Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has called Hyperliquid one of the most important crypto projects to emerge in recent years. He says investors are still underestimating both the platform’s long-term potential and the valuation of its native HYPE token.
Growth Trajectory
In a recent memo, Hougan explained that Hyperliquid has evolved from a crypto perpetual futures exchange into a broader financial “super-app” that offers exposure across multiple asset classes, including commodities, S&P 500 futures, pre-IPO shares and prediction markets. He attributes part of the platform’s growth to a shifting regulatory environment under SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, whose November 2025 comments supported the development of multi-asset trading platforms operating outside traditional SEC structures.
Hougan noted that nearly half of Hyperliquid’s trading volume now comes from non-crypto assets, and he suggested that share could climb to about 70% by year-end. Although the platform remains inaccessible to U.S. retail users, he described it as “one of the fastest-growing financial businesses” he has encountered, pointing to roughly $170 billion in monthly trading volume.
He also characterized Hyperliquid as a “Gen 2” token designed from inception to accrue value. Hougan highlighted the platform’s reported policy of directing 99% of trading fees toward buying back HYPE tokens, a model he contrasted with many tokens launched during the tenure of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. He argued that earlier governance tokens often had weak or no direct economic ties to the underlying platform, which reduced expectations of profit.
“In the future, I suspect this will be the norm for token design. In the meantime, it’s one of the reasons Hyperliquid is the best-performing large-cap crypto asset in the world over the past year.”
Hougan added that HYPE appears to be one of the most mispriced assets in crypto today, affected by both category biases and anchoring errors that lead investors to underestimate its value.
Institutional Momentum
Hougan’s remarks follow recent institutional moves that have brought more mainstream visibility to HYPE. 21Shares launched the first U.S. spot ETF tracking Hyperliquid’s token under the THYP ticker, and Bitwise launched a separate ETF tracking HYPE under the BHYP ticker on the New York Stock Exchange.
While several major crypto assets have struggled, HYPE has led the market rally, gaining more than 25% over the past week alone. The combination of expanding non-crypto volume, a fee-driven token buyback mechanism and growing institutional products has helped push HYPE into the spotlight as investors reassess its long-term prospects.