On-chain data reveals that venture firm Multicoin Capital has staked approximately 1.96 million HYPE tokens, valued at roughly $84 million, on HyperCore—the staking layer of Hyperliquid’s DeFi-native Layer 1 blockchain. The move, flagged by Arkham Intelligence, deepens what is already one of the most concentrated institutional bets on a DeFi-native L1 token in 2025.
According to Arkham, three wallets strongly associated with Multicoin executed the staking transactions in close succession. One address moved $28.45 million in HYPE to the HyperCore staking contract, while the other two followed suit, locking a combined 1.96 million HYPE at prevailing prices. Even after staking, the same cluster of wallets still holds around 2.83 million HYPE—worth about $118 million—indicating the firm is shifting its position rather than unwinding it.
The activity confirms earlier market speculation that a wallet cluster labeled “Galaxy” belongs to Multicoin. That cluster currently holds 4.11 million HYPE (~$176 million), and with the latest staking, Multicoin’s total HYPE holdings have reached 7.023 million tokens, of which 4.189 million ($179 million) are now staked. The firm now ranks among the top three HYPE investors on the blockchain. Notably, these figures exclude 675,000 HYPE ($28.9 million) sent to Coinbase two weeks ago, suggesting a portion of the position remains liquid.
The staking spree extends a pattern of heavy HYPE accumulation by Multicoin-linked addresses. In late January 2025, one of the wallets sent 87,100 ETH—then valued at $220 million—to Galaxy Digital’s OTC desk before converting $46 million of ETH into roughly 1.35 million HYPE. That same address later held $26.9 million in HYPE with an unrealized profit of roughly $10.5 million, underscoring a high-conviction, liquidity-sensitive trading strategy.
HyperCore staking allows HYPE holders to delegate tokens to validators, earning yield and governance influence. By moving nearly $84 million into staked HYPE, Multicoin is aligning with the network’s long-term security and decentralization—a signal the market is treating as a major institutional endorsement. In mid-April, other large wallets shifted $62 million in HYPE from HyperEVM to HyperCore for staking, reinforcing the trend of whales locking in exposure.
Arkham notes that its attribution models are probabilistic, yet the scale and consistency of these flows strongly point to Multicoin’s involvement. Meanwhile, the Hyperliquid foundation unstaked 100,000 HYPE (~$4.1 million) in a routine move to cover operational costs, a minor offset to the overwhelmingly bullish institutional staking activity.
