Hyperliquid Revenue Model Directs 99% of Fees to Token Buybacks

Published by James Harris on June 26, 2026June 26, 2026

Multicoin Capital published a full valuation of HYPE on June 25, projecting Hyperliquid will generate approximately $8 billion in annual revenue by 2028 and setting a price target of $319, roughly five times the token’s current price near $63. The firm disclosed it has been building one of its largest liquid fund positions in HYPE since February 2026.

The valuation rests on a specific structural argument, not just volume growth. Hyperliquid’s order matching runs fully on-chain, and approximately 99% of protocol revenue is directed toward HYPE buybacks, a mechanic that creates sustained demand regardless of whether retail is paying attention. The protocol generated around $873 million in revenue on roughly $2.9 trillion in trading volume during 2025, with its user base tripling from 301,000 to 923,000 over that period. Multicoin drew a direct comparison to Binance’s 2017 ascent, when it became the dominant centralized exchange within six months of launch. That comparison is doing real work here: Hyperliquid’s monthly perpetual volume has already reached approximately 17% of Binance’s, and its open interest sits at roughly 21% of the largest centralized exchange, both at all-time highs relative to centralized competitors. The HYPE ETF inflow picture adds institutional weight, with net inflows surpassing $17 million in a single 24-hour period and cumulative inflows reaching $171 million.

At 36x trailing twelve-month earnings, HYPE is priced like a growth asset, and the $319 target assumes that multiple compresses to 20x on 2028 projections.

The expansion into real-world assets is the less-discussed part of this story and arguably the more consequential one. Hyperliquid’s first SpaceX-linked perpetual contract produced over $1.2 billion in pre-IPO futures volume, becoming the platform’s most traded asset. A licensed S&P 500 perpetual generated more than $100 million in daily volume in its first week, and real-world asset-linked open interest now sits just under $2.9 billion. That trajectory puts Hyperliquid in direct competition with regulated derivatives venues, a dynamic that will eventually draw regulatory attention in a way that purely crypto-native perpetuals have largely avoided. The competitive pressure on platforms like Kalshi, reportedly in discussions to raise capital at a valuation near $40 billion, becomes sharper if a permissionless on-chain venue is already capturing meaningful volume in the same asset classes.

Multicoin’s position is not isolated. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has publicly bet $100,000 that HYPE outperforms every current top-ten cryptocurrency in USD terms through year-end, though his recent moves in HYPE are worth tracking alongside that conviction. Bitwise CIO [Matt Hougan](https://experts.bitwiseinvestments.com/cio-memos/hyperliquid-is-what-you-get-when-crypto-is-allowed-to-grow-up?utm_source=chatgpt.com) has called Hyperliquid one of the most important crypto projects to emerge in years, arguing it is being undervalued by investors who treat it as a simple derivatives venue. An unidentified wallet withdrawing 572,900 HYPE tokens from Coinbase Prime and immediately