Bitwise CIO makes bold statement: Hyperliquid and HYPE are severely undervalued, with potential far exceeding market recognition

Hyperliquid is undoubtedly one of the most influential core projects in the field of encryption in recent years, and its native token HYPE is the best performing large-scale cryptocurrency asset in 2026, with an increase of up to 77% since the beginning of this year. However, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Bitwise has made it clear that even with such impressive performance, investors still seriously underestimate the industry influence and intrinsic value of Hyperliquid. In this week's memo, the Bitwise CIO elaborated on the true value of Hyperliquid and HYPE from three core dimensions, analyzed the root causes of market valuation bias, and revealed the core logic behind their undervaluation.

Core 1: Hyperliquid has grown into the "financial super application" envisioned by Atkins

To understand the true positioning of Hyperliquid, it is first necessary to focus on the speech delivered by Paul Atkins, the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on November 12, 2025, titled "The SEC's Approach to Crypto Assets: Inside the 'Project Crypto.'" This regulatory speech, referred to by the Bitwise CIO as the "most significant indicator in the field of cryptocurrency," clearly outlines the future direction of the global financial market: Atkins predicts that within the next five years, almost all types of market transactions will gradually become on chain.

In his speech, Atkins emphasized the core concept of "financial super application", clearly stating: "I strongly advocate for super application platforms in the financial field, which only require a compliance regulatory license to complete the custody and trading of multiple types of assets in one stop." At first, the market generally believed that this idea aimed at traditional securities firms such as Robinhood and Jiaxin Wealth Management - expanding from stock trading to multi category assets, but Atkins' true intention was far more than that.

He further clarified the policy direction: "I have requested the SEC team to develop relevant proposals to explore allowing tokens issued through investment contracts to be traded on non SEC regulated platforms, including various intermediary institutions that have completed registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or obtained regulatory qualifications in various states. ”And this policy direction happens to be highly aligned with the development path of Hyperliquid, and it can even be said that Hyperliquid is the core practitioner of the financial super application envisioned by Atkins.

The development trajectory of Hyperliquid has long broken through the boundaries of the cryptocurrency industry: it initially focused only on perpetual contract trading of encrypted assets, but now nearly half of its trading volume comes from non encrypted assets, including commodities, S&P 500 stock index futures, pre IPO corporate stocks, etc; Bitwise CIO expects that by the end of 2026, the proportion of traditional asset trading in this category will climb to 70%. In addition, the platform has also added a predictive market business, providing traders with diversified tools to hedge against real market risks.

In short, Hyperliquid's positioning is not "the next Binance", but a comprehensive trading platform that is not directly regulated by the SEC and can provide one-stop configuration of all types of assets. Although it is still in its mature stage of development - not yet open to domestic users in the United States and needs to further adapt to the regulatory system in the United States - this has not hindered it from becoming one of the fastest-growing financial formats seen by Bitwise CIO: last month alone, Hyperliquid's transaction volume reached $170 billion, and its core logic of rapid growth is to break away from the existing market of the cryptocurrency industry, target the larger global traditional financial market, and aspire to become the world's largest and most valuable comprehensive trading market.

Core 2: HYPE leads the wave of second-generation encrypted tokens, with clear and visible logic for value capture

HYPE, as the native token of Hyperliquid, was officially launched for trading on November 29, 2024- coinciding with former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's resignation one week ago. It is also one of the first top cryptocurrency project tokens born in the new regulatory era. The timing of this launch destined HYPE to carry the mission of "breaking the industry's inherent patterns" from its inception.

Looking back at Gensler's tenure at the SEC, the cryptocurrency industry was deeply mired in regulatory panic, and all projects were constantly concerned about tokens being classified as securities - once identified, project development teams would face unlimited joint and several legal liability. To avoid this risk, first generation decentralized finance (DeFi) projects such as Uniswap and Aave have issued governance tokens that only have governance functions and are almost unrelated to the project entity's profits. By completely stripping the token's profit expectations (the core basis for determining securities attributes), legal risks are minimized to the greatest extent possible.

After Atkins took over the SEC, the industry landscape completely changed: the mentality of excessive risk aversion no longer existed, regulatory boundaries became clearer, and Atkins' speech redefined the standards for cryptocurrency to be recognized as securities, officially clearing the development obstacles for "value capture tokens". In this context, first generation token projects such as Aave are adjusting their governance models and transforming accordingly, while Hyperliquid is leading a new track - the second-generation token with clear value capture capabilities from the beginning of its design.

The core value capture mechanism of HYPE is extremely clear: 99% of the transaction fees generated by the Hyperliquid platform will be directly used to repurchase HYPE tokens in the secondary market. This means that the higher the trading volume on the platform, the stronger the token buyback efforts, and the value of HYPE will steadily rise, forming a positive cycle of "active trading → increased transaction fees → increased buyback capital → token appreciation". The Bitwise CIO believes that this token design pattern will become mainstream in the industry in the future, and it is also the core reason why HYPE has become the strongest performing global cryptocurrency asset in the past year.

Core 3: Double cognitive misconceptions lead to a serious underestimation of the value of Hyperliquid

In the view of the Bitwise CIO, the current market valuation of HYPE deviates significantly from its true value, mainly due to two cognitive misconceptions that prevent investors from seeing the enormous potential behind it.

The first misconception is' category cognitive bias'. The market generally categorizes Hyperliquid as a rapidly growing cryptocurrency perpetual contract exchange, but in fact, its true positioning is a global financial super platform covering all types of assets, with business scope including cryptocurrency assets, stocks, commodities, foreign exchange, predictive markets, structured financial products, etc. This means that the market space it targets is not just the $3 trillion cryptocurrency market, but the $600 trillion global full category financial asset market - the two have vastly different commercial volumes. But the current market valuation is only based on the standards of small cryptocurrency exchanges, which is equivalent to buying a comprehensive financial platform with world-class potential at a low price.

The second misconception is the 'inherent thinking anchoring bias'. Years of industry development have led cryptocurrency investors to form a fixed understanding: the vast majority of cryptocurrency tokens cannot accumulate actual value, and even if the user volume, trading volume, and application scenarios of the project steadily increase, their native token prices often remain flat or even decline for a long time. Even though the market is aware of the unique mechanism of HYPE, investors still find it difficult to completely break free from this inherent thinking and subconsciously classify it as a pure governance token like UNI.

However, based on the core mechanism of HYPE's "99% commission repurchase", its benchmark should be traditional financial securities listed companies such as Robinhood and CME, rather than pure governance encrypted tokens. From the valuation data, the estimated annual revenue of Hyperliquid is currently in the range of 800 million to 1 billion US dollars, with a project market value of approximately 10 billion to 11 billion US dollars, corresponding to a valuation of only 10 to 14 times the token repurchase income stream. For a company in a period of rapid expansion, this valuation level is highly cost-effective.

A horizontal comparison can better highlight its valuation advantage: Robinhood's P/E ratio is 37 times, while CME's P/E ratio is 24 times, and their business growth rates are far lower than Hyperliquid's. Although equity holders have more comprehensive legal rights compared to token holders and cannot be completely equated, combined with comprehensive calculations of growth rate, it is sufficient to prove that the current market valuation of Hyperliquid is seriously low, and there is huge room for value repair.

Outlook: Hyperliquid leads the encryption industry towards standardization and maturity

The Bitwise CIO pointed out that in the past decade, a large number of cryptocurrency innovation projects have been in a state of "disguised development": tokens have no actual value capture ability, foundations have no substantial asset ownership, and project teams evade SEC supervision everywhere. The new regulatory framework led by Atkins has completely broken the industry's circuitous development, and encryption projects can finally operate normally as decentralized commercial entities with transparency.

Hyperliquid is the first leading project to firmly grasp this policy dividend and fully implement its development: it has achieved full coverage of financial assets across all categories, the token has the ability to capture real value, the platform's revenue is truly traceable, and the token repurchase mechanism is fully automated. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Hyperliquid will remain the industry leader for a long time. There are still risks such as the entry of competitors and regulatory policy changes in the future, but it clearly demonstrates the true form of the encryption industry after breaking free from wild growth and moving towards standardized and mature development.

The Bitwise CIO emphasized that most of the time, grasping future trends requires a high cost, and currently, the market provides investors with a rare low-level layout window - the value of Hyperliquid and HYPE has not been fully recognized by the market, and their long-term potential far exceeds the level reflected by current valuations.