Why The Everything Exchange Hyperliquid Could Still Quadruple: Arthur Hayes

The crypto trading world is colliding with the traditional trading world, and it all continues to benefit Hyperliquid.

The popular perpetual futures exchange continues to grow its volumes as traders shift from focusing solely on crypto to tokenized versions of gold, silver, and now oil. Few in traditional finance may yet understand that those volumes have been boosting the token that powers Hyperliquid's ecosystem, but to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, it's still early for HYPE.

Hayes had published his thinking around HYPE reaching $150 a token earlier in March when the token was still around $30. But since then, volumes on Hyperliquid have doubled, and in a new interview with Coinage, Hayes says he's even more confident in his call as HYPE crossed back above $43.

“Anyone anywhere can trade anything they want… as long as you’ve got an internet connection and some stablecoins,” Hayes said, describing the core promise of Hyperliquid’s platform. That idea — permissionless access to global markets — isn’t new. It’s been a talking point across crypto for years. What Hayes argues is different this time is execution.

For over a decade, crypto builders have chased the vision of fully onchain, permissionless derivatives trading. Platforms have come and gone, each promising to replicate or surpass the success of centralized exchanges. Most have struggled to gain meaningful traction. And having pioneered his own perpetual product at BitMEX, he knows the space better than almost anyone.

“The goal has been permissionless perpetual trading… all of them have not executed… up until Hyperliquid,” he said.

As Fundstrat's Head of Digital Asset Research Sean Farrell recently highlighted in a new report, Hyperliquid users increasingly aren’t just trading crypto pairs. They’re trading tokenized oil, tokenized gold, tokenized equities —assets traditionally locked behind geographic, regulatory, or institutional barriers. And they’re doing it with leverage, 24/7, without intermediaries.

“If you take a look at the leaderboard… the number two most traded product is an oil product… right behind Bitcoin,” Hayes noted.

For decades, global markets have been anchored by centralized venues: Exchanges backed by clearinghouses, regulators, and legal systems designed to enforce settlement. But those systems come with constraints — limited hours, capital requirements, and jurisdictional barriers.

Crypto, Hayes argues, flips that model entirely allowing leverage to be introduced in a way that only risks users' money on the platform.

“All you can lose is what you put in,” he said, contrasting crypto’s margin system with traditional finance, where losses can extend across an investor’s entire balance sheet. The result is a product that doesn’t just compete with legacy systems, but operates under a fundamentally different set of rules.

Hayes’ bullishness on HYPE isn’t just about trading volumes — it’s about value capture. Unlike many DeFi protocols that struggle to translate activity into token value, Hyperliquid ties platform success directly to its token through buybacks.

“The exchange makes money… we, the traders who own the token, get that money,” he said.

That model — closer to equity than utility — positions HYPE as more of a direct proxy for the platform’s growth. And in Hayes’ view, that growth is only getting started.

The data, at least so far, supports the narrative. Hyperliquid has rapidly climbed into the conversation alongside major trading venues, with volumes increasingly driven by non-crypto assets. Even mainstream outlets have begun to take notice — remarkable for a platform with a team Hayes points out is just around a dozen people.

Still, the path to $150 isn’t without caveats.

Hayes acknowledges that newer markets on the platform generate lower fees per trade. That means sustained growth in volume — not just expansion into new assets — will be key to driving meaningful revenue. And that is far from guaranteed as more competitors pop up.

Regulation also remains an open question. While Hyperliquid is designed to be decentralized, the extent to which it can resist coordinated regulatory pressure is still largely untested. But for Hayes, those uncertainties are secondary to the broader trend.

The shift he’s describing isn’t just about one platform outperforming another. It’s about where markets themselves are moving — and who gets to participate in them.

In that sense, Hyperliquid represents something larger than a trade. It’s a test case for whether crypto can fulfill one of its oldest promises: Open access to financial markets for anyone, anywhere.

And if that thesis plays out, Hayes believes the upside is still significant, considering only now are HYPE ETFs getting filed to start trading — hot on the heels with the HYPE digital asset treasury companies like Hyperliquid Strategies that beat them to Wall Street last year.

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