Hyperliquid Surges 24% as SEC Tokenizes Stocks, Bitwise Buys HYPE, a16z Wallet Adds $90M

Hyperliquid News

HYPE pushed to a fresh local high near $48 after US regulators signaled a sharp policy shift on tokenized equities. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now leaning toward permitting third-party platforms to tokenize stocks without requiring direct issuer consent, a reversal from January guidance that confined legitimate tokenized equity to issuer-integrated frameworks. The change would legitimize products from venues like Kraken's xStocks, Robinhood's Arbitrum-based equities and OKX's private-company perpetuals. With the tokenized securities market already swelling 200% year-over-year to roughly $30 billion, Hyperliquid is positioned as a primary beneficiary given its dominance in DeFi perpetuals infrastructure.

The token has climbed roughly 24% over six days to $47.6, outperforming a softer broader crypto market and now sitting within 19% of its all-time high. On-chain analytics show social dominance spiked to 1.79% on May 14, well above its recent baseline, as multiple catalysts converged. The US Senate Banking Committee advanced the Clarity Act the same day Coinbase confirmed it would become the official treasury deployer for USDC on Hyperliquid. Real-world asset open interest on the platform reached a record $2.6 billion, doubling over two months, while whale flows and institutional product launches reinforced demand from both retail and professional desks.

The Coinbase-Circle USDC arrangement may be the most structurally significant development of the cycle for the protocol. Under the Aligned Quote Asset framework, Hyperliquid will capture as much as 90% of reserve income generated by USDC deposits, redirecting revenue that previously flowed to the stablecoin issuer and its distribution partner. With more than $5 billion of stablecoin balances already on the platform, analysts estimate the deal could channel between $135 million and $160 million annually toward HYPE buybacks. If deposits expand, that figure could scale to $300-500 million in incremental annualized revenue, shifting the token's business model from trading-fee dependence toward steadier yield capture across cycles.

Technical traders are tracking a multi-month cup-and-handle structure on the three-day chart, with the neckline anchored in the $45-$47 zone. A confirmed breakout could project HYPE toward $71-$72, roughly 55% above current levels and a new record. Supporting that thesis, a wallet attributed by on-chain trackers to Andreessen Horowitz added another 372,000 HYPE worth about $16.91 million in a single three-hour window, lifting the address's accumulated position above $90 million. The token has rallied 80% year-to-date, while major blockchain assets like Bitcoin and Ether are down double digits over the same period.

Institutional product flow is also reinforcing the bid. Bitwise's BHYP exchange-traded fund debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on May 15, and the asset manager confirmed it will route 10% of management fees into spot HYPE held on its corporate balance sheet, with that allocation staked on-chain. The decision leans on Hyperliquid's design, where roughly 99% of network revenue funds buy-and-burn flows for the token. Hyperliquid generated nearly 40% of all blockchain fees last week, ahead of Ethereum at about 14% and Solana near 10%, pushing HYPE into the top-10 non-stablecoin altcoin ranks by market capitalization.

Pre-IPO perpetuals are emerging as the next growth vector. The HIP-3 framework, which lets third-party teams launch their own perp markets, has processed more than $120 billion in cumulative volume, with deployers recently accounting for nearly 48% of total platform activity. TradeXYZ demonstrated the model's pricing efficiency by quoting Cerebras perpetuals within 3% of the chipmaker's Nasdaq open, while off-chain secondary venues sat 35% off. The next cohort lines up SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI, with SpaceX reportedly targeting a June listing at a valuation of up to $2 trillion, an opening that could pull substantial retail flow onto an exchange tier traditional finance does not offer.

HYPE trades at $47.74 with a 4.74% 24-hour gain and an $11.4 billion market capitalization on $1.69 billion of turnover. Immediate resistance sits at $48.74, followed by $50.52 and the cycle-defining $55.00 ceiling, while support steps down through $46.03, $43.42 and $39.90. With RSI at 64.27, momentum is firm but not yet stretched into overbought territory, and the MACD remains bullish, consistent with an active bull market leg. A daily close above $48.74 would open a path to test the $55 region; a rejection that breaks $46.03 would shift attention to $43.42 and invalidate the immediate breakout thesis.