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.
“All the crypto trading happens on Hyperliquid now, so most of the other crypto assets are getting less buying pressure,” Asad added.
Hyperliquid’s most recent price jump came two days after President Donald Trump said his administration was working to bring the platform to the U.S.
“I understand that [Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair] Mike [Selig] is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion, working very hard on that,” Trump said at a White House event.
Behind the rally
Despite Hyperliquid drawing some capital away from direct Bitcoin purchases, the cryptocurrency still gained nearly 25% over the past week. Macro factors, including the Treasury Department’s recent bond-buyback announcement, helped set the rally in motion, but Asad said liquidations drove Bitcoin’s most recent surge.
On Tuesday, as Bitcoin traded around $64,000, traders liquidated $1.3 billion in short positions in a single day. Another $1 billion in Bitcoin shorts were liquidated over the following 48 hours, bringing the week’s total to $4.5 billion, according to Bitwise.
Political developments also helped support the rally. At a meeting with crypto industry leaders this week, Trump urged Congress to pass the Clarity Act, a bill that would establish a long-awaited market structure framework for digital assets. On Thursday, Selig said he had directed the CFTC to begin developing clearer crypto rules if Congress does not pass the legislation before the end of the year.
In the meantime, worries over U.S. debt surpassing $40 trillion and a weakening U.S. dollar have renewed investor interest in alternative assets such as gold and Bitcoin.
