Arthur Hayes Predicts Hyperliquid’s HYPE Is Headed | Crypto News
Arthur Hayes is making a high-conviction guess on Hyperliquid, arguing in a new essay that HYPE might climb to $150 by August 2026 even if the broader crypto backdrop stays weak. His case rests on a acquainted exchange-token playbook, but up to date for a market where decentralized perps, not centralized venues, are more and more capturing the most precious trading stream.
Why Hayes Thinks Hyperliquid Can Reach $150
Hayes frames Hyperliquid as the standout asset in a sluggish or sideways market because exchanges can keep producing charges regardless of whether or not costs are rising. In his telling, that issues even more for Hyperliquid because 97% of protocol income is used to buy back HYPE from the market. “Hyperliquid, the dominant perp DEX, is the largest revenue-generating project that isn’t a stablecoin,” he wrote. “No other project in all of crypto hands as much money back to token holders as Hyperliquid.”
His goal implies roughly a 5x transfer from about $30 at the time of writing. To get there, Hayes says Hyperliquid would need to raise 30-day annualized income to $1.4 billion, a stage he says the platform beforehand reached in August last yr. His model also assumes the market will rerate the token from around 12 instances earnings to roughly 25.2 instances, still below or close to the vary he cites for major conventional exchange names.
A large half of the thesis is that Hyperliquid doesn’t need an general growth in crypto derivatives exercise to grow. It only wants to keep taking share from centralized exchanges. Hayes argues that a 3.97 percentage-point increase in market share could be enough for Hyperliquid to return to that $1.4 billion annualized income run price.
The engine for that next leg, in his view, is HIP-3, Hyperliquid’s permissionless perpetuals itemizing framework. Users who stake 500,000 HYPE can launch markets utilizing the platform’s matching and margin engine, and Hayes factors to early traction in silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500. “In only four months, HIP-3 volumes account for close to 10% of total Hyperliquid revenues,” he wrote. “Permissionless listings were always the holy grail of DEXs, and the rapid growth in trading volumes proves this is how Hyperliquid will differentiate itself from the pack.”
That is why his model assumes HIP-3 income rises 160% over six months. He also flags HIP-4, which he says ought to allow permissionless prediction markets, as a potential upside kicker not included in the bottom case.
Competition is the main objection Hayes tries to neutralize. He argues that headline volumes across perp DEXs may be distorted by wash trading, factors farming and other incentives, making uncooked quantity a poor measure of real usage.
His most well-liked metric is ADV-to-OI, or average daily quantity relative to open curiosity, because open curiosity requires real capital to be posted. On that foundation, he says Hyperliquid has the most “real” quantity among the top 5 perp DEXs. He also says order-book snapshots for Bitcoin perps confirmed Hyperliquid was normally the most cost effective place to execute measurement once slippage was included.
Hayes also spend time on token provide overhang, another issue that had made him tactically bearish late last yr. He notes that the workforce distributed close to 20% of awarded tokens in November and December, but only about 1% in January and February. “With that out of the way, the team drastically reduced distributions in order to help HYPE rebound,” he wrote, while acknowledging that this half is speculative.
Even his stress case stays constructive. Hayes says that if the market only pays a 12x earnings a number of and the workforce receives 9.91 million HYPE per month, but income still recovers to $1.4 billion annualized, the token would still be value about $58, or roughly 75% above current ranges.
At press time, HYPE traded at $33.237.
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