Arthur Hayes Says HYPE Token Could Reach $150 by 2026

HYPE token is back on Arthur Hayes's radar — and this time he's not just watching. The former BitMEX CEO told reporters his $150 price target for Hyperliquid's native token stems from something most crypto traders undervalue: actual revenue. Not incentive-inflated volume. Not wash trading. Real fee generation running at roughly a $1 billion annualized rate, based on the platform's own 30-day data.

Hayes Sold, Then Came Back — Why That Matters

Hayes is not coming into this trade fresh. He sold his firm's HYPE token position somewhere in the $50–$55 range, anticipating selling pressure from scheduled token unlocks. A perfectly reasonable call at the time. What changed? The Hyperliquid team chose not to dump most of their monthly token allocations — a decision Hayes described as rare restraint in a sector known for exactly the opposite.

That restraint, combined with the platform's continued fee generation, pulled him back bullish. When a trader of Hayes's profile sells a position and then re-enters publicly, it's worth taking seriously. He's telling you the risk he feared didn't materialize.

What Does the $1 Billion Revenue Run Rate Actually Mean?

The $1 billion annualized revenue figure comes from Hyperliquid's 30-day fee data extrapolated forward — not a projection, but a trailing calculation. Hayes uses it as his north star because fee revenue is harder to fake than volume. You can manufacture order flow. You can't manufacture fees paid by real users on real trades.

His preferred metric for separating genuine activity from manufactured liquidity is the ratio of trading volume to open interest. Hyperliquid posts the lowest such ratio among major perpetual DEXs, according to Hayes — meaning its open interest is better supported by real directional bets than by recycled wash volume.

The platform also offers the lowest slippage on large bitcoin perpetual trades ranging from $100,000 to $10 million. For institutional-scale traders moving in and out of positions, that matters more than fee percentages.

Many competing platforms rely on wash trading or token incentive programs to inflate activity.

HIP-3 and the 24/7 Market Nobody Noticed

The part of this story that deserves more attention than it's getting is Hyperliquid HIP-3 — the platform's permissionless listing system. It lets anyone deploy a perpetual market for essentially any asset. Oil. Equity indices. Commodity proxies. Things that traditional finance closes on weekends and locks behind brokerage accounts.

Hayes pointed out that weekend geopolitical events — the kind that move markets violently but only get priced in Monday morning on traditional platforms — are now being traded in real time on Hyperliquid by retail users with crypto wallets and stablecoins. That's a structural advantage that goes well beyond the crypto-native audience. Retail leverage of 10x–20x on-chain versus the 2x–3x most brokerage accounts offer is a pitch that writes itself.

What Would Make Hayes Exit?

Hayes said he would reconsider his position if HYPE's price-to-earnings ratio rises sharply and sentiment turns overwhelmingly bullish — in other words, when the hype starts matching the price. The other exit trigger: if competitors offering lower fees start meaningfully eroding Hyperliquid's roughly 70% share of perpetual DEX revenue.

Maintaining strong fee generation and continued restraint on team token selling are the two pillars of his bull case. If either cracks, so does the thesis. He was clear-eyed about it.

Beyond HYPE: What Else Is Hayes Watching?

Hayes also flagged privacy-focused crypto as a developing narrative, expanding on themes from his Crypto Trader Digest. He singled out Zcash, citing its cryptographic upgrades and the growing concern around blockchain surveillance and AI-powered transaction analysis. He favors Zcash over Monero on technical grounds.

And Bitcoin. Hayes maintained his aggressive $250,000 end-of-year forecast, despite the token missing earlier targets. Classic Hayes — miss the call, double down on the conviction.