HYPE Token Climbs 80% as Hyperliquid Fees Slip and Capital Exits

The HYPE token just did the thing crypto traders dream about and analysts get nervous over. It rallied 80% in three months while the platform underneath it started leaking fees, open interest, and bridged capital. Bitcoin gained 10% in the same window. So HYPE outran the market eight to one, and it did it while the numbers that are supposed to justify a token's price were quietly heading the other direction.

The Price-Fundamentals Gap Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the part that should make holders pause. The fully diluted price-to-sales ratio on HYPE token hit 47.3, up 67% from the prior quarter. Multiple expansion of that scale typically shows up when a protocol's revenue is exploding and the market is racing to price in the next leg. That is not what is happening here. Revenue went the wrong way.

Crypto analyst Michael Nadeau, the founder of The DeFi Report, flagged the disconnect in a recent breakdown. The market is paying more for each dollar of revenue Hyperliquid produces, even as the actual fee take shrinks. That is the opposite of how valuations normally compress when fundamentals soften.

Translation, in plain English. Buyers are pricing the token like the platform is accelerating. The platform is not accelerating. Something has to give.

Valuations typically shrink when fundamentals get shaky, not expand. HYPE is doing the opposite, and that gap doesn't last forever.

Fees, Volume, and the 51% Open Interest Wipeout

Hyperliquid pulled in $153.8 million in perpetual DEX fees over the last 90 days. That is down 13% quarter-over-quarter, though it is still up 12.3% year-over-year. Almost the entire fee pool, 99% of it, gets funneled directly into HYPE buybacks. So when fees fall, the buyback engine slows with them.

Average daily trading volume actually climbed 6% to $7.07 billion, which sounds like a positive. The catch is open interest. Open interest fell to $7.6 billion, a brutal 51% drop from the peak. Volume can rise while open interest collapses, but the read on that combo is rarely flattering. It usually means traders are flipping in and out on shorter timeframes instead of holding conviction positions.

On the surface, Hyperliquid still owns the decentralized perpetuals category with 72% market share. Zoom out to include centralized exchanges and that share shrinks to roughly 5% of total derivatives volume. The biggest piece of the pie is still being eaten by Binance, OKX, and Bybit, and breaking into that remaining 95% is the actual fight.

• $153.8M in 90-day fees, down 13% quarter-over-quarter
• 99% of fees routed straight into HYPE buybacks
• $7.07B in average daily volume, up 6% QoQ
• $7.6B open interest, down 51% from the peak
• 72% share of DEX perpetuals, 5% when centralized exchanges are included

Why Is $730 Million Leaving Hyperliquid?

Capital flows are the cleanest tell in crypto. They cut through narrative because money moving out of a contract is not a tweet, it is a transaction. Right now, $3.36 billion sits bridged into Hyperliquid. That is down 44% from the peak. Over the past 90 days, $730 million has walked out the door. The acceleration is the part that stings, $500 million of those outflows hit since early April alone.

What is driving it? The data does not assign motive. Profit-taking after a parabolic run is the obvious read. Concerns about sustainability are the cynical read. A rotation into other narratives is the boring read. Pick your flavor, but the fact remains that holders are voting with their bridges, and they are voting to leave.

Active addresses moved the other way, ticking up 6.6% quarter-over-quarter to roughly 46,000 per day. So new users are showing up while older capital is exiting. Smaller traders arriving as whales pack up. That can be healthy, or it can be the slow swap of patient money for tourist money. Time decides which one this is.

HIP-3 Is the Bright Spot. HyperEVM Is Not.

Not everything inside Hyperliquid's stack is sliding. The HIP-3 framework, which lets third-party builders deploy their own perpetual DEXs on Hyperliquid's matching engine, posted a 973% quarter-over-quarter volume jump. Daily volumes through builder-deployed markets hit $2.58 billion, which now accounts for 36% of total activity on the protocol. That is real, measurable adoption of the infrastructure-layer thesis.

HyperEVM is the other side of the ledger. Revenue there fell 33% quarter-over-quarter to $1.84 million, and active addresses dropped with it. Stablecoin supply on HyperEVM did climb to $1.83 billion, mostly USDC inflows. Stablecoins parking on a chain without commensurate revenue growth usually means capital is sitting there waiting, not deploying. That is a holding pattern, not a thesis.

Two ecosystems, one protocol, opposite directions. HIP-3 is doing what builders said it would do. HyperEVM is not.

Buybacks, Unlocks, and the Math Behind the Rally

Token mechanics are doing some of the heavy lifting on the price chart. Over the past 90 days, buybacks outpaced new issuance, which puts HYPE into a net deflationary state on the supply side. That is bullish in isolation. The buyback yield, however, dropped to 2.55% on a fully diluted basis. So the deflationary pressure exists, but it is not the kind of structural force that overwhelms a fundamentals deterioration on its own.

Then there is the unlock cliff. Core contributor token unlocks keep rolling through 2027. Every quarter brings fresh supply from people who got their tokens at sub-launch valuations and have every rational incentive to take chips off the table. Buybacks have to keep pace with those unlocks or the deflationary tailwind flips into a structural headwind. With fees down 13%, the buyback engine is running quieter than it was three months ago.

The bull case is straightforward. HIP-3 keeps compounding, builders keep migrating perpetual markets onto Hyperliquid's infrastructure, and the platform finally chips into centralized exchange share. The bear case is the chart speaking for itself. Open interest down 51%, capital outflows accelerating, fee revenue retreating, and a P/S multiple that already prices in the win.

What Does This Mean for HYPE Holders?

If you are holding HYPE, the question is simple. Are you long the infrastructure or long the price? Those are not the same trade right now. The infrastructure thesis, anchored on HIP-3 builder volumes and a 72% DEX perp share, is intact and arguably strengthening. The price thesis, anchored on fee growth funding aggressive buybacks, is weakening.

A 47.3 fully diluted P/S ratio is not catastrophic by crypto standards. It is, however, expansive enough that any further fundamentals slip gets punished hard. The market gave HYPE a generous benefit of the doubt during this 80% run. Generosity has a shelf life.

The honest read is that HYPE is a high-beta bet on Hyperliquid winning the next chapter of decentralized derivatives. The infrastructure is doing its job. The price is ahead of the proof.