Hyperliquid Jumps 50% in a Week as Tokenomics, Not ETFs, Fuel Rally

Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, has surged in recent days, with investors pointing to several factors behind the rally. Some cite the recent launch of exchange-traded funds tied to the token as a catalyst. Others argue the bigger driver is the protocol’s large-scale token buyback structure.

As of 12:17 p.m. on May 24, HYPE was trading at $60.08, up 8.58% from a day earlier. The token has jumped about 50% over the past week.

In the market, some investors say newly launched ETFs linked to Hyperliquid have helped lift sentiment. Asset managers 21Shares and Bitwise launched Hyperliquid ETFs on May 13 and May 15, respectively. The funds have drawn about $70 million in net inflows since launch.

Still, others say the rally is hard to attribute to ETF demand alone. Zennon Capron, a director at GL Insights, wrote in a Forbes contributor article that Hyperliquid’s price gains have been driven more by the protocol’s built-in buying mechanism than by institutional inflows. In his view, the market should read the token’s price less as a reflection of investor discretion and more as the result of a buyback structure.

Hyperliquid sends about 99% of trading fees to its Assistance Fund, which automatically buys tokens in the market. The system is embedded in the protocol and operates without separate decision-making.

Since launch, Hyperliquid has generated more than $1.16 billion in cumulative revenue, with most of that used to buy HYPE. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, buybacks totaled about $316.76 million.

Capron wrote that ETF inflows amount to only tens of millions of dollars, while protocol buybacks reach hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter. Buybacks tied to trading volume are having a more direct effect on price formation than ETFs, he wrote.