctuating, what is the reason behind HYPE showing such a strong independent trend? Perhaps it is no longer simply driven by market beta but is the result of the protocol's transformation from a high-performance Perp DEX to an "on-chain finance super terminal" — the multiple positive feedback loops of trading volume, fee income, buyback mechanism, product iteration, and institutional compliance channels are reshaping HYPE's valuation framework.

HYPE is no longer merely viewed as a high-performance perpetual DEX token but is being re-evaluated 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 Market

Hyperliquid's end of 2024 TGE and large-scale airdrop saw the initial price of HYPE be around 3.81 USD. On September 18, 2025, HYPE reached an all-time high of 59.46 USD, and subsequently, the coin price adjusted back to around 20 USD along with the market. However, the foundation for HYPE's independent trend was established with the HIP-3 upgrade in October 2025.

This proposal allowed any user staking 500,000 HYPE to deploy perpetual contract markets without permission, expanding the platform from purely crypto perpetual to commodities, stock indices, RWA, and even Pre-IPO assets. In just a few months, the HIP-3 market absorbed over 1 billion USD in OI, 25 billion USD in trading volume, and 3 million USD in fees; daily trading peaks for commodities like silver and oil surpassed 1 billion USD. By May 2026, RWA perpetual OI continuously set new highs, with non-standard assets like S&P 500, SpaceX futures becoming new growth poles, and RWA categories occupied 23 of the top 30 trading pairs on the platform at one point.

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

TradFi Assets 24/7 On-Chain Trading

The underlying advantage of Hyperliquid lies in its HyperBFT consensus: 200,000 orders per second, 0.07 seconds block confirmation, and an entirely on-chain order book. This allows the platform to seamlessly capture global macro events — during weekends and US stock market closures, as gold and silver surge and Middle Eastern situations drive up oil prices, traders can hedge in real-time.

From the end of 2025 to now, the trading frenzy led by gold and silver has directly propelled HYPE: silver perpetual daily trading has exceeded 1 billion USD, driving overall volume.

More critically, RWA trading is liberating the platform from "crypto inner turmoil": RWA OI has reached a historical high of 2.6 billion USD, doubling from two months prior. This growth directly decouples HYPE's valuation from the pure crypto cycle and instead binds it to the global real asset trading demand.

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

Buyback + USDC Earnings + ETF

The driving force behind HYPE's bullish momentum is its unique "buyback flywheel." The protocol clearly states that 97% (up to 99% during certain periods) of trading fees flow into the Assistance Fund, which continuously buys HYPE on the open market to burn or hold long-term.

As of mid-May 2026, the fund has cumulatively repurchased over 1 billion USD worth of HYPE, with the buyback volume in 2025 alone exceeding 645 million USD (accounting for 46% of the industry’s total buybacks), and the current holdings corresponding to a market value of over 2 billion USD, with an average purchase price of about 14 USD, resulting in significant unrealized gains. Data from May 17-18 showed that the fund's single-day buyback volume once reached 38,000 HYPE.

According to The Block data, from May 17 to now, Hyperliquid's fee income has surpassed 10 million USD, holding a 42.2% market share, leading all public chains.

The USDC treasury deployment on May 16 further adds a new engine: Coinbase as the capital deployment party and Circle providing the CCTP infrastructure. After both parties stake HYPE to activate AQAv2, it is expected that 90% of USDC reserve earnings (assuming a scale of 4.7 billion USD and an annualized yield of 3.8%) will belong to the protocol, yielding about 160 million USD annually, with a daily buyback potential of up to 440,000 USD.

This mechanism means that HYPE's buybacks will no longer solely rely on trading volume, but also establish a programmatic buying demand of "stablecoin deposit attraction → reserve earnings → protocol sharing," significantly enhancing the stability and predictability of the flywheel.

The ETF channel has opened the door for compliant capital influx. In May, the ETF products of 21Shares THYP and Bitwise BHYP were launched. Moreover, Bitwise has explicitly committed to using 10% of BHYP's management fees to buy and stake HYPE — equivalent to securing a long-term buying channel for the protocol that automatically amplifies with ETF scale growth, transforming HYPE from a purely crypto asset into one priced by TradFi.

As of May 21, hypurrscan data shows that the Assistance Fund has become the largest buyback force in the industry: cumulatively buying back over 2.49 billion USD worth of HYPE since 2025.

a16z has become the sixth largest holder of HYPE, with an average price of 38.7 USD

AI Auntie blockchain tracking shows that as of May 20, the a16z-associated wallet has cumulatively purchased 2.11 million HYPE (worth about 90.87 million USD) since April 14, 2026, making it the sixth largest holder, with most staked.

The associated address:

· In the past 11 hours, 206,000 HYPE has been accumulated (9.95 million USD);

· Since April 16, 2.35 million HYPE has been accumulated (102 million USD);

· Since 2026, 4.92 million HYPE has been accumulated (183 million USD);

· Since August 2025, a large accumulation mode has been initiated, cumulatively accumulating 9.18 million HYPE (356 million USD), with an average price of 38.77 USD.

In April of this year, Arthur Hayes publicly stated, "HYPE is expected to reach 150 USD before August," with the core logic being the exponential expansion of DEX derivatives volume and buyback scale.

On the regulatory front, the SEC is brewing an "innovation exemption" framework, allowing tokenized stocks to trade in specific scenarios without the need for full broker/exchange registration. This potential positive news will further open up Hyperliquid's imagination space in the fields of stock tokenization and Pre-IPO.