Original article | Odaily Odaily(@OdailyChina)
Author | Asher (@Asher_0210 )
In the current crypto market, if there's one Altcoin that can still excite the market, it's probably HYPE.
Market data shows that HYPE's exchange rates against BTC and BNB have continued to hit new all-time highs , with HYPE/BTC currently trading at 0.0006249 and HYPE/BNB at 0.075. This means that HYPE's strength is not simply following the market rebound, but rather a sustained outperformance of mainstream crypto assets like BTC and BNB.
In the past, the outside world's understanding of Hyperliquid was mostly limited to its high-performance Perp DEX . But now, funds are clearly not just buying a decentralized trading platform token, but betting that Hyperliquid can integrate more asset types, more liquidity, and more trading scenarios into a single on-chain trading system.
HYPE's pricing performance also reflects the market's growing understanding of Hyperliquid's value.
In this article, Odaily Odaily will analyze the logic behind its rise by examining several key changes.
From THYP to BHYP, compliant buying of HYPE is beginning.
The first external catalyst for the recent rise in HYPE was the opening of the ETF channel.
Currently, two asset management firms have launched ETF products based on Hyperliquid. On May 12, 21Shares launched the Hyperliquid ETF, ticker symbol THYP; on May 15, Bitwise launched the Hyperliquid ETF, ticker symbol BHYP. Data shows that as of May 18 (Eastern Time), the 21Shares Hyperliquid ETF THYP had a total historical net inflow of $12.901 million; the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF BHYP had a total historical net inflow of $2.0446 million.
More importantly, Bitwise didn't stop at issuing ETFs. Yesterday, Bitwise announced that it will use 10% of the management fee income from its BHYP Hyperliquid ETF to hold HYPE on the company's balance sheet, and the relevant HYPE holdings will also be pledged.
This transforms the ETF narrative from a simple product launch into a potential source of sustained buying interest. The larger the ETF's size, the higher the management fee revenue, and theoretically, the more Bitwise can allocate to increasing its HYPE holdings. In the short term, this capital may not immediately influence prices; however, in the long term, it links ETF growth, asset management revenue, and HYPE holdings together.
In other words, the ETF didn't just bring a one-off surge of popularity to HYPE; it provided a new channel for funding. HYPE began to transform from a crypto-native asset into an on-chain trading platform token where traditional funds could also participate in pricing.
USDC's return to Hyperliquid has generated over $400,000 in potential daily buying interest for HYPE.
The second reason for HYPE's recent rise is that after USDC returned to Hyperliquid, the market began to recalculate the stable returns that the protocol could obtain in the future, and whether these returns could continue to flow into HYPE buybacks.
According to Hyperliquid's official announcement, Coinbase will act as the fund deployer, while Circle will be responsible for deploying CCTP and native cross-chain infrastructure. Both parties have committed to staking HYPE to activate AQAv2. This means that the return of USDC is not just a regular stablecoin integration, but a new mechanism established by Coinbase, Circle, and Hyperliquid around native USDC, cross-chain liquidity, and reserve yield distribution.
The key point is that Coinbase will subsequently share the majority of USDC reserve revenue with the Hyperliquid protocol. While the official revenue sharing ratio has not yet been announced, based on the previous USDH revenue distribution mechanism, Hyperliquid may actually receive approximately 90% of the reserve revenue. Therefore, the market also interprets AQAv2 as a protocol-based revenue sharing mechanism established by Hyperliquid for USDC reserves.
According to community calculations, based on a scale of $4.7 billion and an annualized yield of 3.8%, the USDC reserve yield corresponds to approximately $160 million in annualized revenue, which translates to about $440,000 in HYPE buyback orders per day . Once the AQAv2 interface is complete and fully operational, Hyperliquid will no longer rely solely on transaction fees for HYPE buybacks, but may gain an additional, relatively stable source of cash flow.
This is where the return of USDC truly impacts HYPE's pricing. Previously, HYPE's buyback strength primarily depended on trading volume; the more active the trading, the stronger the protocol's revenue and buyback capacity. However, with the addition of USDC reserve yields, HYPE's buying power no longer relies solely on transaction fees but also on the amount of stablecoin funds Hyperliquid can hold. In other words, transaction fee buybacks represent the platform's trading activity, while USDC reserve yield buybacks represent the platform's ability to hold funds. The market's repricing of HYPE may stem from observing that HYPE's buyback narrative is no longer solely driven by trading activity.
Hyperliquid is also getting into the prediction market by integrating with HIP-4.
Beyond RWA, Hyperliquid has also set its sights on the hottest sector in the crypto world this year—prediction markets .
On May 2nd, Hyperliquid launched HIP-4 Outcome Markets on its mainnet, initially introducing intraday binary outcome contracts for BTC. Simply put, users can trade whether the price of BTC is higher than a specified price at a given point in time. The contract price fluctuates between 0.001 and 0.999, corresponding to the market's pricing of the probability of an event occurring; if the event occurs, the settlement is 1, and if it does not occur, the settlement is 0.
According to Predictefy data, on the first day of HIP-4's launch, the trading volume of BTC price-related event contracts reached $6.15 million. Within this niche market alone, Hyperliquid's trading volume far exceeded that of similar markets such as Kalshi, Polymarket, and other prediction markets.
For HYPE, HIP-4 is more than just adding a product feature; it connects prediction markets with HYPE's staking, fee, and buyback mechanisms. By design, when deploying prediction events without permissions, market creators will need to stake 1 million HYPE, higher than the 500,000 HYPE required for deploying a perpetual market in HIP-3. Each staking seat can support both rolling and cyclical markets and can be reused after settlement; in case of oracle manipulation, abnormal market conditions, or prolonged downtime, staked assets may be forfeited.
Therefore, HIP-4 doesn't simply add a prediction market concept bonus to HYPE; rather, it provides a more direct path to value capture. More permissionless deployments of prediction events mean more HYPE staking demand, more trading volume means more fee revenue, and these fees will ultimately flow back into Hyperliquid's original buyback logic.
RWA open interest hits a new high; Hyperliquid's ceiling isn't just Perp DEX.
In addition to the return of ETF and USDC earnings, RWA is continuing to push the boundaries of Hyperliquid's trading.
Data shows that the open interest in RWA trading on the Hyperliquid platform has risen to a record high of $2.6 billion, more than doubling in value compared to two months ago. This data indicates that Hyperliquid is no longer just handling trading demand for crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL; real-world assets are also beginning to gain traction in its on-chain trading system.
This is crucial for HYPE's pricing. If Hyperliquid were merely a Perp DEX, the market's valuation anchor would primarily be its crypto cycle, trading volume, and fee revenue. However, RWA opens up another layer of possibilities, allowing stocks, commodities, precious metals, and pre-IPO assets to potentially become objects of on-chain 24/7 trading.
The significance of RWA for Hyperliquid isn't about opening more trading pairs, but rather about pulling the platform out of the internal competition within the crypto market. While Perp DEXs compete on who can capture the most crypto trading volume, RWA competes on who can bring off-chain asset trading demand onto-chain. If Hyperliquid can continue to grow this market share, HYPE's pricing will no longer solely follow crypto market trading cycles, but will begin to align with broader real-world asset trading demand.
The US SEC plans to introduce an exemption for tokenized stocks, adding further speculation to the RWA narrative.
The potential easing of regulations on tokenized stocks by the US SEC continues to raise the long-term ceiling for Hyperliquid. Reports indicate that the SEC is preparing to introduce innovative exemptions for tokenized stock trading, allowing tokens pegged to publicly traded company stocks to be traded on crypto platforms. In some cases, the platforms may not need to obtain full broker-dealer or exchange registration, and tokenized stocks issued by third parties may not even require the consent of the publicly traded company.
The significance for Hyperliquid isn't that it's forcing it to start tokenized stocks from scratch, but rather that it adds regulatory scrutiny to its already progressing RWA (Real-Time Transactional) approach. On the Hyperliquid platform, trading of real-world assets such as stocks and pre-IPO assets has already begun to scale, and RWA open interest has reached new highs. If US regulators do indeed open a testing window for tokenized stocks, the demand for such on-chain transactions could be further amplified.
For Hyperliquid, the clearer the regulatory boundaries, the less resistance there will likely be to on-chain trading of real-world assets. Those more likely to benefit from incremental growth are not individual asset issuers, but rather platforms capable of handling order books, liquidity, and settlement. If tokenized stocks transition from a gray-area experiment to compliant growth, Hyperliquid's already established RWA business will not merely be an early attempt, but could become the main battleground for the next round of on-chain trading competition.
The fundamentals are still strengthening, but in the short term, the market has entered a battleground between bulls and bears.
The logic behind HYPE's rise is becoming clearer. ETFs are opening up access to compliant funds, the return of USDC brings potential incremental buybacks, and RWA, prediction markets, and tokenized stocks continue to broaden Hyperliquid's trading boundaries. These changes all point in the same direction— Hyperliquid is no longer just a Perp DEX, but is expanding into a larger on-chain trading system.
However, the long-term logic holding true doesn't guarantee a continuous one-sided price increase in the short term. According to on-chain data, HYPE is currently experiencing a large-scale standoff between bullish and bearish whale, with the top two whale holding opposing positions, totaling over $60 million. The bulls are focused on Hyperliquid's future growth potential, while the bears are betting on a pullback after the rapid short-term price increase. As the size of whale positions grows, HYPE's short-term price may no longer be solely determined by fundamentals but will also be influenced by leverage liquidation, funding rates, and market sentiment.
Therefore, the short-term price trend of HYPE is difficult to predict, and depends more on which side, the bulls or the bears, is forced out first. However, looking at the long term, HYPE's fundamentals remain promising for the market. Hyperliquid continues to expand its trading assets, funding sources, and revenue streams, and HYPE is playing a more central role as a value carrier in buybacks, staking, and fee capture.
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