Quick Take
1. HYPE trades at $95.07 after reaching a record near $95.97 on September 21, its third all-time high in a single week, and is up 20.38% over seven days.
2. Kraken parent Payward plans to offer US clients perpetual futures on Hyperliquid’s infrastructure through its CFTC-regulated entities, pending approval, and a new lending product drew $269 million in loans on its first day.
3. Only about 26% of HYPE’s maximum supply circulates, putting fully diluted valuation near $90 billion against a market cap near $24 billion, a ratio this site treats as a warning.
Hyperliquid’s HYPE has set three all-time highs in a week, reaching a record near $95.97 on September 21 after previous highs of $94.46 on September 19. It trades at $95.07, down 0.55% on the day and up 20.38% on the week, outpacing Solana, Bitcoin and Ethereum over the same period.
Live price data via CoinGecko.
What did this site get wrong?
The lean, not the framework, and the difference is worth being precise about.
On September 15, with HYPE at $78.99, this site published an article noting the token had fallen below $80 two weeks after an unlock we had flagged as structurally different, because 46.6% of it went to insiders. The tone of that piece leaned bearish.
The framework it set out allowed for both outcomes. It said that reclaiming $80 quickly would mark the decline as a routine post-unlock pullback inside an uptrend, and that losing $74 would suggest distribution was ongoing. HYPE reclaimed $80 and kept going. The bullish branch played out, which is a better result for our readers than the lean suggested.
It is also worth recording that the September 15 piece declined to claim the unlock had caused the decline, calling the link consistent with the framework rather than proven. That restraint aged well. The token is now about 20% above that article’s price and roughly 70% above the $55.83 level at which we covered its August unlock.
Why is HYPE setting new records?
Regulated US access, a new source of demand, and a small float.
The largest catalyst is Payward, the parent of Kraken, which plans to use its CFTC-regulated entities to deploy on-chain perpetual futures on Hyperliquid for US clients, pending regulatory approval. US traders have been effectively locked out of perpetual futures, so a regulated pathway opens a market the protocol could not previously reach. Any formal step would appear on the CFTC’s own site before it appears in commentary.
The second is a manual borrowing feature launched on September 18, which drew $269 million in loans on its first day. Letting holders borrow against HYPE rather than sell it reduces selling pressure directly.
The third is usage. Monthly active addresses reached a record 291,900, and Hyperliquid generated $429.04 million in revenue from January 1 through September 15, making it crypto’s largest revenue generator outside Tether and Circle, with 12.62% of a $3.40 billion pool. Protocol revenue can be checked independently on DefiLlama.
What does HYPE’s supply structure mean?
That most of the token has not arrived yet, which is the number this rally is least interested in.
Fully diluted valuation, or FDV, is the token price multiplied by the maximum supply that will ever exist, and its ratio to market cap shows how much of the supply story is still ahead. Roughly 251.4 million HYPE circulate out of a maximum near 951.5 million, about 26%.
At $95.07, that puts market capitalization near $23.9 billion and FDV near $90.5 billion, a ratio of about 3.8. This site’s FDV guide places anything above 3 in the category where most of the eventual supply is not yet trading and rallies tend to meet unlocking holders. HYPE’s monthly vesting schedule, which delivered its largest release on August 29, continues, and upcoming releases are listed on DefiLlama’s unlock calendar.
That does not predict a decline. It defines the headwind any holder is signing up for.
Is HYPE expensive?
Using its actual year-to-date revenue rather than a single day, about 39 times on market cap and roughly 149 times on a fully diluted basis.
Hyperliquid’s $429.04 million across the 258 days to September 15 annualizes to about $607 million. Against a $23.9 billion market cap that gives roughly 39 times revenue, close to the figure this site calculated at the August record using a daily snapshot. On FDV the multiple rises to around 149 times.
The boundary: this is a better base than the single-day figure we used in August because it smooths out daily swings, but it still describes a year in which trading activity was high. Revenue that depends on perpetual futures volume falls when volatility does.
What levels matter now?
$90 as the line analysts have identified for holding the move, with $100 as the next milestone.
Holding above $90 keeps the breakout intact, and $100 sits roughly 5% above the current price. Beneath that, the $80 area that this site treated as decisive on September 15 is now the reference for whether the whole September advance survives.
Bottom line
HYPE set three records in a week near $95.97 on Kraken parent Payward’s plan to offer US perpetuals on Hyperliquid and a lending launch that drew $269 million on day one, while only about 26% of its supply circulates.
This site leaned the wrong way in mid-September, and says so. The more useful point is what has not changed: an FDV near four times market cap and a revenue multiple of about 39 describe a token priced for the US pathway to be approved and delivered. That approval is still pending, and the rest of the supply is still coming.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Crypto assets are extremely volatile and you can lose your entire stake. Always do your own research.
