Hyperliquid's native token HYPE surged to an all-time high of $59.29 on September 18, 2025, marking an 8% daily gain and a nearly 40% monthly increase. This performance outpaced major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP, with HYPE's market capitalization approaching $16 billion. The rally was fueled by growing adoption of Hyperliquid's decentralized perpetual futures exchange, which now handles up to 25% of Binance's perps volume, with monthly turnover reaching $330 billion.
BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes praised the milestone, calling it an "All-time Hype" and previously predicting up to 126x growth due to stablecoin expansion potentially boosting Hyperliquid's annualized fees from $1.2 billion to $258 billion. Data from Nansen revealed a trader holding a $30 million leveraged long position on HYPE, with $1.39 million in unrealized profits, adding tokens consistently.
Meanwhile, rival decentralized exchange ASTER launched on September 17, backed by CZ-linked YZi Labs and PancakeSwap. Its native token ASTER surged 330% in 24 hours, from $0.08 to $1, with total value locked exceeding $1.85 billion. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) endorsed the project as "well done," sparking speculation that Aster is his strategic move to counter Hyperliquid's market share. Aster introduced "Hidden Orders" to address transparency concerns CZ raised about Hyperliquid's open order books, which he argued could lead to front-running.
Hyperliquid's dominance in DeFi perps (over 80% market share) is attributed to its high performance—median trade execution at 0.2 seconds and capacity for 200,000 TPS—alongside zero-gas trades and non-custodial security. However, critics allege Binance has attempted to undermine Hyperliquid through market manipulation, including the March 2025 "JELLY attack."