Hyperliquid climbs as Bitwise touts tokenisation scale

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has remained close to record levels after a sharp September advance, supported by rising derivatives activity, institutional investment products and a fee-funded buyback mechanism, while Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan has separately argued that tokenised real-world assets could eventually reach $200 trillion.

HYPE touched an all-time high around $88-$90 this month after Hyperliquid’s open interest recovered to roughly $14.3 billion, close to levels seen before the platform’s October 2025 deleveraging. The token’s market value approached $20 billion around the record, although prices have since shown volatility as traders assessed stretched momentum and heavy positioning.

The rally has been underpinned partly by renewed growth in Hyperliquid’s core perpetual-futures business. Data published this month showed total open interest increasing by about $3.57 billion over one month, while the share attributable to permissionless HIP-3 markets declined, indicating that much of the latest expansion came from the platform’s core crypto perpetual contracts.

That mix matters for HYPE because fees from Hyperliquid’s core perpetual markets are channelled heavily towards purchases of the native token through the protocol’s Assistance Fund. Industry data indicate that close to 97 per cent of applicable core-market fees can flow into HYPE buybacks, creating a direct link between trading activity and token demand. Token repurchases and burns have become a central part of the market’s valuation case, though buybacks alone do not guarantee continuing price appreciation.

Institutional access has also widened. US-listed HYPE exchange-traded products have attracted capital since their launches, while filings have shown positions held by a range of investment firms. That demand has coincided with large on-chain purchases and staking by individual wallets, adding to spot-market buying as HYPE entered price discovery.

Bitwise launched a spot HYPE exchange-traded fund in May, giving brokerage investors regulated exposure to the token. Hougan said at the time that the product’s management-fee structure would direct a portion of revenue towards acquiring HYPE, reinforcing Bitwise’s stated view that economic value should accrue to token holders rather than remain detached from network activity over longer term.

Hyperliquid has also benefited from broader product expansion. HIP-3 allows independent builders to launch perpetual markets, helping the venue add exposure linked to assets beyond conventional cryptocurrencies. Hougan has argued that this development could eventually make Hyperliquid resemble a multi-asset trading platform rather than a specialised decentralised exchange.

His valuation argument, however, is distinct from claims that Hyperliquid itself is headed for a $200 trillion market capitalisation. Bitwise has not published such a forecast for HYPE. Hougan said in May that Hyperliquid should be assessed against a much larger addressable market, citing roughly $600 trillion of global assets spanning equities, bonds, commodities, foreign exchange and other instruments.

The $200 trillion figure comes from Hougan’s broader thesis on tokenisation. During discussions of real-world assets, he has said the tokenised market, then measured in the tens of billions of dollars, could expand dramatically as traditional securities and other assets move on-chain. He has cited global stocks of about $110 trillion, bonds near $140 trillion and real estate around $250 trillion to illustrate the scale of assets that could potentially be tokenised.

Hougan has separately estimated that institutions such as pension funds, insurers, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and central banks control between $100 trillion and $200 trillion in assets. He has argued that even a small allocation from those pools could deliver large capital flows into digital assets, particularly bitcoin. Those comments also do not amount to a prediction that HYPE will reach a $200 trillion valuation.

Bitwise’s bullish case for Hyperliquid rests instead on transaction growth, expansion into non-crypto markets and a token design that ties protocol activity to buybacks. Hougan described HYPE in May as undervalued despite its strong performance, arguing that investors were pricing it primarily as a crypto derivatives venue.