Key Points
- Hyperliquid’s HYPE token experienced a 20% price decrease, with its market cap falling below $9 billion.
- Despite recent setbacks, analysts remain optimistic about HYPE’s potential to reach a new all-time high.
Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, which had been showing a positive trend recently, saw a 20% price drop today. It was trading at $26.54, and its market cap fell below $9 billion.
On Dec. 22, HYPE reached a record high of $34.96, marking an almost 200% cumulative increase from its airdrop listing price of $11. Its market cap exceeded $11.5 billion, earning it a place among the top 20 coins by market cap, as per CoinGecko’s data.
Hyperliquid’s Rise and Recent Dip
Hyperliquid DEX, launched in June 2023, has seen increased popularity due to its novel approach of eliminating transaction gas fees. The platform offers low fees on perpetual contracts and trade openings, with the revenue being reinvested into the ecosystem via token buybacks or support for ecosystem vaults.
HYPE’s price soared following one of the most awaited token airdrops of the year. Hyperliquid distributed 310 million tokens to its users, marking the largest airdrop in crypto history.
However, HYPE’s price has faced a setback due to increasing concerns within its community, making HYPE the top trending coin on CoinGecko. From its all-time high reached the previous day, HYPE’s price dropped by 26%, hitting an intraday low of $25.77 on Dec. 23. This decrease brought its market cap down to $8.87 billion, making it the 23rd largest crypto asset at the time.
Reasons for HYPE’s Price Drop
HYPE’s price fell after community members noticed a major whale, identified as user laurentzeimes, started selling over 1 million HYPE tokens. The sales were carried out using Hyperliquid DEX’s TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price) mechanism, which breaks down large orders into smaller transactions over a set period to minimize slippage. So far, the whale has sold 175,000 tokens during the ongoing TWAP execution.
The sell-off coincided with worries about North Korean hackers actively trading on the platform. Cybersecurity expert Tayvano speculated that this activity could be a test of a vulnerability in Hyperliquid’s security. The fact that Hyperliquid operates with only four validators added to the concerns.
In the wake of this discovery, Hyperliquid saw over $42 million in USDC outflows — its largest since launch — likely exacerbating HYPE’s price plunge.
Despite these recent issues, analysts are still optimistic. They predict that HYPE could resume its climb and potentially reach a new all-time high. Analyst CJ, with 92.8k followers, expressed a bullish outlook for HYPE in a Dec. 23 post, suggesting it could climb towards a $40 target if it breaks above the key $30–$32 resistance level.
He noted that while the short-term trend may seem bearish, a drop to $18–$22 could offer traders a strong buying opportunity. However, if HYPE’s price rebounds to around $32.3 in the coming days, it would invalidate his prediction.
This positive outlook is backed by Hyperliquid’s strong performance in the DeFi sector. It leads the decentralized perpetual trading market with a weekly trading volume that peaked at $98.6 billion last week and a TVL that recently surpassed $3.4 billion for the first time this month, up from $188 million in October.
