Hyper Liquid (HYPE) price has risen about 31% since February 24, but has since given up some of its gains. At the time of writing, the token was trading around $32, up about 4.5% on the day and about 20% over the past seven days. Over the past 30 days, HYPE price has increased by around 5% and remained in positive territory, while most top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, and Solana have posted losses during the same period.
This rise is tied to structural changes, with HyperLiquid becoming the go-to place for 24-hour trading of traditional financial assets like oil, gold, and stocks, all of which feed directly into the token’s deflationary combustion engine. Meanwhile, despite the lack of retail positions, smart money wallets are by far long on HYPE itself.
Hyperliquid eliminates TradFi’s biggest bottleneck
Traditional financial markets are closed on weekends and after hours. Hyperliquid is not like that. Traders can use perpetual futures on Hyperliquid to trade oil, gold, silver, and even stocks like NVIDIA 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with significant leverage. Over the weekend of March 1-2, its dominance became impossible to ignore.
Trading value on the platform soared to more than $6.4 billion on Sunday alone.
Hyperliquid Petroleum Perpetual reportedly soared nearly 20%. Open interest in commodity-based derivatives is said to have reached a record high of over $1.1 billion.
This was not a one-time spike.
According to Delphi Digital, tokenized TradFi assets amounted to 31.6% of total Hyperliquid trading volume in late January, up from less than 5% just a month earlier. Metals, stock indexes, and individual stocks may have driven the rotation.
Lookonchain’s on-chain data shows that one whale has deposited $7.35 million in USDC into Hyperliquid and is long on NVDA and SNDK stocks. He has over $11.94 million in NVDA and over $2 million in SNDK, with additional limit orders worth $4.53 million pending. This happened right before NVIDIA announced its fourth quarter results.
Integration has further accelerated this adoption.
Launched in early February, Ripple Prime gives financial institutions perpetual access to Hyperliquid on-chain through a traditional Prime securities wrapper.
Trojan (formerly Unibot) has integrated non-custodial bot trading of real TradFi assets such as TSLA, AMZN, GOOGL, gold, and silver directly into Hyperliquid’s order book.
And on February 24th, CoinShares launched the physically backed HYPE Staking ETP (ticker: LIQD) on the Xetra exchange. This is the first regulated product to give traditional financial investors direct exposure to HYPE at staking yields. Therefore, it appears that the link from TradFi to cryptocurrencies currently works both ways.
As mentioned earlier, the direct mechanical link makes the surge in sales volume important to the price of HYPE. And this is where the Barn Flywheel comes into play.
All oil, gold and stock trades burn tokens forever
Approximately 97% of all core trading fees on Hyperliquid flow into the Assistance Fund, a system address that automatically purchases HYPE on the open market and permanently burns the purchased tokens.
HyperEVM gas fees are also consumed. This is not a governance vote or manual marketing event. This is enforced by code, happens on-chain, and occurs with every transaction. Whether that trade is a perpetual trade in Bitcoin, oil futures in a geopolitical crisis, or an NVIDIA position leveraged from a whale wallet.
Want more token insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Crypto Newsletter here.
According to recent on-chain data, the platform generated $2.74 million in 24-hour fees, $16.96 million in seven days, and approximately $9.22 million worth of HYPE spent last week, an increase of over 20% week-over-week.
On the supply side, only approximately 26,790 HYPE will be minted daily as staking rewards. Recent daily burn numbers were over 48,000 HYPE, with net deletions of over 17,000 tokens per day. Currently, combustion is running at a rate of 1.8 to 2.3 times the emission rate.
As such, HYPE is structurally net deflationary at current volume levels, even accounting for the scheduled unlocking of approximately 9.92 million HYPE on March 6th for core contributors.
The flywheel is straight. The more traders use Hyperliquid to trade oil, gold, stocks, and commodities around the clock, the higher the fees will be. Higher fees will result in more HYPE being bought from the market and burned. Further burning means less supply. And increasing demand and decreasing supply create price support, which seems to be exactly where smart money is positioned.
Smart money goes all out while betting on retail
HYPE’s own on-chain positioning data reveals a clear divide between smart money and retail.
According to Nansen AI, the overall sentiment towards HYPE among tracked smart money wallets is “very bullish.”
Participants included Arrington XRP Capital, which made a long entry of $286,000 at around $31. The other is Selini Capital, which has longs of around $500,000 across multiple wallets. Additionally, there are several smart Hyperliquid Purps traders being tracked with entries in the $25 to $31 range. As of this writing, all have unrealized gains.
But retail is in the opposite direction, especially over a broader period. The 30-day liquidation map for Bybit HYPE/USDT shows that the cumulative short-term liquidation leverage is approximately $33 million, compared to approximately $23 million on the long side.
A short leverage cluster has built well above the $34 range, creating potential fuel for a short squeeze if hyperliquid prices break out of that zone.
The Smart Money Index tracks informed trader positioning on technical charts, further supporting what Nansen AI has highlighted. It broke above the signal line around February 28th, coinciding with the price acceleration. In the late January rally, this same indicator went downhill as sellers rejected HYPE at $43. This time, the indicator is pointing up again, but the nearest horizontal resistance needs to be cleared to confirm stronger momentum.
The gulf is clear. Smart money is accumulating hype, but retail is leaning towards scarcity. This setup, coupled with outperforming liquidation clusters, has historically preceded sharp rises in the crypto market. And the technical level above shows exactly where the next leg will go.
HYPE stock price target is $62, new all-time high
HyperLiquid’s price rally has taken on further technical significance as HYPE has recovered above the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA), a trend-following indicator. The last time this recall occurred was in late January. HYPE then rose about 81% to $43 before sellers forced a correction.
Despite the current price movement being 31% from the swing low, HYPE is only about 15% above the 20-day EMA level itself. In the January example, the token was well above the EMA at the comparable stage before accelerating to a full 81% rally. This suggests that if the pattern repeats, the current movement may still be in its early stages.
The technical extension level indicates that near-term resistance is near $34. This is also the zone where short-term liquidation leverage begins to build up significantly and is the first real test. A break above $34 could trigger a chain of short-term liquidations and accelerate the move.
$39 represents one of the higher levels, followed by $43. Above $43, the technical extension will reach $48 and $62, surpassing the September 2025 peak of $59 and setting new all-time highs. With the current price around $32, this represents an increase of approximately 90%.
On the downside, losing $30 could weaken the bullish structure. Regardless of how strong the TradFi Burn Flywheel remains, anything below $25 will completely disable your setup.
