How Silver Became an Unexpected Catalyst Behind Hyperliquid’s Price Surge

Hyperliquid (HYPE) is the top daily gainer among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies, rising by double-digits over the past 24 hours.

The move comes amid a broader market recovery that has lifted the total crypto market capitalization by nearly 1%. However, recent data suggests an unexpected potential catalyst that may be supporting HYPE’s price: Silver.

HYPE Leads Top 100 Crypto Gainers Amid Spike in Silver Trading Activity

BeInCrypto Markets data showed HYPE has been trending upwards since Monday. The altcoin surged to $34 earlier today, marking its highest price since early December.

At the time of writing, HYPE was trading at $33.36. This represented an increase of 22.44% over the past day alone. The daily trading volume also rose 93% to reach over $800 million.

The price rise coincides with a commodities trading frenzy on the platform. According to exchange data, Hyperliquid’s Silver-USDC market recorded approximately $1.1 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours, making it the third most-traded asset on the exchange after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

But how does this activity translate into support for HYPE’s price? The link between silver trading and Hyperliquid’s price stems from the protocol’s recent structural upgrade, Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 3 (HIP-3).

The platform activated HIP-3 in October 2025. This upgrade democratizes the creation of perpetual futures markets.

With HIP-3, anyone can permissionlessly deploy their own perpetual futures markets on HyperCore (Hyperliquid’s core infrastructure) by staking at least 500,000 HYPE tokens.

Since the rollout of HIP-3, activity across these externally deployed markets has expanded. Open interest across HIP-3 markets reached a new all-time high of over $900 million today.

“HIP-3 OI has been hitting new ATHs each week. A month ago, HIP-3 OI was $260M,” Hyperliquid posted.

Silver has emerged as the most actively traded asset, accounting for the majority of daily trading volume in HIP-3 markets.

“HIP-3 has beaten the previous days all time high in volume and we are not even half way through the day. SILVER-USDC has executed $1.15Bn alone which is basically equivalent to the daily volume on the ETH-USDC market,” analyst McKenna wrote.

This surge in trading activity has implications for HYPE’s tokenomics. Under HIP-3, fees generated are split evenly, with 50% going to the market deployer and 50% flowing to the protocol.

As trading volumes across HIP-3 markets continue to rise, protocol-level fee revenue increases. This dynamic creates a new and expanding source of income for Hyperliquid.

Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund, which plays a central role in HYPE’s economic model, deploys approximately 97% of the fund’s collected fees to buy back HYPE tokens from the open market. These buybacks gradually reduce circulating supply, a mechanism commonly viewed as supportive for long-term price stability and appreciation.

Notably, FalconX estimates that incremental fee generation from HIP-3 markets could translate into as much as 67% upside for HYPE this year, highlighting the potential scale of HIP-3’s contribution to the protocol’s overall economic performance.