Maelstrom Flags $11.9B HYPE Unlocks As Token Faces Selling Pressure
Maelstrom, the family office firm run by crypto veteran Arthur Hayes, has concerns about Hyperliquid’s native HYPE cryptocurrency in a frank examination. The fund calls it a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the project and warns that a wave of token unlocks might cause extraordinary tradeing pressure, putting one of the hottest assets in decentralized finance (DeFi) to the test.
This is the token’s most significant battle yet, since billions of dollars in vested rewards are about to hit the market as Hyperliquid solidifies its place as a top perpetuals platform.
Lukas Ruppert, a researcher at Maelstrom, offers a clear picture of the human side of things. “Think like a Hyperliquid dev,” he says. “You’ve worked so hard for so long. A life-changing amount of tokens is about to vest, and it’s just one click away. This psychological push for Team members to cash out makes the risk even higher, since vested holdings turn from abstract rewards into real money.
Unlock Schedule: A $500 Million Monthly Flood.
The main worry is Hyperliquid’s vesting schedule, which begins on November 29 and lasts for 24 months. This plan will give Team members a huge $11.9 billion worth of HYPE tokens, or about $500 million a month. ongoing purchaseback scheme is bringing back some supply, taking in around 17% of the monthly flood.
But the math doesn’t lie: there is still an estimated $410 million overhang per cycle, which could overwhelm liquidity and drive prices down.
Ruppert stresses the scale’s importance, pointing out that these massive amounts are much largeger than new defenses like digital asset treasuries (DATs). For example, Sonnet BioTherapeutics, a biotech company listed on , recently announced a HYPE-focused approach through their Rorschach partnership.
They put $583 million in tokens and $305 million in cash reserves into the partnership. Maelstrom, on the other hand, calls this “just a drop in the bucket,” not enough to stop the flow of unlocks. As more institutions look to HYPE to diversify their balance sheets, these initiatives may develop, but for the present, they don’t assist much against the vesting deluge.
Skepticism Meets Market Rally
HYPE has surprisingly stayed up in the air despite all the buzz. The coin rose to a new all-time high of $59.29 on Thursday, thanks to a general interest in DeFi innovators in the market. This rise happened just a few hours later than Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, talked about , the token of a competing decentralized perpetual platform.
Ruppert doesn’t think the timing is a coincidence: “CZ pushing Aster two months before unlocks? Not likely a coincidence. later than Aster’s total value locked temporarily went over $2 billion later than launch, the competition is fierce. Ruppert says Hyperliquid isn’t simply building; it’s conducting “business as war” against established companies that want to get back into the market.
himself just sold out all of his HYPE shares, apparently to pay for a deposit on a . This happened days before Maelstrom’s story. Hayes is still positive on the long game, even if he left personally.
He thinks HYPE will go up 126 times by 2028. He says that the drop in value of fiat currency and the rapid expansion of stablecoins are the reasons for this optimism. These changes might increase Hyperliquid’s annualized fees from $1.2 billion to $255 billion.
Navigating the Storm: What It Means For Investors
The unlocks are a high-stakes turning point for traders and holders. Short-term volatility is unavoidable, with tradeing pressure possibly eating away at recent gains and making rivalry stronger. Hyperliquid’s strong fundamentals, on the other hand, should hold up even if purchasebacks speed up or institutional inflows increase.
These include creative perpetuals trading and a growing number of users. “You don’t eat the crypto establishment’s lunch and walk away unchallenged,” Ruppert says.
In the end, fate depends on how well the crew can handle this flood without capsizing. It’s a warning to the larger crypto community that when things develop rapidly, they often face just as many hardys. Investors should keep a careful eye on unlock milestones to weigh the potential benefits of DeFi against the reality of supply shocks. Hayes’ view argues that the actual victors may be those who can weather the storm.
