Hyperliquid's HYPE surpasses Aave in market cap, claims nearly half of decentralized perpetual swaps volume

Reported by The Block: Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual swap trading platform that recently airdropped 310 million fully unlocked tokens to users who earned points by trading on the platform, has seen its HYPE token surge in price, flipping lending platform Aave in market capitalization.
The platform has also risen to claim nearly half of all perpetual swaps trading volume, according to data from The Block.

Hyperliquid's token has only continued to rise since its token generation event (TGE) on Friday, which saw the decentralized perpetual swaps trading platform airdrop 310 million fully-unlocked tokens to users who earned points by trading on the platform for six months ending in May.

The tokens, worth around $1.2 billion at the time, are now worth over $2.9 billion at HYPE's current price of $9.39, giving the token a fully diluted valuation of $9.4 billion, according to The Block's HYPE Price Page.  The token has risen over 10% in the past twenty-four hours.

The token's market capitalization, now at about $3.1 billion, places it above lending platform Aave, privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero, Ethereum Layer 2 Optimism, and other notable crypto projects.

Since first climbing to the lead in daily trading volume among decentralized perpetual swaps platforms in October, as The Block previously reported, Hyperliquid yesterday claimed nearly half of all trading volume among such platforms at 47%, according to The Block's data.  Meanwhile its largest competitor, Synfutures, saw its trading volume fall 30% from Friday, Nov. 29 to Saturday, Nov. 30, compared with a 10% fall on Hyperliquid's part.

HYPE plays a crucial role within the Hyperliquid ecosystem; the token can be staked to secure HyperBFT, an optimized proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that ensures network security and promotes decentralization. Additionally, HYPE is the native gas token for the HyperEVM, the network's execution environment, facilitating transaction fees.

"The Hyperliquid genesis pays homage to the original ethos of Bitcoin: ownership goes to the believers and doers, not rent-seeking insiders," Jeff Yan, co-founder of Hyperliquid, wrote on X on Saturday. "Hyperliquid is the evolution of finance. And Hyperliquid has not succeeded until it houses all of finance."

Hyperliquid has faced criticism from some crypto founders due to its currently closed-source nature. "How do you know the numbers, volume and TVL are correct? Because their API self-report[s] it?" wrote Peter Kris, founder and CEO of cross-chain swap protocol Gasp, on X.