The crypto market is currently in a strange situation. Prices are slowly moving up, but investor sentiment remains extremely weak.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index still sits in the “Extreme Fear” zone. However, for experienced market participants like BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, this disconnect tells a different story.
Arthur Hayes calls for a $150 $HYPE target
Instead of focusing only on short-term price movements or taking risky short positions, Hayes suggests shifting attention to decentralized exchanges (DEXes).
Hayes draws references from past market cycles, noting that during the sideways market of 2023, platforms like GMX continued to grow by earning trading fees even as traders struggled.
He believes Hyperliquid [HYPE] could follow a similar path as more trading activity moves on-chain.
For perspective, firms such as Tether or Circle keep profits internally. However, Hyperliquid uses about 97% of its revenue to buy back and burn HYPE tokens, reducing supply and potentially supporting the price over time.
Based on this model, Arthur Hayes believes,
“My August 2026 target price for $HYPE is $150, which is roughly 5x higher than its current price of ~$30 at the time of writing this essay.”
Factors required for Hyperliquid to shine
However, for this price target to become realistic, Hyperliquid needs strong growth.
The platform currently generates about $843 million in annualized revenue, but this would need to rise to around $1.4 billion to justify such a valuation.
A key growth driver could be HIP-3, which allows users to create permissionless perpetual markets tied to assets like the Nasdaq-100 or precious metals directly on-chain.
Launching these markets requires staking 500,000 HYPE tokens.
Despite being new, HIP-3 already contributes around 10% of Hyperliquid’s revenue, and if more traders begin hedging traditional assets on-chain, this segment could expand significantly.
The community stands in support of Hayes
Echoing similar sentiments, an X user said,
Source: X
Adding more weightage, another user added,
Source: X
Another important metric supporting the bullish outlook, as per Hayes, is the ADV/OI ratio (Average Daily Volume to Open Interest).
He quoted,
“Hyperliquid’s volumes are the most real out of the top 5 perp DEXs because its ADV/OI ratio is the lowest.”
Source: Arthur Hayes’ substack
However, he does believe that with time and tide, Hyperliquid’s visible share of ADV will increase.
HYPE: Price vs. on-chain metrics
This comes at a time when the token was trading around $34.98 at press time, recording a 13.37% gain in the last 24 hours. Yet, despite the price momentum, on-chain data suggests that the market sentiment is still cautious.
Data from Santiment shows that between mid-January and mid-February, there was a clear gap between what developers were building and how the market felt about the project.
Source: Santiment
However, investor sentiment remained negative, mainly because traders were focused on short-term price swings.
Only recently has sentiment started to recover, suggesting that the market may finally be recognizing the platform’s growing utility and revenue model.
That said, this isn’t the first time Hayes has shown strong confidence in HYPE. As early as the 21st of February, the BitMEX co-founder posted on X that he was accumulating the token and targeting a $150 price level.
While his earlier outlook suggested this milestone could be reached by July 2026, his latest projections now place the timeline closer to August 2026.
However, this is only possible if the protocol is able to achieve roughly $1.4 billion in annual revenue.
Final Summary
- Metrics like Hyperliquid’s low ADV/OI ratio suggest trading activity is driven by real users rather than artificial volume.
- Cautious sentiment shows that the market is still waiting for stronger confirmation of sustained growth.