When the law is no longer an obstacle, what will the future of Hyperliquid look like?

Written by: Matt Hougan, Bitwise

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Hyperliquid is one of the most important emerging projects in the crypto field in recent years. Its native token HYPE has also performed as one of the best large-cap crypto assets of 2026, rising 77% this year alone. However, I still believe the market severely underestimates its influence and true value, and I want to explain the reasons in detail.

There are three key points worth highlighting.

1. Hyperliquid is becoming the next generation super app

On November 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins delivered an extremely important regulatory speech: "SEC’s Approach to Crypto Assets: Inside Project Crypto." If you have not read it yet, please stop and read it. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-111225-secs-approach-digital-assets-inside-project-crypto

As one of the most important financial regulators in the world, Atkins clearly depicted the vision for financial markets over the next five years in his speech: almost all markets will shift to on-chain operations.

He particularly emphasized the concept of "super apps":

"I strongly support super apps in the financial sector, which allow for the custody and trading of various asset classes under a regulatory license."

At first, I thought he was referring to traditional institutions like Robinhood or Charles Schwab expanding into more assets, but in fact, he was referring to another model:

"I have asked the committee staff to prepare proposals that allow tokens associated with investment contracts to be traded on non-SEC regulated platforms, including intermediaries that are registered with the CFTC or licensed through state regulatory systems."

This is exactly what Hyperliquid is doing.

Hyperliquid originally started as a crypto perpetual contract exchange, but now nearly half of its trading volume comes from non-crypto assets, including commodities, S&P 500 futures, and pre-IPO stocks. I expect that this proportion will rise to 70% by the end of the year. They have also recently launched prediction markets, providing traders with a new tool to hedge real-world risks.

In other words, Hyperliquid is becoming the "super app" envisioned by Atkins— a non-SEC regulated platform that can provide users with exposure to multiple asset classes.

Of course, Hyperliquid still needs to mature: it is currently not open to U.S. users and needs to further integrate into the U.S. regulatory system. However, this has not stopped it from becoming one of the fastest-growing financial businesses I have seen.

In the past month, its trading volume has reached an astonishing $170 billion. This explosive growth stems from Hyperliquid's shift beyond the crypto market, directly targeting the larger global trading market. It does not want to be the "next Binance", but aims to become the largest and most valuable trading venue in the world.

2. The rise of Hyperliquid and "second-generation" crypto tokens

The HYPE token was launched on November 29, 2024, just a week after former Chairman Gary Gensler announced his resignation. It is one of the first important projects of the new regulatory era.

During the Gensler era, crypto projects were generally concerned about being classified as securities, which posed unlimited personal liability risks for developers. Thus, most first-generation DeFi projects (like Uniswap, Aave) launched "governance tokens" intentionally to weaken economic ties to the underlying business to avoid regulation.

The Atkins era brings greater clarity. Hyperliquid has been designed since day one as a "second-generation token"—one that is designed to truly capture value. Notably, 99% of the trading fees generated on the Hyperliquid platform are directly used to repurchase HYPE. More trading → more buybacks → stronger token value capture, the logic is clear and direct.

I believe this will become the new standard in token design in the future. And this is also an important reason why HYPE will be one of the best-performing large-cap assets in 2026.

3. Hyperliquid is currently significantly undervalued

I believe HYPE is one of the most absurdly priced assets in the current crypto market, and this mismatch stems from two misconceptions.

The first is a category error. The market currently still values Hyperliquid as a rapidly growing crypto perpetual contract exchange. However, it is actually becoming a super app covering all asset classes globally: crypto, stocks, commodities, forex, prediction markets, structured products, etc. Its potential market is not the $3 trillion crypto market, but the $600 trillion global asset market. The market is giving you the opportunity of the latter at the price of the former.

The second is an anchoring error. Crypto investors have been repeatedly educated over the past few years that "tokens do not capture value"; countless projects have seen user and trading volume surges, but tokens have remained stagnant or even gone to zero. Therefore, even though they know HYPE has a different mechanism, they still mentally classify it with UNI rather than comparing it to Robinhood or CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) stocks.

Currently, Hyperliquid’s annual revenue is estimated to be between $800 million and $1 billion, with a market capitalization of about $10-11 billion, corresponding to only 10-14 times revenue multiple. For a high-growth company, this price is extremely cheap. In comparison, Robinhood has a P/E ratio of about 37 times, CME about 24 times, yet their growth rates are far behind that of Hyperliquid.

The future of Hyperliquid and crypto innovation

Over the past decade, many crypto innovation projects have operated under a mask: tokens do not capture value, foundations do not hold assets, developers carefully avoid the SEC.

The Atkins era SEC has put an end to this masquerade. Projects can now exist honestly as decentralized commercial entities.

Hyperliquid is the first major project to truly seize this opportunity: its product covers all asset classes, the token directly captures value, revenue is real and the buyback mechanism is transparent.

Of course, this does not guarantee that Hyperliquid will necessarily prevail—there will be competitors in the future, and regulations may change. But it has allowed us to clearly see for the first time: what cryptocurrencies should look like when they are allowed to grow up normally.

Most of the time, embracing the future is expensive. Occasionally, the market will give you a discount opportunity.