Overview
- Hayes names Hyperliquid his largest liquid token position, calling it the dominant perp DEX with roughly 97% of revenue used for HYPE buybacks.
- He projects $150 per token by August 2026 contingent on 30‑day annualized revenue returning to about $1.4 billion and a roughly 3.97 percentage‑point market‑share gain from centralized perp venues, with a rerating from ~12x to ~25.2x earnings in his model.
- The thesis leans on HIP‑3 permissionless listings, where staking 500,000 HYPE enables new markets that have reached close to 10% of revenues in four months, and his base case assumes HIP‑3 revenue grows 160% over six months.
- To counter wash‑trading concerns, he favors the ADV/OI ratio to gauge “real” usage and says Hyperliquid leads peers on that measure, adding that order‑book snapshots showed it was often the cheapest venue to execute size.
- Hayes says team token distributions slowed after heavy November–December releases, outlines a stress case near $58 at a 12x multiple if revenue recovers to $1.4 billion with the team receiving 9.91 million HYPE per month, and notes HYPE recently traded around $33.