Binance Set to Exit EU as Coinbase Lists Tokenized Stocks, Illinois Taxes Crypto

Hyperliquid News

Hyperliquid crossed a major threshold this week as open interest on its perpetual futures venue pushed past $10 billion, cementing its place as the third-largest derivatives exchange in crypto. Roughly $4 billion of that total now sits in builder-deployed markets enabled by the HIP-3 framework, which lets developers list contracts beyond digital assets on its blockchain-based order book. Oil, Nasdaq 100 and technology-linked perpetuals rank among the busiest products, while synthetic pre-IPO markets attracted more than $250 million ahead of SpaceX's listing. Notably, nearly half of S&P 500 perpetual volume and over 60% of oil trading occurred outside US market hours, underscoring demand for round-the-clock onchain exposure.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao offered a striking endorsement of the platform this week, calling its model awesome and conceding that his former exchange cannot compete in the niche it occupies. He paired the praise with a pointed caveat, noting that the protocol operates without know-your-customer checks and adding that he assumes its operators have good lawyers — a warning carrying weight from someone who served four months in US federal prison over compliance failures. The remarks landed days after Hyperliquid cleared roughly $1.4 billion in SpaceX pre-IPO volume on listing day, even as Binance, Bybit and Bitget scrapped their own tokenized SpaceX products for lack of underlying shares.

The token has been one of the year's standout performers, climbing close to 200% in 2026 and trading above $76 at its peak as bitcoin and much of the broader market stalled. Alongside Uniswap and Worldcoin, HYPE led a small group of altcoin names posting double-digit gains on Tuesday. Investors increasingly frame the protocol as a credible challenger to centralized venues, with ambitions stretching into tokenized equities and commodities. Market watchers also pointed to its deepening ties with Coinbase after Circle's USDC became the primary trading pair, an arrangement that channels part of the Treasury yield backing the stablecoin into HYPE purchases.

Derivatives positioning has expanded sharply, with aggregate open interest on HYPE futures climbing 32% in a single week to around $3 billion as institutional flows accelerated. The exchange commands roughly 53% of perpetual trading volume, far ahead of Binance at 14%, Bybit at 9% and Bitget at 8%. That resilience has held even through a wider bear market, prompting traders to eye an $80 target. Still, some caution is warranted: funding rates have stayed below the neutral threshold, hinting at restrained bullish leverage, while a fully diluted valuation near $71 billion and a maximum supply of roughly 954 million tokens keep dilution concerns firmly in view.

Spot exchange-traded funds have become a central pillar of the rally, drawing roughly $153 million in net inflows and nearly $900 million in trading volume since launch across three direct-holding products from 21Shares, Bitwise and Grayscale. The token printed a fresh all-time high near $77 before easing, lifting its market value close to $16.6 billion. Demand has been tied to unusually shareholder-friendly economics, with about $850 million in 2025 revenue and the vast majority of that directed toward buying and burning HYPE. Analyst targets now span a wide range, from $83 on the conservative end to a closely watched $300 longer-term case.

The platform's momentum has reached traditional finance, where Intercontinental Exchange chief Jeffrey Sprecher — whose company owns the New York Stock Exchange — recently urged regulators to build a level playing field for 24/7 onchain perpetuals, arguing that authorities are blocking incumbents from a market that already exists. His comments followed discussions with Hyperliquid, which he cited as proof that always-on derivatives trading is viable. The protocol has continued widening its product suite, rolling out canonical prediction markets for offchain events. It also ranks as one of crypto's top fee generators, producing more than $15.6 million over the past week, trailing only stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle.

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite scoring engine (as of 12:33 UTC) rates first resistance at $73.62 at 72/100, driven by the confluence of the prior daily close, R1 and a Fibonacci retracement, with a stronger ceiling at $78.96, also 72/100, where the upper Bollinger Band and previous high align. On the downside, $66.43 support scores 72/100 via the S2 pivot and prior day low, backed by $60.37 at 68/100 from the 0.382 Fibo and EMA 20. With perpetual funding flat at 0.0022%, open interest at $1.65 billion and the Fear & Greed Index at 22 (Extreme Fear), an RSI near 59 and bullish MACD favor bulls while $66.43 holds; a daily close below $60.37 would invalidate the uptrend thesis.