TLDR
- HYPE hit a new all-time high above $62, up nearly 58% in the past week.
- Grayscale has accumulated over 682,000 HYPE tokens worth roughly $35–$41.6 million in the past week.
- U.S. spot HYPE ETFs from Bitwise and 21Shares pulled in $25.5 million in a single day, totaling $54 million in seven days.
- Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas called the ETF volume growth “rare,” saying it’s unusual for funds to build momentum through their first week.
- Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says HYPE is one of the most mispriced assets in crypto, comparing Hyperliquid to Robinhood and CME rather than other DeFi tokens.
Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE climbed above $62 on Thursday, setting a new all-time high and outperforming nearly every other major cryptocurrency. The token is up close to 58% over the past seven days, according to TradingView data.
The previous peak was around $58.50, hit last September. HYPE had dropped as low as $21 at the start of 2026 before the current rally began.
On Thursday, HYPE was the best-performing top-100 cryptocurrency by market cap. Other gainers included Mantle’s MNT (up around 9%), Zcash (up 7%), and Worldcoin (up 8%). Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP were all roughly flat, slipping less than 1% on the day.
On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain reported that wallets linked to Grayscale purchased roughly 115,700 HYPE worth around $7 million in just one hour on Thursday. Over the past week, those wallets have accumulated more than 682,000 HYPE, valued at between $34.9 million and $41.6 million depending on the source.
Grayscale is buying $HYPE like crazy, buying 115,733 $HYPE($6.65M) in the past hour alone.
Over the past week, #Grayscale has bought 682,190 $HYPE($34.9M) in total.https://t.co/Sn8hW6P6Qxhttps://t.co/f1b9FQslCX pic.twitter.com/iS6g84Z1PR
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 21, 2026
Grayscale also filed earlier this year for its own spot Hyperliquid ETF, which would put it alongside Bitwise and 21Shares, both of which launched their funds earlier this month.
ETF Demand Surges in First Week
U.S. spot HYPE ETFs attracted a record $25.5 million in new inflows on Wednesday alone. Over their first seven trading days, cumulative inflows reached roughly $54 million. The 21Shares Hyperliquid ETF (THYP) led the day with $16.7 million, while Bitwise’s BHYP added $8.8 million.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed to the volume growth these funds have seen, calling it a “giant step” increase from their first-day figures. He said it is “rare to build in the first week like this,” noting that most ETFs see a big launch day followed by a drop-off.
$THYP & $BHYP both with a 50% jump in volume (again) today, headed for a combined $40m in trading. A perfectly timed launch as EVERYTHING (stocks, bonds, gold, btc, cryptos) is down lately except the HYPE, which is up 27% since THYP's 5/12 launch. pic.twitter.com/RBlXwu54jB
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 20, 2026
Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, said: “Institutions appear to be seizing the opportunity. Early data shows they are piling into HYPE ETFs faster than they did into BTC ETFs on a market-cap-adjusted basis.”
Bitwise has also committed to buying HYPE for its own balance sheet, using 10% of management fees from its BHYP fund to accumulate the token.
Is HYPE Undervalued?
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argued in a recent memo that HYPE is one of the most mispriced assets in crypto today. He said the market is making two mistakes.
The first is treating Hyperliquid as just a crypto leverage trading platform. Hougan believes it should be valued as a global super app targeting the $600 trillion market for all assets, not just the $3 trillion crypto market.
The second is grouping HYPE with tokens like Uniswap’s UNI. Hougan says HYPE is more comparable to Robinhood or CME, pointing to Hyperliquid’s 99% token buyback mechanism as a key differentiator.
Bitwise has committed to holding HYPE on its balance sheet, with 10% of BHYP management fees going toward token purchases. Grayscale’s continued accumulation and its pending ETF filing suggest institutional positioning around HYPE is still growing.
