Multicoin moves $10 million in HYPE to Coinbase Prime, stirring selloff fears

On August 18, Onchain Lens, which tracks blockchain transactions, reported that Multicoin Capital had moved about 172,710 HYPE (about $10.15 million) to Coinbase Prime, a destination that has often been associated with selling by traders.

Given that HYPE is currently among the top 10 crypto tokens, the action by one of its major institutional backers is likely to attract attention far beyond Hyperliquid users.

This is important as HYPE’s market cap is almost $13 billion and is currently priced at about $58.59, as per DefiLlama. Given that market cap, the token movements are far from taking place independently. Major transfers to exchanges can quickly shape traders’ perceptions of imminent risks across the market.

A transfer that still leaves Multicoin heavily exposed

When viewed relative to Multicoin’s current holdings, the $10.15 million transfer is actually rather insignificant. Onchain Lens estimates that the fund has approximately 2.16 million HYPE left, currently valued at around $126.63 million. To put it differently, the Coinbase Prime transfer actually seems to be a trim rather than an exit.

Coinbase Prime is the institutional platform of Coinbase, which provides services such as custody, execution, and funding for the institution’s clients. It also serves as a facility through which institutions sell large amounts of their positions using the regulated market. Onchain Lens classified this transfer as “likely to sell”, thus alerting the trading community.

Why the crypto market reads exchange inflows as a warning

This anxiety isn’t without some recent background. HYPE is trading well below its June high of $76.87 according to DefiLlama; meanwhile, open interest is at almost $11.8 billion. This creates a large number of leveraged positions, which can amplify any sudden downward movements.

Traders consider the transfer of tokens to exchanges to be a sign of supply entering the market. With HYPE’s liquidity still smaller than that of big cryptocurrencies, even an experienced trader may find the order book hard to manage. After a summer of observing the movement of tokens from Hyperliquid’s biggest holders, any other Multicoin transfer keeps the market on alert.

Multicoin has insisted it is not selling

Multicoin previously opposed similar rumors. For example, in the latter part of July, after Multicoin and Paradigm unstaked a total of $291 million worth of HYPE tokens, causing the price of HYPE tokens to fall below $60, the co-founder of Multicoin, Tushar Jain, issued a statement saying, “We did not unstake to sell,” and stated that the unstaking had occurred solely for privacy and wallet rotation purposes, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

At that time, on-chain specialists at Markets Alpha confirmed this reason, showing that the tokens were moved to custody instead of going to exchanges. The recent transfer is important due to the change in destination: Coinbase Prime has a more direct path to settlement. This does not prove that the tokens have been sold, but it explains why a $10 million movement is on the front pages.

What still underpins HYPE

The negative evaluation also needs to be considered alongside Hyperliquid’s fundamental figures. In its valuation report for June, Multicoin noted that the platform earned approximately $873 million in revenue on trading volume of about $2.9 trillion in 2025, which accounts for over 59% of open interest in the DeFi perpetual markets.

HYPE’s token economics are another part of the bull case. Roughly 99% of protocol revenue is directed toward HYPE buybacks, with the purchased tokens subsequently burned. Multicoin argued in the same report that HYPE could reach around $319 by 2028.

The transfer of $10.15 million does not conclusively resolve the debate between fundamentals and prevailing short-term selling pressure. However, given that Multicoin continues to hold more than $100 million in HYPE, major events involving Multicoin’s HYPE wallets are bound to have a significant impact on market movements.

The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.