Main highlights
- On December 29th, the HYPE token surged more than 3% on the daily chart, sending its value soaring to $25.89.
- This surge came after the cryptocurrency exchange announced a large-scale token distribution of 1.2 million unstaken HYPE tokens.
- In 2025, Hyperliquid generated $844 million in revenue
On December 29th, Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, saw a small 3.5% rise on the daily chart, increasing its value to $26.24 and hitting a staggering $8.89 billion market cap.
According to CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency is trading at around $26. This cryptocurrency surge follows Bitcoin’s $90,000 rise and the impressive performance of decentralized exchanges in 2025.
Despite the surge in HYPE, the Community Sentiment Index still shows 67% bullish and 33% bearish.
HYPE soars ahead of large-scale token distribution to teams
On December 28th, Hyperliquid co-founder Iliensinc notified the community via Discord that a large-scale token distribution was scheduled to begin. Hyperliquid Labs has unstaked 1.2 million tokens, worth approximately $31 million at current prices, to be allocated to key team members of the project.
The first distribution is scheduled for January 6, 2026, officially starting the predefined vesting schedule for team rewards.
This event is part of the project’s established 24-month linear vesting plan for team allocation, which represents 23.8% of the total supply of 1 billion tokens. The announcement clarified the upcoming schedule and specified that subsequent distributions to teams will occur on the 6th of each month, as expected.
This transparency is designed to manage market expectations and reduce potential sudden selling pressure due to token unlocking.
This distribution is consistent with Hyperliquid’s bootstrapped, venture capital-free model, which ensures that all token releases are in-house and aligned with long-term project incentives.
This announcement received mixed reactions from the community. While some members have praised the upfront communication, others are closely monitoring the impact on short-term token volatility.
It is noted that the platform’s ongoing token buyback program and recent burn of 37 million HYPE are providing much-needed balance with new tokens entering circulation.
To mark a major accomplishment and show our gratitude to our dedicated community, we are releasing $400 million in HYPE from our reserve funds.
This distribution is available to everyone in the $HYPE community.
See below for more details… 👇
1/2🧵 pic.twitter.com/tM3uO3eFq0
— Hyperliquid Marketing (@HyperliquldX_) December 29, 2025
Separately, the community also announced the release of new tokens from the reserve.
Hyperliquid generates $844 million in revenue
After a year of growth, the decentralized finance platform has achieved a new status as one of the most profitable companies in the sector. As the leading decentralized perpetual futures exchange built on its own proprietary blockchain, Hyperliquid generated approximately $844 million in revenue in 2025, according to ASXN Data.
One of the main sources of this revenue is trading fees from major derivative products, which makes crypto exchanges one of the top revenue-generating protocols across the crypto sector.
The strength of $HYPE is impressive. I don’t know if it’s just because of LIT coming out here, but it’s been pretty steady the last few weeks. Maybe it’s the lowest locally…
From a months perspective, there is still no real view on HyperLiquid. Everyone wants to buy this item that costs less than $20. Let’s see how low it is… pic.twitter.com/zl8Ng69IGF
— Altcoin Sherpa (@AltcoinSherpa) December 29, 2025
Separately, the platform records a cumulative annual trading volume of $2.95 trillion, with an average daily trading volume of $8.34 billion. Perpetual contracts alone generated $848 million in fees and helped the platform generate $808 million in revenue, according to the data.
According to some experts, the token has shown strong resilience to continued turmoil in the market. Although it is unclear whether this stability is directly related to the upcoming release of the LIT token, the price has remained relatively stable over the past few weeks. This suggests that a lower bound on potential regional prices may be established.
Tulip King said in a post on X: “If volume declines are sustained post-TGE, it will prove the existence of an alternative PERDEX, but conditional on the race to zero fees, which will require sector-wide price reductions. If volume declines return to hyper-liquidity, this will be an incredible price to buy the hype.”
Also read: HYPE Burn approved by validators, price drops
