Hyperliquid’s HYPE is poised to retest its record high after rallying nearly 119% year-to-date.
The token climbed to $58.9 early Thursday before easing to $57.6 at the time of writing, placing it just 2.5% below the record peak it reached in September 2025, CoinMarketCap data shows.
HYPE continues to outperform heavyweight crypto assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2026. Fueled by its recent price momentum, the asset has climbed to become the 10th-largest crypto, surpassing some legacy players like Zcash and Cardano.
Behind the price action, on-chain data points to growing institutional participation and sustained whale accumulation.
Lookonchain reported that two wallets associated with Grayscale acquired and staked over 510,000 HYPE worth approximately $25 million over the past week. The activity came after Grayscale filed paperwork in January for a potential HYPE ETF.
Grayscale is buying $HYPE!#Grayscale already filed the S-1 registration statement for the $HYPE ETF in January.
Over the past week, 2 wallets linked to #Grayscale bought 510,387 $HYPE ($24.95M) and staked it.https://t.co/KCuWEwyPAehttps://t.co/ttCiYnetlgpic.twitter.com/bnwBO5gOy7
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 21, 2026
Other major entities have also been actively accumulating the token. A wallet reportedly connected to Galaxy Digital acquired over 158,000 HYPE valued at nearly $9 million over the past several hours, while another newly created wallet withdrew more than half a million HYPE tokens worth close to $30 million from Coinbase within two days.
A whale with suspected links to a16z has accumulated roughly $102 million in HYPE since April 14, according to separate on-chain analysis.
A massive $HYPE buy!
Wallet 0xb5E4, linked to #a16z, bought another 372,000 $HYPE($16.91M) over the past 3 hours.
Since April 14, this wallet has bought a total of 2.11M $HYPE ($90.87M).https://t.co/Zw7vH744zIhttps://t.co/2pBlGb8MUPpic.twitter.com/UbpNerGpgs
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 18, 2026
$600 trillion global asset market
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said investors may be undervaluing Hyperliquid by viewing it solely as a crypto platform instead of a financial infrastructure play targeting the global asset market.
Writing on X on Tuesday, Hougan said Hyperliquid’s addressable market extends far beyond the $3 trillion crypto economy and more closely aligns with the approximately $600 trillion global asset market.
His comments come amid rising institutional interest in Hyperliquid following the launch of new ETF products linked to the platform.
Bitwise launched a Hyperliquid ETF on the New York Stock Exchange last week, while 21Shares introduced its own product on Nasdaq.
SoSoValue data showed that Hyperliquid ETF products attracted more than $25 million in net inflows and surpassed $58 million in net assets as of Wednesday, alongside more than $41 million in trading volume.