The cryptocurrency exchange Hyperliquid will face many challenges in the near future

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, who just a few weeks ago was one of Hyperliquid’s most vocal supporters, has unexpectedly sold his entire stake in HYPE tokens. This happened less than two months after he published an essay claiming that the token would reach $ 150 by August 2026.

In an interview with Decrypt, Hayes attributed his decision to competitive pressure that will inevitably mount on Hyperliquid from traditional financial players and major crypto exchanges. According to him, the protocol’s business model—which relies on trading fees to repurchase and burn HYPE tokens—makes it vulnerable to any loss of market share. «Ultimately, it’s a story about cash flow,» he said, adding that competition in the real-asset perpetual contracts segment will only intensify—both from Binance and from traditional exchanges.

Hayes informed his followers on X about the sale, noting that he had also disposed of another digital asset. Among the reasons he cited were expected increases in energy prices, the strain from a series of high-profile IPOs, and President Trump’s shift in stance on artificial intelligence. «Time to take profits,» he wrote.

As of Sunday, the HYPE token was trading at around $ 59, which is 14% lower than a week ago, according to CoinGecko. Just last week, the asset hit a new all-time high, rising above $ 75. Hayes’s abrupt change of stance drew criticism from part of the community, though he himself acknowledged the platform’s achievements—specifically that Hyperliquid provides price discovery in key markets on weekends when traditional exchanges are closed. «Even die-hard crypto skeptics have had to admit that oil pricing takes place on a crypto platform over the weekend. This is a turning point,» he said.

Hyperliquid launched derivatives on real assets, including gold and silver, back in October of last year. On Tuesday, the platform’s official account reported that the total volume of open positions on such instruments had reached $ 3 billion. At the same time, the protocol has already repurchased 26.6 million HYPE from the market, and 579,603 tokens have been permanently removed from circulation—at current prices, this is equivalent to approximately $ 1.56 billion.

Hayes emphasized that American financial giants are actively moving into the realm of perpetual futures—instruments with no expiration date that allow for unlimited speculation on an asset’s price. It was BitMEX, under his leadership, that launched the world’s first perpetual contract back in 2016, although the concept for this instrument was developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller as early as the 1990s. Now Hayes is convinced that traditional exchanges will be forced to offer similar products. «As early as next year, we will see sufficiently liquid instruments in TradFi with perpetual swap architecture,» he predicted.