小众观点：为什么HYPE很难再翻倍

Original Title: Unpopular Take: Why HYPE Won't Do A 2X From Here

Original Author: Catrina

Original Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: HYPE remains one of the most closely watched assets in the crypto market. According to CoinGecko data, HYPE's price recently hovered around $42, gaining approximately 8% and 16.8% over the past 7 and 30 days respectively, with a market cap of about $10.1 billion. It has been called one of the hottest crypto trades this year, noting that HYPE has still recorded roughly 60% gains amidst a broader crypto bear market.

However, the author questions its potential for further upside based on price structure: the 75% of token supply yet to be unlocked implies continued selling pressure ahead; the current FDV is already approaching or even surpassing the valuation range of some traditional exchanges; and at this price point, the source of new marginal buyers—whether retail, traditional institutions, or crypto funds—remains unclear.

More notably, HYPE faces not just valuation issues, but also risks including regulation, hacking attacks, key-person dependency, and trader liquidity migration. For an asset that has already received significant market attention and concentrated promotion by KOLs, the real question is no longer "Does it have a narrative?" but "At this price, who will continue buying?"

The value of this article lies in providing a冷静 contrarian perspective: when a crypto asset transitions from alpha to consensus, investors need to reassess not just how great the project itself is, but whether the current price has already priced in the future prematurely.

Below is the original text:

I previously moved this article to Substack because this viewpoint is quite controversial, and I'm not the type to enjoy arguing on X. But in the end, I decided to put it back on X. I want to publicly record my thoughts, regardless of whether I end up being right or wrong.

Writing this article won't win me more friends. Many people in the Crypto space whom I really like are super bullish on HYPE, and I have absolutely no motive to FUD it. I'm writing this because, amidst the frenzy on CT, someone needs to provide a more冷静 perspective. Here, I've compiled my contrarian views on HYPE into a complete article.

First, let me be clear: I'm not denying that HYPE is absolutely one of the most impressive projects at the moment. None of the following is a critique of HYPE's fundamentals as a business, but simply an objective judgment of its price trajectory.

Getting straight to the conclusion: HYPE is not cheap. I don't believe it can more than double from its current price, i.e., double from today's $40. When market sentiment gets euphoric again, the price might briefly spike above a 2x, but within a relatively reasonable fluctuation range, in the long run, its price will likely plateau below $80. And that's already a relatively optimistic assessment. Here's why:

75% Unlocked Token Supply Will Bring Approximately 3x Selling Pressure

HYPE's current FDV is around $40 billion, but only 25% is in circulation. Token unlocks will continue until 2028.

Let's do a basic sanity check with a few comparable entities:

·CME's all-time high market cap was approximately $118 billion, about 3x HYPE's current FDV;

·ICE's all-time high market cap was approximately $107 billion, about 2.5x HYPE's;

·Nasdaq's all-time high market cap was approximately $57 billion, about 1.5x HYPE's.

If someone buying HYPE today wants to make 2x, they must assume:

·Either the HYPE team never sells their tokens; or the 3x net new selling pressure from future team unlocks requires 6x marginal buying power to absorb; or some combination of the two;

·HYPE must not only surpass Nasdaq but also approach CME's all-time high. Remember, CME is the world's largest derivatives marketplace, handling over $1 quadrillion in notional trading volume annually, with a 130-year regulatory moat.

So the Real Question Is: At This Price, Who Are the Marginal Buyers?

Market buyers broadly fall into two categories: retail and institutions.

·Retail: What "secret" or "alpha" is left to trigger new buying? Almost everyone, including their grandmothers, knows HYPE is the star project in crypto. HYPE is no one's secret. There might be some sidelined buyers watching, but how many are truly left?

·Institutions: This could be the real game-changer. Institutional buyers here can be further divided into two types:

i. Wall Street hedge funds or mutual funds;

ii. Crypto hedge funds.

For the first type, I'm highly skeptical that traditional asset managers will touch HYPE due to its regulatory grey area. The no-KYC setup and regulatory arbitrage are indeed advantages for rapid expansion, but can endowments and mutual funds really accept and endorse this risk? You could argue PURR is an entry path, but that depends on their own risk tolerance, which I can't judge.

Even if they were willing to buy, who do you think these Wall Street veterans would compare HYPE to? Not BNB. More likely Nasdaq, whose all-time high is only 1.5x HYPE's current FDV. Going further, they might reluctantly compare it to CME, whose all-time high is less than 3x HYPE's.

For the second type, ask any rational crypto hedge fund manager on CT: when HYPE's FDV reaches $80 billion, would they continue to hold? Even if they wanted to hold, they would have to reduce their position due to fiduciary duties to their LPs. Expecting an unregulated perpetual futures exchange like HYPE to be valued higher than CME would seem quite unrealistic to LPs.

So tell me: where exactly are these marginal buyers coming from? And we need a very large number of them.

Hacking Risk Is Increasing

Whether it's Lazarus Group or future Mythos-level AI hacking capabilities, if someone is going to attack crypto, where do you think the biggest honey pot will be?

Not to Mention Key-Person Risk

Hyperliquid has some of the most severe key-person risk in crypto. Jeff leads an 11-person team, adheres to a product-first, no-VC philosophy, and every part of the infrastructure—matching engine, validator code, execution logic—is built in-house.

If something really goes wrong, can anyone point to public documentation about backend knowledge transfer? Hopefully, it will never come to that.

Yan is the sole strategic and technical anchor for a protocol processing over $10 billion in daily trading volume. There is no named co-founder, no visible succession plan, and no governance oversight. I sincerely hope Jeff is directing a significant portion of profits towards security and protection.

Crypto Traders Are Essentially Mercenaries

For projects trying to retain users, blockchain interoperability is definitely a bug, not a feature. At some point, traders will perceive HYPE's upside potential as too slow and shift liquidity to the next potential 10x candidate.

In crypto, network effects are not sticky. I've written about this issue extensively before.

As for those analogizing it to BNB—please, that's not a valid comparison, for three reasons:

BNB is 100% unlocked, with no net new selling pressure; HYPE's current circulating supply is only about 24%.

Binance is willing to do much more for BNB, actively "propping it up to the throne"; HYPE's strategy seems closer to a laissez-faire approach.

For price action, the most important question remains: "Who are the marginal buyers?" For rational institutional buyers, the comparable entities will be CME/Nasdaq, not BNB.

In summary, if I were an investor:

If I want to buy crypto and hold for years, why choose HYPE? It still has about 76% of tokens yet to be unlocked, implying roughly 3x net supply pressure. Comparatively, why not choose BTC at $70,000? BTC is the only digital gold, 100% in circulation, with no centralized control, and completely non-fungible. Just to maintain its current price, HYPE needs to find 3x net new buyers.

If I want to buy a crypto that could 10x, why choose a token with an FDV of $40 billion, extremely high consensus, increasing competing DEXs, and every KOL shilling their own bags? Comparatively, why not choose a memecoin that is down over 90% from its peak, has Lindy effect, strong meme attributes, and sufficient volatility?

You can ask those shilling KOLs: Would they buy HYPE at this price?

HYPE has already made many people wealthy. So the real question you should ask yourself is: Who will be their exit liquidity?

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