This Altcoin Is A 12,500% Crypto Bet Until 2028, Says Arthur Hayes

BitMEX co-founder and crypto-legend Arthur Hayes used the main stage at Tokyo’s WebX 2025 to unveil a blunt, numbers-first valuation case for Hyperliquid’s HYPE ￰0￱ a slide headed “Hyperliquid: 126x Upside,” Hayes’ family office Maelstrom modeled how an accelerating stablecoin economy could reprice the decentralized perps exchange dramatically ￰1￱ HYPE Could Be The Best Crypto Bet The slide’s premise was explicit: “Stablecoin Expansion To Boost Annualized Fees To $258B,” with a 0.03% net trading-fee assumption, a 5% discount rate, and a “Terminal Value of HYPE Rev” of $5.161 trillion versus a current fully diluted valuation near $41.05 billion—yielding an “Upside Potential 126X.” In his talk, Hayes told the audience he expects HYPE “to 126x over the next three years.” The timing of the forecast coincides with a burst of on-chain and trading-venue milestones for ￰2￱ to data highlighted during and around the event, Hyperliquid open positions hit a record 196,462 on Sunday, open interest climbed above $15 billion, total wallet equity peaked near $31 billion, and Sunday volume set a high around $19.46 billion for weekends, per ￰3￱ Reading: Lummis Fast-Tracks Crypto Market Structure Bill To Reach Trump’s Desk Before Thanksgiving A research note from Redstone last week argued the venue has, within two years, captured “over 75% of the entire decentralized perpetual exchange market,” challenging dYdX and, at times, approximating Binance volumes on select pairs.

Hayes’ 126x case rests on a macro-to-micro bridge: a world where stablecoin float expands to roughly $10 trillion by 2028, Hyperliquid’s share of average daily volume reaches 26.4%, and that activity translates into $258 billion of annualized fees for the ￰4￱ geometry of the model is what matters: if volumes and fees scale with the stablecoin base and if HYPE continues to be the instrument that reflexively captures protocol economics, the implied terminal value dwarfs the token’s present ￰5￱ inputs, assumptions, and outputs were all printed on the Maelstrom slide on stage in ￰6￱ Reading: Crypto Analyst Reveals Key Altcoins To Watch Right Now Crucially, Hayes has been backing the thesis with ￰7￱ August 15, on-chain sleuth Lookonchain flagged that Arthur Hayes bought more HYPE, LDO, and ENA, detailing cumulative five-day purchases that included 58,631 HYPE alongside 1,750 ETH, 3.1 million ENA, 1.29 million LDO, 184,610 PENDLE, and 420,000 ETHFI (about $15.9 million in total at reported valuations).

The structural backdrop helps explain why a stablecoin-led model resonates for ￰8￱ exchange is a decentralized venue for perpetual futures, letting traders take leveraged exposure without expiry; it runs on its own L1 and has seen sustained growth in both open interest and fee generation in ￰9￱ has talked up HYPE before—publicly floating a nearer-term $100 price marker back in May—yet Monday’s deck was his most explicit attempt to tie a 2028 outcome to quantifiable ￰10￱ the path requires a $10 trillion stablecoin base and a quarter-share of decentralized perps ADV is the crux of the ￰11￱ the mechanism he emphasized—fee throughput scaling with stablecoin adoption, captured in token value—matches how many analysts already frame HYPE’s design, where protocol revenues and buybacks link the token to venue ￰12￱ press time, HYPE traded at $45.84.

Featured image created with DALL. E, chart from ￰13￱