Asia Morning Briefing: Native Markets Leads Early Voting for Hyperliquid’s USDH Stablecoin Contract

Good Morning, Asia. Here's what's making news in the markets: Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during ￰0￱ and an overview of market moves and ￰1￱ a detailed overview of U. S. markets, see CoinDesk's Crypto Daybook ￰2￱ first signs of how validators are leaning in Hyperliquid’s hotly contested stablecoin vote are in, and the Stripe-aligned Native Markets team has an early ￰3￱ of Thursday morning Hong Kong time, Native Markets has secured 30.8% of the delegated stake, led by heavyweight validators ￰4￱ (13.5%) and Alphaticks (5.2%).

Paxos Labs , the New York–regulated issuer behind PayPal’s PYUSD, sits at 7.6% with backing from B-Harvest and ￰5￱ has picked up 4.5%, while Agora, Frax, and Sky, despite splashy proposals , have yet to attract meaningful support, though many of the most prominent validators have yet to cast their virtual ￰6￱ bigger picture: more than half of stake, 57%, remains ￰7￱ block includes some of the most influential validators on Hyperliquid, such as Nansen x HypurrCollective (the single largest validator with over 18%) and Galaxy ￰8￱ they ultimately land will decide whether Native Markets’ early momentum carries through to the September 14 ￰9￱ Markets is pitching a Hyperliquid-native stablecoin issued via Stripe’s Bridge infrastructure, promising yield-sharing to the Assistance Fund and HYPE ￰10￱ prominent voices, including Agora CEO Nick van Eck, warn that Stripe’s simultaneous push to launch its Tempo blockchain and its control of wallet provider Privy could create ￰11￱ those criticisms, some validators appear to view Stripe’s global payment rails as a compelling advantage.

What’s at stake is far more than just another token ￰12￱ currently holds $5.5 billion in USDC deposits, around 7.5% of the stablecoin’s ￰13￱ that with USDH would redirect hundreds of millions in annual Treasury ￰14￱ has pledged 95% of reserve earnings to HYPE buybacks, Frax promised 100% of yield directly to users, Agora offered 100% of net yield alongside institutional custodianship, and Sky (ex-MakerDAO) proposed 4.85% returns plus a $25 million “Hyperliquid Star” project to bootstrap DeFi on the ￰15￱ already commands nearly 80% of decentralized perpetuals ￰16￱ issuer wins the USDH contract won’t just be minting a stablecoin, they’ll be wiring themselves into the financial backbone of one of crypto’s fastest-growing ￰17￱ Movement: BTC: Currently trading at $114,053, up 2.6% in the past 24 hours and 2.1% over the past week, though still down 3.9% for the ￰18￱ move reflects a short-term rebound fueled by positive risk sentiment and steady demand, even as longer-term consolidation ￰19￱ : ETH is trading at $4,373.99, up 2%, as investors shrug off a mass-slashing event that penalized over 30 validators.

Gold: Gold held near $3,635 an ounce after Tuesday’s $3,674 peak as investors await ￰20￱ data that could shape Fed cuts, while ANZ raised its year-end gold target to $3,800 and sees a peak near $4,000 by June on strong investment demand and central-bank ￰21￱ 225 : Asia-Pacific markets opened mixed Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 0.23% and the Topix down 0.18%, after Wall Street hit record highs on Fed rate-cut hopes and upbeat inflation data. S&P 500: The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to a record 6,532.04 Wednesday after an unexpected drop in wholesale prices bolstered hopes for a Fed rate cut next ￰22￱ in Crypto: Trump's CFTC Hopeful Quintenz Takes His Dispute With Tyler Winklevoss (Very) Public ( CoinDesk ) Polygon rolls out hard fork to address finality bug causing transaction delays ( The Block ) Activist investor Elliott Management says crypto is facing an ’inevitable collapse’ after its ‘perceived proximity to the White House’ inflated a bubble ( Fortune )