
short
- Arthur Hayes warned that Hyperliquid’s use of trading fees to burn tokens exposes the protocol to market share losses.
- Less than two months after HYPE was expected to reach $150, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has liquidated his entire position.
- Although Hyperliquid has secured $3 billion in real-world asset open interest, Hayes expects stiff competition from Wall Street.
Excess fluid They have emerged as the favorite cryptocurrency derivatives since their debut in 2023, but the honeymoon may not last forever, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.
Although the decentralized startup’s growing popularity has helped catapult its native token to all-time highs, the outspoken Hayes said. Decryption in interview Looming competition from Wall Street and crypto players threatens to undermine one of the fundamental drivers of digital assets.
Hyperliquid relies on a steady stream of trading fees to purchase its tokens on the open market and permanently remove them from circulation — a mechanism designed to promote scarcity that, Hayes warned, leaves the protocol uniquely vulnerable to any sudden loss of market share.
“At the end of the day, this is a cash story,” he said. “There will be more competition for real-world asset exploits, whether it’s from centralized exchanges like Binance (or) TradFi.”
Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) as one of Hyperliquid’s biggest fans as its token soared to all-time highs.
He said on Thursday that he had “disposed of” his possessions. These are the potential risks he believes decentralized startups may face: pic.twitter.com/ZS5SYl2CIJ
– Decrypt (@DecryptMedia) June 4, 2026
One day after meeting him, Hayes I was informed Followers on He pointed to an expected rise in energy prices, a series of oxygen-guzzling IPOs, and President Trump’s change of heart on artificial intelligence.
“It’s time to take profits,” he added less than two months after writing it. sharing An article on why Hyperliquid’s native token will reach $150 by August 2026.
HYPE was trading at about $59 on Sunday, down 14% over the past seven days, according to Queen Gekko. The asset made a new all-time high above $75 last week. Hayes’ sudden turnaround rubbed some onlookers the wrong way, but during the interview, he praised the rise of Hyperliquid as a place to trade illiquid markets on the weekends — especially for oil.
“Lifelong crypto haters had to admit that the price action and price discovery of these key variables is happening over the weekend on the cryptocurrency trading platform,” he said. “I think this is a watershed moment, and it’s what’s made people wake up.”
Hyperliquid has begun supporting financial derivatives of real assets, including… Gold and silvervia October upgrade. On Tuesday, the official account of the X platform He said The total value of existing positions linked to these markets has reached $3 billion.
To date, the exchange has bought back 26.6 million HYPE, while permanently removing 579,603 HYPE from circulation, according to Dune. Dashboard. The largest amount represents about $1.56 billion worth of Hyperliquid’s native token at current prices.
Hayes noted that US giants are aggressively moving into the perpetual futures space. Unlike traditional futures contracts, derivatives — also known as perps — do not expire, allowing traders to speculate indefinitely amid periodic payouts that keep prices constant.
Under Hayes’ leadership, BitMEX debuted the world’s first perpetual futures contract in 2016, a concept long established in the early 1990s by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. These days, Hayes predicts that Wall Street executives will eventually adopt these products to survive.
“All these traditional exchanges will have to launch a competing product,” he said. “By next year, we will see some pretty liquid products at TradFi that use this perpetual swap structure.”
Daily debriefing Newsletter
Start each day with the latest news, plus original features, podcasts, videos and more.




