HYPE Hits Record High Above $90 After SEC Exemption and Hyperliquid Borrowing Launch

HYPE has hit a new all-time high, breaching its previous high which was set on September 6. Hyperliquid’s token is now trading above the $90 mark, following a rally of more than 15% in the last two days. Among the ten cryptocurrencies by market cap, HYPE is the best performing asset year to date, with a return of over 250% as of this writing. Three different pieces of news have landed in the span of 48 hours that have seemingly propelled the bullish momentum for HYPE. 

The SEC Opened a Door for Onchain Stock Trading

Yesterday, On September 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an order it calls the Innovation Exemption. This gives Tokenized Securities Venues a temporary, conditional five-year exemption from the definition of an “exchange” under the Securities Exchange Act 1934, allowing them to trade tokenized National Market System stock through permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. 

Hyperliquid greatly benefits from this because it’s positioned exactly for this kind of flow. Its HIP-3 framework is designed to let builders stake HYPE and launch their own perpetual markets on Hyperliquid’s order book and trade.xyz has used it to list tokenized equity perps. This business line for the protocol has grown extremely fast. For context, back in January this year, RWA markets made up around 2% of Hyperliquids overall volume and is now around half of it. 

The order itself is narrower than the headline suggests. It only covers tokenized stock where holders keep the rights a normal shareholder has, dividends and voting. Synthetic products which include tokenized security swaps are left out. Equity perps sit on the wrong side of that line. Regardless, the SEC sent a clear signal to traders that US regulators now want stock trading on public chains and this alone is hugely beneficial for a platform wherein a large share of that activity already thrives. 

Borrowing Went Live and $269 Million Moved on Day One

Hyperliquid announced today that manual borrows were now live on HyperCore. Users can supply HYPE or BTC as collateral and borrow USDC or USDT, with a 65% Loan-to-value (LTV) for HYPE and 50% LTV for BTC. Hyperliquid’s official X account states that about $269 million was borrowed on day one. HYPE positions liquidate at 82.5% and BTC at 75%. 

Those paying attention here aren’t the traders but rather for large holders of HYPE. These holders can now hold onto their HYPE position and take stablecoins out. That is one less reason for anyone to sell into the bid. 

NEAR Routed its Perps Desk Through Hyperliquid 

NEAR made perpetual futures on near.com confidential by default, with Hyperliquid running the engine underneath. Hyperliquid supplies the order book, the matching, more than 50 markets and leverage up to 40x. NEAR handles the front end and lets users trade from assets held across 30-plus chains. In practice it is a distribution deal. Flow that starts on NEAR settles into Hyperliquid’s books. 

Kraken’s Parent has Picked Hyperliquid as its Route Into US Perps 

https://x.com/Payward/status/2100178016617869710?s=20 

On September 16, Payward mentioned in a press release that it intends to bring onchain perp futures to US clients, starting with Hyperliquid and HIP-3 markets. While this is still subject to regulatory approval it does send a clear signal that regulated US firms are treating HIP-3 as the rails they want to build on. 

All in all, HYPE is being priced in as a derivatives infrastructure rather than as a DEX governance asset, with a lending market, an outside distribution channel and a regulatory tailwind all arriving in the same week. 

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