Why is Arthur Hayes betting everything on Hyperliquid (HYPE)?
Arthur Hayes is not one to do things by halves. The BitMEX co-founder and CIO of the Maelstrom fund published a detailed essay on his “Crypto Trader Digest” Substack on March 9, 2026, with an unequivocal conclusion: HYPE is his biggest altcoin conviction right now, and he is targeting 150 dollars by August 2026. This is not an empty statement as Maelstrom has accumulated massively in the 20 to 30 dollars range, building the largest position in their portfolio outside of Bitcoin.
To understand his reasoning, we first need to look at the platform’s numbers.
The economic model justifying the bet
Hayes positions Hyperliquid as the go-to asset in a sideways or bearish market because exchanges continue to generate fees regardless of price direction. What matters even more here is that 97% of the protocol’s revenue is used to buy back HYPE tokens on the market. “Hyperliquid, the dominant perpetual DEX, is the largest revenue-generating project that is not a stablecoin,” he wrote. “No other project in all of crypto returns as much money to token holders.”
For his 150 dollars target to materialize, his model requires the 30-day annualized revenue run rate to grow from roughly 843 million dollars in March to 1.4 billion dollars by August. This level had already been reached in August 2025. His model also incorporates a valuation multiple rerating, going from 12x current earnings to around 25.2x, which remains below the multiples of major publicly traded traditional exchanges.
What makes this thesis solid is that Hayes is not betting on a global expansion of crypto derivatives activity. He is solely betting on taking market share from CEXs. He calculates that a 3.97 percentage point increase in market share would be enough for Hyperliquid to reclaim this 1.4 billion dollars annualized run rate.
HIP-3 and HIP-4: The catalysts the market is underestimating
The engine for the next leg up, according to Hayes, is HIP-3, Hyperliquid’s permissionless listing framework. Users who stake 500,000 HYPE can launch markets using the platform’s matching and margin engine. Hayes points out the early traction on silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100, and the S&P 500. “In just four months, HIP-3 volumes account for nearly 10% of Hyperliquid’s total revenue,” he wrote. Permissionless listings have always been the Holy Grail for DEXs, and the rapid volume growth proves it. His model assumes that HIP-3 revenues will increase by 160% over six months.
The weekend of the Iranian conflict actually provided a real-world proof of concept: traders flocked to Hyperliquid to trade perpetuals on tokenized oil while traditional markets were closed. This is exactly the use case Hayes describes with 24/7 access to assets normally restricted to regular market hours, offering 10x to 20x leverage where traditional brokers only provide 2x to 3x.
ENA, ETHFI, PENDLE: The capital rotation documented on-chain
To fund this accumulation, Hayes made clear-cut arbitrage moves. On February 9, 2026, Lookonchain tracked transfers from Arthur Hayes’ wallets: 8.57 million ENA (1.06 million dollars), 2.04 million ETHFI (954,000 dollars), and 950,000 PENDLE (1.14 million dollars), totaling roughly 3.14 million dollars sold in 15 minutes. Each of these tokens had already plummeted between 81% and 94% from their respective peaks.
ETHFI had wiped out all its gains since March 2024, plummeting 94.53% from its ATH. ENA was down 86% since its October peak, trading around 0.12 dollars. PENDLE lost 81% from its high, stuck below 6 dollars.
This is not the first time Hayes has cut DeFi positions at a loss to reposition elsewhere. He did it in August 2025 with ETH, publicly admitted his mistake when the market rebounded, and then bought back into those same assets at higher prices. This time, the rotation is toward HYPE, not a return to the same positions.
HYPE at $150: Realistic scenario or PR stunt?
The question deserves to be asked directly. Hayes holds a substantial position in HYPE through Maelstrom, and publishing an essay with a 5x target over six months is not neutral for his own portfolio’s value. He acknowledges this himself in the text. He also sold his HYPE position around 50 to 55 dollars in late 2025 before buying back in, after the team drastically reduced its token distributions from 20% in November and December to just 1% in January and February 2026.
Hayes’s own bear scenario provides a floor. Even in his most pessimistic stress test with the valuation multiple stuck at 12x and team distributions at their maximum, his model produces a price target of 58 dollars, representing roughly a 75% upside from the 30 dollars level at the time of writing.
For crypto investors following this case from the exchanges, the thesis holds up on fundamentals: an aggressive buyback model, genuine traction in RWA markets, and a platform capturing organic volumes where competitors are buying theirs. The 150 dollars target is ambitious, but the floor of the pessimistic scenario remains well above Maelstrom’s entry price.
Sources:
- CryptoHayes on X
- TradingView
- 0xNairolf on X
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