Hyperliquid validators to vote on USDH stablecoin ticker

Decentralized exchange and Layer-1 chain Hyperliquid is set to conduct a governance vote, where protocol validators will decide which team will be assigned the USDH ticker to issue a native stablecoin on the network.

The Hyperliquid team, via a Sunday post in the project’s official Discord server, confirmed that the voting will take place on Sep. 14 between 10:00 and 11:00 UTC. 

However, before that, teams vying for the USDH designation must submit their proposals by September 10, with validators expected to publicly declare their preferred choice by Sep. 11 to give users time to “stake to a validator who matches their vote.”

“Voting is based on stake. Validators will vote by submitting the address corresponding to the team they support,” the team wrote.

Further, the team clarified that the vote is solely concerning the ticker assignment and does not grant the chosen issuer any exclusive rights or special privileges.

“There will continue to be multiple stablecoins on the Hyperliquid blockchain and new stablecoin teams who join the Hyperliquid ecosystem. USDH will be only one of many such stablecoins,” Hyperliquid added.

Hyperliquid announced its plans to launch a proprietary stablecoin on Sep. 5, which will function as a “Hyperliquid-first, Hyperliquid-aligned, and compliant USD stablecoin,” as part of the protocol’s next major update designed to “improve liquidity and reduce user friction.” 

USDH would serve as an alternative to bridged assets like USDC, which currently accounts for 95% of the $5.6 billion stablecoin supply on the network, according to DefiLama data.

Issuers that are interested in deploying USDH have been asked to submit proposals, and the winning group will be chosen through an onchain validator vote, with selection based on stake-weighted support from the network’s validators.

As of Sep. 8, four teams, Paxos Labs, Frax Finance, Agora, and a Hyperliquid-native group called Native Markets, have submitted proposals. Each bidder has outlined a different model for backing and distributing the upcoming stablecoin.

Agora’s proposal even outlines plans to channel net revenue from its cash and U.S. Treasury reserves into Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund or dedicated HYPE token buybacks.

HYPE price rallies

Since the Friday announcement, HYPE (HYPE), the decentralized exchange’s native cryptocurrency, has rallied nearly 12%, and was trading at just 2.3% below its all-time high of $50.99 at press time.

Besides the stablecoin plans, much of this performance has been supported by the platform’s growing role as a top DEX, particularly for perpetual futures trading. DefiLama data for last month shows that the platform handled $398 billion in perpetual derivatives trading volume and $20 billion in spot trades.

Hyperliquid has also emerged as the eighth-largest decentralized finance protocol in terms of total value locked.