Arthur Hayes says Hyperliquid’s HYPE could reach $150 by August 2026 on buyback-driven exchange-token thesis
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes argues Hyperliquid (HYPE) could reach $150 by August 2026 if the platform returns to a $1.4 billion annualized revenue run rate and maintains a buyback-heavy revenue allocation.
Arthur Hayes, in a new essay, argues Hyperliquid’s HYPE token could reach $150 by August 2026 even if the broader crypto market remains weak. The forecast is based on a buyback-driven exchange-token model and a rerating of the token’s earnings multiple.
Hayes’ path to $150 depends on Hyperliquid maintaining a business model in which about 97% of protocol revenue is used to repurchase HYPE from the market. He describes Hyperliquid as the dominant perpetual decentralized exchange (perp DEX) and the largest revenue-generating crypto project that is not a stablecoin.
The $150 target implies roughly a fivefold move from about $30 at the time of writing. To reach that price, Hayes’ model requires lifting 30-day annualized revenue to approximately $1.4 billion, a revenue level he says the platform achieved in August of the previous year.
The valuation model also assumes the market will rerate HYPE from around a 12x earnings multiple to roughly 25.2x, a level Hayes notes remains near or below ranges cited for major traditional exchange tokens. He further contends Hyperliquid does not need overall growth in crypto derivatives activity to expand; instead it needs to capture additional share from centralized exchanges.
Hayes quantifies that a 3.97 percentage-point increase in market share could bring Hyperliquid back to a $1.4 billion annualized revenue run rate. He identifies HIP-3, Hyperliquid’s permissionless perpetuals listing framework, as the engine for that next leg. Under HIP-3, users staking 500,000 HYPE can launch markets using the platform’s matching and margin engine.
Hayes notes early HIP-3 traction in silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500, and states HIP-3 volumes accounted for close to 10% of Hyperliquid’s revenues within four months. His base model assumes HIP-3 revenue rises 160% over six months. He also mentions HIP-4 as a potential upside that would enable permissionless prediction markets but does not include it in the base case.
Addressing competition and volume metrics, Hayes argues that headline volumes across perp DEXs can be distorted by wash trading, points farming and incentive schemes, making raw volume a poor gauge of real usage. He prefers ADV-to-OI (average daily volume relative to open interest) because open interest requires real capital, and states Hyperliquid shows the most ‘real’ volume among the top five perp DEXs by that metric.
Hayes adds that order-book snapshots for Bitcoin perpetuals often show Hyperliquid as the cheapest venue to execute large trades once slippage is included. He also discusses token supply dynamics: roughly 20% of awarded tokens were distributed in November and December, while distributions fell to about 1% in January and February, a reduction he says should aid a rebound in HYPE.
In a stress scenario, Hayes models a 12x earnings multiple with monthly distributions of 9.91 million HYPE; if revenue recovers to a $1.4 billion annualized run rate under those conditions, the token would be worth about $58, roughly 75% above the trading level cited. At press time HYPE traded at $33.237.