Hyperliquid's native token HYPE hit a new all-time high of $65 on Tuesday, a day before Grayscale Research released a bullish report calling the exchange a potential 'financial services juggernaut.' The report, published Wednesday, cited Hyperliquid's product focus, builder-driven distribution, and token incentives as key growth drivers. The token's run comes as the platform continues to expand beyond crypto-native perpetuals.
The numbers behind the run
Hyperliquid processed roughly $2.9 trillion in perpetual futures volume in 2025. Right now it holds about $7 billion in open interest, making it the third or fourth largest perpetual futures exchange by that metric. HYPE's annualized price volatility sits at around 80% — about 40 percentage points above Bitcoin. That's a wild ride, but the market is pricing in upside.
New markets, new assets
Two recent governance proposals are widening Hyperliquid's addressable market. HIP-3 lets builders launch perpetual markets for non-crypto assets — stocks, commodities, index-based products. It's not just talk: during the February silver spike, HIP-3 silver perps saw more than $4 billion in daily volume. On February 5, that volume was roughly 1% of COMEX's silver notional volume. A small slice, but it shows demand exists.
HIP-4 extends the model to outcome markets — binary options that look a lot like prediction-market contracts. That opens the door to event-based trading, something most crypto exchanges haven't touched.
Why Grayscale is bullish
Grayscale's research team pointed to three things: Hyperliquid's singular focus on perpetuals trading, its distribution model that lets builders use 'builder codes' and frontends to route volume, and a token distribution that actually rewards users. The Phantom wallet integration is a good example — Phantom routed trades through builder codes and earned about $19.7 million in fees from that alone.
The report didn't shy away from the big picture. Grayscale said Hyperliquid could become a financial services juggernaut if it keeps executing, retains its community, and gets a tailwind from regulatory changes. That's a lot of 'ifs,' but the growth so far is real.
The regulatory hurdle
There's a catch. Grayscale noted that Hyperliquid's expansion potential depends heavily on changes to US financial services regulation. Without those changes, the exchange may be limited to non-US jurisdictions. That's a constraint the team will have to navigate — especially as they push into stocks, commodities, and binary options that attract more regulatory scrutiny.
For now, the market is betting on execution. The next concrete thing to watch is whether any US regulatory signals emerge — or whether Hyperliquid doubles down on offshore growth.
