Wall Street Is Coming for Hyperliquid's Perps Crown, Hayes Warns

Hyperliquid has surfaced as crypto's derivatives darling since its 2023 debut, but the honeymoon may not last, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes. The decentralized exchange's surging popularity has helped push its native token to recent all-time highs, yet Hayes told Decrypt in an interview that looming competition from Wall Street and established crypto players threatens to erode one of the digital asset's core drivers. Hyperliquid relies on a steady stream of trading fees to buy its token off the open market and permanently remove it from circulation—a scarcity mechanism that, Hayes warned, leaves the protocol uniquely exposed to any sudden loss in market share. "At the end of the day, this is a cash story," he said. "There will be more competition in real-world asset perps, whether that's from centralized exchanges like Binance [or] TradFi exchanges."

Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) emerged as one of Hyperliquid's biggest cheerleaders as its token rallied to all-time highs. On Thursday, he said he "dumped" his holdings. These are potential risks he thinks the decentralized upstart could face: pic.twitter.com/ZS5SYl2CIJ — Decrypt (@DecryptMedia) June 4, 2026

A day after the interview, Hayes informed followers on X that he had "just dumped" his entire stash of HYPE tokens, alongside another digital asset. He cited an expected uptick in energy prices, a string of oxygen-sucking IPOs, and an about-face by President Trump on AI. "Time to take profit," he added—less than two months after penning and sharing an essay on why Hyperliquid's native token "is going to $150 by August 2026."

HYPE changed hands around $59 on Sunday, a 14% decrease over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko. The asset notched a fresh all-time high above $75 last week.

Hayes' sudden shift rubbed some onlookers the wrong way, but during the interview, he lauded Hyperliquid's ascent as a venue for trading otherwise illiquid markets on the weekend—especially for oil. "Perennial crypto haters had to acknowledge that price action and price discovery for these key variables happen over the weekend on a crypto trading platform," he said. "I think this is a watershed moment, and what caused people to wake up."

Hyperliquid began supporting derivatives for real-world assets, including gold and silver, via an October upgrade. On Tuesday, the platform's official X account said the total value of outstanding positions tied to such markets had reached $3 billion. So far, the platform has bought back 26.6 million HYPE while permanently removing 579,603 HYPE from circulation, according to a Dune dashboard. The larger sum represents around $1.56 billion worth of Hyperliquid's native token at current prices.

Hyperliquid has become a wake-up call for traditional markets, prompting discussions with the crypto venue, studying its 24/7 model, and asking regulators whether U.S. exchanges can offer similar perpetual futures under clear rules. That's according to Jeffrey Sprecher, founder, chairman, and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, who spoke at a fireside chat during Bernstein's 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference on Wednesday. "We're not freaked out about it," Sprecher said, referring to Hyperl...

Hayes noted that U.S. giants are aggressively pushing into the perpetual futures space. Unlike traditional futures, the derivatives—also known as perps—don't expire, allowing traders to speculate indefinitely amid periodic payments that keep prices anchored. Under Hayes, BitMEX debuted the world's first perpetual futures contract in 2016, a concept established long ago in the early '90s by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. These days, Hayes predicts that Wall Street incumbents will eventually adopt the products to survive. "All these traditional exchanges are going to be forced to launch a competing product," he said. "By next year, we're going to see some decently liquid products in TradFi t