Bitcoin is surging again. The cryptocurrency climbed above $78,200 on Friday for the first time since May. But it wasn’t the only crypto asset posting big gains. Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual futures exchange, reached a record $75, leaving its HYPE token up over 195% so far this year, according to CoinGecko.
Hyperliquid’s gains have drawn market share that might otherwise have flowed into Bitcoin, according to Ish Asad, a research analyst at crypto index fund manager Bitwise Investments.
“If Hyperliquid and perpetual futures weren’t so popular, people would just be buying spot Bitcoin,” Asad told Fortune.
Hyperliquid, which lets users trade through self-custody wallets rather than a traditional centralized exchange, has emerged as a major force in crypto derivatives trading over the past year. During the first quarter of 2026, the platform processed more than $633 billion in combined spot and perpetual futures volume, over six times its total during the second quarter of 2024, according to investment manager VanEck.
Its growing success has “sucked away volume” from direct purchases of smaller crypto tokens. Perpetual futures let traders speculate on a cryptocurrency’s price, often with leverage, without buying or holding the token itself, making the platform attractive to active traders.
