Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, as whales have stirred up 'turbulence' on Hyperliquid, this decentralized derivatives exchange is re-entering the spotlight of the crypto world with a new perspective after encountering a 'sniper' attack. Once a challenger, it is now shaking the traditional territory of centralized exchanges with a series of impressive data performances and rapid ecosystem expansion.
This article by PANews delves deeply into Hyperliquid's recent data, aiming to comprehensively present the true picture of Hyperliquid's development.
Contract holdings repeatedly break new highs, approaching OKX
On May 23, Hyperliquid's open contract volume reached 9.31 billion USD, continually setting new historical highs. This figure is more than double the 4.4 billion USD peak created in December of last year. Among them, BTC and ETH contributed about half of the contract holdings.
A horizontal comparison with some mainstream CEX data shows that Hyperliquid's contract holdings have become similar to that of OKX. In terms of Bitcoin contract holdings, it ranks between 5th and 7th among exchanges like OKX, Bitget, and HTX. On May 23, Hyperliquid's DEX trading volume reached 714 million USD, roughly tripling from 200 million USD at the beginning of the month.
With the increase in trading activity, Hyperliquid's income situation has also seen a significant improvement; in the past 30 days, Hyperliquid generated fees totaling 62 million USD, making it the 8th ranked protocol by income, just behind Jito and Pump.fun, and even surpassing Tron and Solana.
In March, Hyperliquid frequently encountered incidents where traders exploited order book vulnerabilities to gain huge profits (related reading: Hyperliquid suffers another flash attack, a thrilling plot of life and death in 2 hours, no winners in the hunt by leading exchanges). From that time, it can be seen that Hyperliquid's capital inflow experienced a sharp decline; from March 1 to April 7, Hyperliquid's capital dropped from 2.47 billion USD to 1.85 billion USD, a decline of about 25%. However, as whales returned and frequently placed large contract orders, attracting market attention, Hyperliquid's capital inflow began to reverse. By May 26, Hyperliquid's net capital inflow had grown to around 3.5 billion USD. This figure not only recovered the previously lost amount but also created a new high. Especially after entering May, this inflow change became even more evident, with the highest single-day net inflow reaching 240 million USD and an average daily net inflow of 53 million USD.
These capital inflows are closely related to the large orders placed by whales like James Wynn. After entering May, several whales, including James Wynn and '50x Guy,' frequently placed contract orders worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of USD on Hyperliquid. Under the real-time observation of on-chain analysts, the operations of these whales became a hot topic of market attention. This also inadvertently served as advertising for Hyperliquid. Interestingly, this kind of transparent on-chain operation creates a follow-on effect, becoming Hyperliquid's unique advantage as a decentralized exchange, something traditional CEXs find hard to replicate.
Token market cap surpasses SUI, multiple new protocols in the ecosystem have airdrop expectations
With all data trending positively, Hyperliquid's governance token HYPE started a significant rise after hitting a low of 9.3 USD in April, reaching a peak price of 39.9 USD by May 27, with a maximum increase of about 329%. The market cap of the HYPE token also peaked at 12.9 billion USD, surpassing SUI to become the 13th ranked token by market cap.
In the ecological field, Hyperliquid has also made some new progress recently. In April, external DeFi protocols like Morpho and Upshift began deploying on Hyperliquid. Several exclusive protocols within the ecosystem also started operating, with multiple protocols like HyperLend, Felix, and HypurrFi exceeding a total value locked (TVL) of 100 million USD. By May 27, Hyperliquid's TVL reached 1.46 billion USD, and the number of protocols increased to 27, of which 16 are exclusive protocols of Hyperliquid. Several of these protocols have launched points programs in their early stages, indicating a significant potential for airdrops.
Furthermore, the situation that previously relied on Arbitrum for capital circulation has also changed significantly. New cross-chain bridge tools like Hyperunit, HyperSwap, and HyBridge now support direct capital circulation of more on-chain assets. Meanwhile, in terms of stablecoin issuance, Hyperliquid ranks sixth among all public chains with a stablecoin market cap of 3.6 billion USD, surpassing other public chains like Arbitrum, Aptos, Sui, and TON, which have been around longer. The largest issued USDC occupies 97% of the issuance with a market cap of 3.5 billion USD, while Hyperliquid's unique feUSD currently has an issuance of only 51 million USD, still in the early stages. Additionally, the stablecoin USDT0 was also launched on Hyperliquid in May. Although the current issuance is not high, it provides a new important channel for Hyperliquid's capital circulation.
Under the spotlight, there are also shadows; user growth and trust are facing challenges.
Although most of the data appears to be positive, there are some changes that are not very obvious. For example, the cumulative number of new users has not shown significant growth recently, with only a few hundred new users daily, a stark contrast to the thousands of new users per day when Hyperliquid was first launched. It seems to show a lack of energy in attracting newcomers. Furthermore, although the number of daily independent traders has seen some increase recently, reaching over 30,000 at its peak, this data still shows a large gap compared to other centralized exchanges. Additionally, in terms of trading categories, the share of the three tokens BTC, ETH, and SOL has long hovered around 50%, making it difficult for other types of token trading volume to break through. This also makes it challenging for newly listed tokens on Hyperliquid to create the kind of 'listing effect' that other leading exchanges experience. Recent token listing auctions have also been relatively quiet, with auction prices generally between 20,000 USD and 30,000 USD.
Additionally, in the previous flash attack, Hyperliquid's largest direct loss came from the revenue loss of the HLP treasury. As the main source of liquidity, the HLP treasury's revenue dropped from 63 million USD to 4 million USD at that time. However, recent data shows that the current HLP revenue has returned to 64.7 million USD, breaking a new high. But from another perspective, this aftereffect has not been completely resolved; the treasury's deposit amount dropped from 500 million USD to a low of 149 million USD in March, losing 60% of its funds. Although this number has recently rebounded to 350 million USD, it still lags about 30% behind the original high. This indicates that the flash attack incident significantly affected these large depositors' trust in Hyperliquid, which has yet to fully recover.
Overall, Hyperliquid has undoubtedly delivered an impressive report card recently. Whether it is the exponential growth of core data such as contract holdings and trading volume, or the market performance of the native token HYPE, all demonstrate strong upward momentum and high market attention. Especially, the entry of whales and transparent on-chain operations have brought a new wave of free market promotion to Hyperliquid.
However, beneath the glitz, there are concerns; the slowdown in new user growth and the complete restoration of trust from the large depositors in the HLP treasury are issues that Hyperliquid must confront and resolve before stepping onto a higher platform. Overall, Hyperliquid's performance still proves to the industry that this emerging platform is gradually becoming an undeniable force among trading platforms.
