Author: Claude, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Introduction: Crypto venture capital firm Multicoin Capital released a report stating that HYPE is severely undervalued, giving a benchmark price target of $319 for 2028, representing an over 400% upside from the current price of about $63. The firm revealed that it has been "aggressively accumulating" HYPE since February, making it one of the largest positions in its hedge fund. Multicoin's core argument is that the market is pricing Hyperliquid as a fast-growing perpetual contract DEX, but it is evolving into a "everything exchange".

Multicoin Reveals: $319 Price Target, $8 Billion Annual Profit in 2028

Multicoin Capital’s report released on Thursday publicly disclosed its positions and valuation models. The firm stated that it has been "aggressively buying" HYPE since February this year, and HYPE is now one of the largest positions in its liquidity hedge fund.

According to a summary report published by Multicoin partner Spencer Applebaum on X platform, Multicoin's baseline scenario assumes Hyperliquid will generate approximately $8 billion in annualized profit by 2028, corresponding to a HYPE price of about $319 based on a 20x price-to-earnings ratio. HYPE was about $62.47 at the time of writing, making this target price represent over 400% upside potential.

Multicoin wrote in its report: "At around $63, we believe the market has significantly mispriced HYPE, too narrowly viewing it as a fast-growing perpetual contract DEX."

The unique aspect of this report is Multicoin's revealing stance. The firm deliberately emphasized that it was bullish on BNB when its price was around $10 in 2019 (BNB's current price exceeds $550) and was an early heavy investor in the Solana ecosystem. In other words, Multicoin is telling the market: our selection track record is worth referencing, and HYPE is next.

From Perpetual Contract DEX to "Everything Exchange": How Data Supports This

Multicoin's bullish core logic is that Hyperliquid is evolving from a crypto perpetual contract trading platform to a decentralized finance hub that can trade almost all assets, including stocks, commodities, and prediction markets.

The growth data is indeed remarkable. According to the Multicoin report, the number of Hyperliquid users will grow from about 300,000 in 2025 to 923,000, with open interest skyrocketing from approximately $2 billion to $6 billion (a threefold increase), processing $2.9 trillion in trading volume throughout the year and generating about $873 million in revenue, making it the largest decentralized derivatives exchange currently.

The most convincing case occurred two weeks ago. On the day SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq with a valuation exceeding $1.7 trillion, the trading volume of the SPCX perpetual contract on Hyperliquid reached $1.4 billion in a single day, accounting for 30% of the total trading volume on the HIP-3 market that day. In comparison, during the three weeks before the IPO, the average daily trading volume of the contract was only about $26 million. Bybit, Binance, and Bitget were forced to cancel their respective SpaceX tokenized products due to an inability to secure enough underlying stocks, while Hyperliquid's synthetic perpetual contract was completely unaffected.

In the first half of June, the total trading volume of stock-linked perpetual contracts under the HIP-3 framework has exceeded $18.8 billion, surpassing the combined trading volume of both crude oil and Brent crude's perpetual contracts on the same platform. The cumulative total trading volume of the HIP-3 market has surpassed $300 billion, with a peak open interest reaching $3.2 billion.

Multicoin pointed out that its $319 benchmark target price "has not fully accounted for several significant catalysts, including HIP-4 (prediction markets), HyperEVM, builder-code distribution, and the impact of composite margin on core products".

Buybacks and Burns Construct Price Floor; ETFs Provide Institutional Access

The token economics of Hyperliquid is a key component of HYPE's valuation logic. 97% of platform trading fees flow into the Assistance Fund, which is used to buy back and burn HYPE on the open market. According to publicly available data, since launch, Hyperliquid has burned over $3.1 billion worth of HYPE, accounting for approximately 4.6% of the max supply. The buyback scale over the last 90 days has been about $135 million, continuously absorbing sell pressure.

On the institutional side, Bitwise launched the Hyperliquid Staking ETP (BHYP) on the Deutsche Börse Xetra in April this year and introduced the Bitwise HYPE ETF in May in the United States, becoming one of the first regulated products providing exposure to HYPE. Bitwise promised to publicly disclose the wallet addresses of BHYP, allowing investors to independently track the fund's holdings.

HYPE achieved an all-time high of approximately $76.70 on June 16, and subsequently retraced to around $62 following the broader market downturn. The current FDV is about $60 billion, with a circulating market cap of about $15.5 billion.

Not Just Multicoin Bullish: Hayes Calls for $5000, Hyperion Compares to CME

Multicoin is not the only institution betting heavily on HYPE. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has called for an extreme target price of $5000 for HYPE by 2028 at the 2025 WebX Tokyo Conference, based on the assumption that the global supply of stablecoins will reach $10 trillion and Hyperliquid will capture 26.4% of the trading volume. Hayes himself purchased 58,631 HYPE through OTC trading, investing approximately $4.3 million, and publicly bet $100,000 with Multicoin’s Kyle Samani that HYPE will outperform all top ten tokens by market cap before the end of the year.

Hyperion DeFi CEO Hyunsu Jung also recently compared the FDV of Hyperliquid with the market valuations of CME Group, Interactive Brokers, and Robinhood, suggesting that Hyperliquid is entering the valuation zone of traditional exchanges, but its growth rate far exceeds that of the latter.

Risks also exist. Hyperliquid currently restricts U.S. users from directly using the platform (ETFs provide indirect exposure), and any structural adjustments required by regulators could suppress growth. Events of IPO magnitude like SpaceX’s are not replicable, and platform revenues heavily depend on cyclical fluctuations in market sentiment and trading volume. As a major holder, Multicoin's report's biased stance also needs to be taken into account.