Key Insights
- HYPE crypto secures the lead among the top 50 coins as the biggest gainer.
- Silver and gold perps trading volumes and open interest hit record high on Hyperliquid.
- HIP-3 upgrade fuels demand for HYPE staking.
The native Hyperliquid crypto, HYPE, just pulled off an impressive 55% upside since Monday. A Surprising outcome, considering that most cryptocurrencies have been relatively suppressed amid weak market sentiment and macro tailwinds.
The Hyperliquid crypto topped out close to $35 after trading as low as $21 at the start of the week. This bullish HYPE price made it the best-performing coin among the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
HYPE crypto’s RSI pushed slightly above 70, indicating that it was already overbought. However, a deeper dive into the forces behind its rally revealed that the rally may not be short-lived. Moreover, the HYPE price was still discounted compared to its September last year highs.
Hyperliquid Taps into the Gold and Silver Rally
HYPE’s price may have taken on a steep vertical this week as the value of precious metals soared to new highs. However, gold and silver maintained an overall bullish trend for the last few weeks, but the native Hyperliquid crypto only started its upward march this week.
The discrepancy can be explained through Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 upgrade, which was deployed in October last year. This upgrade allows HYPE staking to create custom perpetual contracts, for example, perps for gold and silver.
It took a while for the HIP-3 volumes to gain momentum. Volumes reportedly crossed $250 million in December 2025. Other factors may have contributed to the Hyperliquid rally through demand for gold.
For example, gold and silver prices recently attracted more speculation after crossing key price levels. In gold’s case, it surged above $5,000 just a few days ago, and silver crossed $100.
Rising speculation around silver and gold prices this week made its way into Hyperliquid, which has been rapidly becoming the go-to platform for perps trading. For context, HIP-3 open interest has increased 3-fold over the last 4 weeks and is now above $800 million.
Trading volumes on Hyperliquid just surged to $27 billion. Data revealed that roughly 78,300 users contributed to those volumes.
Here’s How HIP-3 Has Been Fueling Demand for HYPE
The HIP-3 upgrade requires at least 500,000 HYPE to be staked to create the derivative tokens, such as the silver and gold versions. Those deploying the tokens get a share of the fees, thus highlighting the incentive.
Meanwhile, the staked coins are no longer in supply. These mechanisms have been propping up HYPE price. Interestingly, this same mechanism could be applied to other asset types.
Surprisingly, the same mechanisms were responsible for the recent surge in HYPE price. On-chain data revealed that spot demand remained in the red despite the cryptocurrency’s recent price surge.
The weak spot demand suggests that HYPE rally was not driven by speculative demand. Instead, the HIP-3 mechanisms were likely the reason behind the price surge.
Despite this, derivatives traders have been taking advantage of the surging demand for Hyperliquid as an avenue for gold and silver exposure. HYPE crypto open interest jumped from $1.21 billion on Monday to $1.73 billion by Wednesday.
In summary, recent derivatives activity on Hyperliquid has been gaining momentum. This also means that gold and silver will likely continue to have a significant impact on HYPE price. The same could be said for other assets that will be tokenized on Hyperliquid soon.