Headline: Arthur Hayes doubles down on Hyperliquid — calls it his biggest “liquid shitcoin” bet, sees HYPE at $150 by Aug 2026
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes is making a loud, contrarian bet on Hyperliquid (HYPE), naming it his largest “liquid shitcoin” position and laying out a path to $150 per token by August 2026. His thesis leans on Hyperliquid’s revenue model, permissionless listings growth, and what he calls objective exchange structure measures — all framed against a fragile macro environment where derivatives dominate crypto trading.
What Hayes is arguing
- Hayes labels Hyperliquid the “dominant perp DEX” and “the largest revenue-generating project that isn’t a stablecoin,” noting that roughly 97% of the protocol’s revenue is used to buy back HYPE from the market.
- In his base case, Hayes projects HYPE at $150 — roughly a 5x move from the ~$30 level he referenced when publishing his essay. That target depends on 30-day annualized revenues climbing to about $1.4 billion and only a modest ~3.97% market-share shift away from centralized exchange perps.
- He points to Hyperliquid’s HIP‑3 permissionless listing program as a key growth driver: in roughly four months, permissionless perps (including contracts for silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500) have grown to close to 10% of Hyperliquid’s total revenues.
Why structure matters
Hayes stresses “structure, not just narratives.” He highlights the ADV/OI ratio (average daily volume divided by open interest) as an objective way to rank perp venues, arguing Hyperliquid has the lowest ADV/OI among the top five perp DEXs — a metric he interprets as reflecting the “most real” volumes. That structural focus echoes broader institutional commentary — for example, Bybit’s 2026 outlook suggesting the classic four‑year Bitcoin cycle is yielding to macro policy, institutional flows, and evolving market structure.
Market backdrop and price action
Crypto is trading in a derivatives-heavy, somewhat fragile macro regime. At the time of Hayes’ note and recent market snapshots:
- Bitcoin trades near $69,100, up about 2.7% over 24 hours.
- Ethereum is around $1,993 (24‑hour range roughly $1,922–$2,016).
- Solana sits near $81.7.
- HYPE has shown strength intraday, trading around $34.2 and rising roughly 13.2% on the session.
Hayes’ bottom line
Given a choppy macro setup, Hayes asks what to buy that has “real users, paying real money, and giving that money back to token holders.” His blunt verdict: Hyperliquid fits those criteria and, in his view, represents “the highest quality project in all of crypto across these metrics.”
Takeaway
Hayes’ HYPE bull case is richly specific — revenue buybacks, permissionless listings growth, and exchange-structure metrics underpinning a five-fold price target — but it’s also conditional on material revenue expansion and modest shifts in perp market share. For traders and investors, the thesis is worth watching as a concrete example of how some market participants are translating on-chain/revenue mechanics into token-price forecasts amid a derivatives-driven crypto market.
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