Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and now the chief investment officer at Maelstrom Fund, has made significant moves in the cryptocurrency market recently. He acquired 26,022 HYPE tokens for around $1.1 million on Saturday, marking his first purchase of HYPE in nearly three months. With this acquisition, Hayes now holds a total of 247,334 HYPE tokens, which are valued at more than $10 million. His investment has already yielded unrealized gains exceeding $2.5 million.
Currently trading at about $41, HYPE has seen a slight decline of roughly 2% over the past day, according to CoinGecko. Despite this drop, the HYPE token has shown impressive year-to-date performance, with a surge of approximately 61%. This is in stark contrast to major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have experienced declines of 18% and 25%, respectively. However, HYPE still trades around 31% below its all-time high reached in September.
Hayes has been progressively increasing his holdings in HYPE over recent months. On-chain analysis reveals that he previously sold several altcoins to fund a $1.9 million purchase of HYPE in February. He has openly endorsed the Hyperliquid ecosystem, forecasting a potential price of $150 for HYPE by August based on projections from Maelstrom’s financial model. Hayes attributes this optimistic outlook to Hyperliquid's dominance in the on-chain perpetuals futures market and its ability to maintain a robust revenue stream. He notes that most trading fees are allocated to HYPE token buybacks, ensuring consistent upward pressure on its price.
Hyperliquid currently leads the market in 24-hour perpetual trading volumes, recording $2.6 billion, significantly ahead of competitors such as Aster and edgeX.