NewsFlash Articles Data Fundraising Skill&API

Bitwise: Is Hyperliquid Still Severely Undervalued?

Bitwise

Read this article in 10 Minutes

When the law is no longer a barrier, what will the future of Hyperliquid look like?

Original Title: Hyperliquid Is What You Get When Crypto Is Allowed To Grow Up

Original Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise
Original Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Hyperliquid is one of the most significant emerging projects in the crypto space in recent years. Its native token, HYPE, was the best-performing large-cap crypto asset in 2026, having risen by 77% this year. However, I still believe that the market severely underestimates its influence and true value, and I would like to explain the reasons in detail.

There are three key points worth highlighting.

1. Hyperliquid Is Emerging as the Next-Generation Super-App

On November 12, 2025, Paul Atkins, the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), delivered a highly significant regulatory speech titled "SEC's Regulatory Approach to Crypto Assets: Project Crypto Insider View." If you haven't read it yet, please take a moment to do so.

As one of the most important financial regulators globally, Atkins clearly outlined his vision for the financial markets in the next five years: almost all markets will move to operate on-chain.

He particularly emphasized the concept of "super-apps":

"I strongly support super-apps in the financial space, which enable custody and trading of multiple asset classes under one regulatory license."

Initially, I thought he was referring to traditional institutions like Robinhood or Charles Schwab expanding to more assets, but in reality, he was pointing to another model:

"I have instructed Commission staff to prepare recommendations to allow investment contract-related tokens to trade on non-SEC-regulated platforms, including intermediaries registered with the CFTC or licensed through state regulatory systems."

This is precisely what Hyperliquid is doing.

While Hyperliquid originally started as a crypto perpetual contract trading platform, nearly half of its trading volume now comes from non-crypto assets, including commodities, S&P 500 index futures, Pre-IPO stocks, and more. I expect this percentage to rise to 70% by the end of the year. They have recently launched a prediction market, providing traders with a new tool to hedge real-world risks.

In other words, Hyperliquid is evolving into the "super app" envisioned by Atkins — a platform outside the SEC's regulatory purview, yet able to provide users with exposure to multiple asset classes.

Of course, Hyperliquid still has room to mature: it is currently not available to U.S. users and needs further integration with the U.S. regulatory framework. However, this has not stopped it from becoming one of the fastest-growing financial businesses I've seen.

In the past month alone, its trading volume has reached a staggering $1.7 trillion. This explosive growth stems from Hyperliquid no longer limiting itself to the crypto market but directly targeting the larger global trading market. It does not want to be the "next Binance" but aims to become the world's largest and most valuable trading venue.

2. Hyperliquid and the Rise of "Second-Generation" Crypto Tokens

The HYPE token was launched on November 29, 2024, just a week after former Chair Gary Gensler announced his resignation. It was one of the key projects of the new regulatory era.

During the Gensler era, crypto projects were generally concerned about being classified as securities, and developers faced unlimited personal liability risks. Therefore, first-generation DeFi projects (such as Uniswap, Aave) mostly introduced "governance tokens," intentionally weakening the economic link to the underlying business to avoid regulation.

The Atkins era brought greater clarity. Hyperliquid was designed from day one as a "second-generation token" — designed to truly capture value. Of particular note is that 99% of the transaction fees generated by the Hyperliquid platform are used directly to buy back HYPE. More transactions → more buybacks → stronger capture of token value, a clear and direct logic.

I believe this will be the new standard for token design in the future. And this is also a key reason why HYPE has become one of the best-performing large-cap assets in 2026.

3. Hyperliquid Is Currently Significantly Undervalued

I believe HYPE is one of the most mispriced assets in the current crypto market, and this misalignment stems from two misconceptions.

The first is a categorization error. The market still values Hyperliquid as a rapidly growing crypto perpetual contract trading platform. However, it is actually evolving into a super app covering all asset classes globally: crypto, stocks, commodities, forex, prediction markets, structured products, and more. Its potential market is not the $3 trillion crypto market but the $600 trillion global asset market. The market is offering you the opportunity of the latter at the price of the former.

The second is the anchoring fallacy. Crypto investors have been repeatedly taught over the years that "tokens do not capture value." Many projects have seen a surge in users and trading volume, yet their tokens have remained stagnant or even gone to zero. Therefore, even though they understand that the HYPE mechanism is different, they still psychologically categorize it with UNI, rather than comparing it to stocks on Robinhood or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

Currently, Hyperliquid's estimated annual revenue is in the range of $8-10 billion, with a market capitalization of around $100-110 billion, translating to a revenue multiple of only 10-14x. For a rapidly growing company, this price is extremely cheap. In contrast, Robinhood has a price-to-earnings ratio of about 37x, CME around 24x, and both of their growth rates are much slower than Hyperliquid's.

The Future of Hyperliquid and Crypto Innovation

Over the past decade, many crypto innovation projects have worn masks: tokens that do not capture value, foundations that do not hold assets, developers tiptoeing around the SEC.

The SEC of the Atkins era put an end to this charade. Projects can now exist proudly in the form of a decentralized corporate entity.

Hyperliquid is the first large-scale project to truly seize this opportunity: its product covers all asset classes, the token directly captures value, and its revenue is real and the buyback mechanism is transparent.

Of course, this does not guarantee that Hyperliquid will definitely succeed—there will be future competitors, and regulations may change. But it allows us to see clearly for the first time: what cryptocurrency should look like when it is allowed to grow up.

Most of the time, embracing the future is expensive. Occasionally, the market gives you a discount.