Arthur Hayes, Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, has made a high-conviction bet on Hyperliquid, naming its native token HYPE as his firm's largest altcoin position. In a detailed essay, Hayes argues that HYPE could climb to $150 by August 2026, even in a weak or sideways broader crypto market.
His bullish thesis hinges on Hyperliquid's revenue model and market positioning. Hayes frames Hyperliquid as the dominant decentralized exchange (DEX) for perpetuals trading and notes that 97% of protocol revenue is used to buy back HYPE tokens from the open market. "Hyperliquid, the dominant perp DEX, is the largest revenue-generating project that isn’t a stablecoin," he wrote. "No other project in all of crypto hands as much money back to token holders as Hyperliquid."
To reach the $150 target, Hayes' model requires Hyperliquid to lift its 30-day annualized revenue to $1.4 billion, a level the platform previously achieved in August 2025. It also assumes the market will re-rate the token's earnings multiple from around 12x to roughly 25.2x. Hayes argues that Hyperliquid does not need an overall expansion in crypto derivatives activity; it only needs to capture more market share from centralized exchanges. A 3.97 percentage-point increase in market share would be sufficient to return to that $1.4 billion revenue run rate.
A key growth driver is HIP-3, Hyperliquid's permissionless perpetuals listing framework. Users who stake 500,000 HYPE can launch markets using the platform's engine. Early traction includes markets for silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100, and the S&P 500. Hayes notes that HIP-3 volumes account for close to 10% of total Hyperliquid revenues just four months after launch. His model assumes HIP-3 revenue will grow 160% over six months. He also highlights HIP-4, a forthcoming permissionless prediction markets feature, as a potential upside catalyst.
Addressing competition, Hayes argues that headline volumes on perp DEXs can be distorted. He prefers the metric of average daily volume relative to open interest (ADV-to-OI), stating Hyperliquid has the most "real" volume among top perp DEXs. On token supply, he notes the team distributed roughly 20% of awarded tokens in November and December 2025 but reduced distributions to about 1% in January and February 2026, which he sees as supportive for the token price.
Even in a stress case where the market applies only a 12x earnings multiple, Hayes values HYPE at around $58, roughly 75% above levels at the time of his writing. Following his public endorsement, HYPE's price surged more than 11% in 24 hours to around $35, significantly outperforming Bitcoin's 3.1% gain during the same period.
