Good afternoon.

This past week brought us what has a chance of staying the biggest news of Hyperliquid in 2026. 

More on that in a second, but first, let’s look at how the market reacted to said news.

Information gathered at midnight UTC at the end of the week. Swings are high, so for most up-to-date token prices, check Hyperliquid.

Let’s take this step by step, because it might not be so obvious if you’re new to Hyperliquid.

In the second half of 2025, there was a discussion about a Hyperliquid-native stablecoin where the yield of the assets backing the coin flows back to the Assistance Fund, and thus to HYPE holders.

The Aligned Quote Asset (now called v1) was launched, the USDH ticker was voted on and Native Markets launched USDH, grew it to ~$100M market cap.

The main issue with AQAv1: It made it a must for the coin to be minted only on Hyperliquid, which then excluded USDC and USDT.

USDC was already the dominant stablecoin, but USDH was slowly creeping up.

With the launch of AQA v2, that “Hyperliquid-only” requirement was essentially removed, and so was the benefit of fee reduction but that’s less important.

Still, you can’t be blamed for wondering what is the point? USDC is already dominating, USDH is already doing AQA v1, what is the point? A question others have asked too, and while this is not necessarily the official answer, we think it’s the following: 

Securing status-quo status as Hyperliquid's default quote asset.

USDH was not yet a threat but it was clearly taking strong steps towards it.

Hyperliquid’s success is also not something you can ignore if you’re in crypto, although some try hard to blind themselves.

So, USDC decided it’s worth staking HYPE (likely a positive EV decision anyway), and giving up ~90% of the yield to cement themselves as the stablecoin of Hyperliquid.

This is not so much about what USDC gets as much as it’s what nobody else can now get…

USDH is sunsetting. USDT has a big uphill climb if they want to compete for the most promising crypto project of the last 5 years.

What is the “new” status quo then?

That last point, while not something we predicted directly, solves a few things, we hope:

Any risks?

Some have said this can also be somewhat of a Trojan Horse because you have Coinbase and Circle as key infrastructure within Hyperliquid.

We can understand the argument, but if both Coinbase and Circle gain more from working within Hyperliquid than against it, we think they will selfishly take the win, even if that means HYPE may win too. (Yes, that’s a nod to CZ’s tweet).

Lastly, while regulatory risk during the Trump administration is much lower, that’s only temporary. Coinbase clearly has influence with policy makers. Circle is no slouch either. Hyperliquid Policy Center is just starting to build those connections.

Some arguments like “Now they can just tell Circle to freeze USDC on Hyperliquid” are nonsense because they could ask that before too, and even USDH was not immune to that risk because Native Markets was just a whitelabel for Bridge.

So, there’s a policy and regulatory net benefit, very clearly.

Oh, and for real last thing now, the bulltard case: Opens up the path for Coinbase to offer perps in the US via builder codes, if everything falls nicely into place.

HypurrFi is winding down. It’s not a protocol we actively used. While diversification has benefits, our approach was more on trying to choose the winners in terms of Hyperliquid key protocols, and HyperLend seemed like it to us. While funds are fine and there’s a transition period, all HypurrFi points are zero. The transition is to Euler, and you can read the full announcement here.

21Shares goes live with THYP, a HYPE ETF. The first of several that should launch soon, further cementing HYPE’s position as a major in crypto.

Trade[XYZ] shows pre-IPO markets can be a resounding success, based on CBRS. A concept Ventuals started from but basically abandoned (no new pre-IPO markets) looks to be very promising again when executed by the Unit Labs team. Some highlights:

CME and NYSE trying to add regulatory pressure. Probably mostly true then again the least surprising negative news. Hyperliquid is impactful, there will certainly be fights to win on the road to house all of finance. Ironic when you look at the accusation, the practices happening on CME and NYSE, and the fact that Hyperliquid heavily restricts US residents. You should have been there on Discord to see how many US residents missed out on the airdrop for this reason.

SpaceX pre-IPO from Trade[XYZ]. After silver, then oil, then S&P500 license, next is SpaceX pre-IPO perps. Again, Ventuals had it for a long time but Trade[XYZ] is likely to execute this in a much stronger way.