- High-stakes voting is underway to select Hyperliquid’s native stablecoin.
- The Native Markets proposal, aligned with Stripe, has an early but slim lead.
- The winner will control $5.5 billion in deposits and key DeFi rails.
The opening shots have been fired in a high-stakes, fiercely contested battle for the financial direction of one of the fastest-growing crypto exchanges.
The race to establish Hyperliquid’s native stablecoin, USDH, is underway. In the early rounds, the well-resourced Native Markets team — aligned with Stripe — has secured a narrow advantage.
However, with the majority of voting power still undecided, the main prize remains very much in play.
As of Thursday morning in Hong Kong, Native Markets had captured 30.8 percent of delegated stake, a lead built with support from heavyweight validators such as infinitefield.xyz and Alphaticks.
Closest rivals Paxos Labs, a regulated New York-based issuer, and the innovative Ethena follow with 7.6 percent and 4.5 percent respectively. Other proposals, while notable, have not yet gained significant traction.
Hesitant whales and the road to victory
This is not a race that will be won in the opening phase. The more decisive picture is that over half of the total stake — 57 percent — remains unallocated.
That silent majority includes some of the network’s most powerful and influential validators, led by the single largest holder, Nansen x HypurrCollective, which controls more than 18 percent of votes, along with institutional giant Galaxy Digital.
The final outcome will largely depend on where these giants ultimately cast their votes.
Their decisions will determine whether Native Markets’ early momentum is a decisive opening salvo or merely a fleeting lead in a prolonged and unpredictable contest. The deadline for these critical votes is September 14.
Prizes of enormous consequence
The stakes in this contest cannot be overstated. This is far more than a simple token launch; it is a fight to connect a new stablecoin directly to the plumbing of DeFi’s financial infrastructure.
Hyperliquid currently holds a startling $5.5 billion in USDC deposits, representing roughly 7.5 percent of the global circulating stablecoin supply.
Replacing that liquidity with USDH would be a monumental shift, redirecting hundreds of millions of dollars in annual Treasury yield to the winning protocol.
Competing teams have offered generous incentives to win over validators. Paxos has pledged 95 percent of its revenue to buy back Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token. Frax has promised 100 percent of its yields directly to users. Agora has offered 100 percent of net revenue combined with institutional-grade custody.
With Hyperliquid already commanding nearly 80 percent of decentralized perpetuals trading volume, the victor won’t just issue a stablecoin — they will help forge the foundational rails for the next phase of decentralized finance.
Market update
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BTC: Bitcoin traded at $114,053, up 2.6 percent in the past 24 hours. The move reflects a short-term rebound driven by positive risk sentiment amid ongoing longer-term consolidation.
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ETH: Ethereum traded at $4,373.99, rising 2 percent as investors shrugged off a recent mass slashing event that penalized more than 30 validators, a sign of the network’s underlying resilience.
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Gold: Gold held near $3,635 per ounce after reaching a peak of $3,674 on Tuesday. Investors are awaiting upcoming U.S. inflation data, while ANZ has raised its year-end gold target to $3,800 and sees upside toward $4,000 by next June.