In one very small, and at least so far obscure, corner of the crypto market, investors are rushing in instead of looking for exits. HYPE exchange-traded funds are taking new assets to investors at a time when the best crypto bets, including bitcoin again etherthey run away.
In May, Bitwise and 21shares launched ETF tracking indices for HYPE, a decentralized crypto asset that runs on its blockchain, hyperliquid. Products, which trade under tickers BHYP again THYPthey have raised nearly $150 million and since their launch have experienced strong inflows, something that caught the attention of Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius Wealth Management.
Greyscale launched its own Greyscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF (HYPG) on Wednesday.
“This is a 1% market that has tapped into its potential market. A lot of people still don’t know what hyperliquid is,” Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan told CNBC.
Hyperliquid is a perpetual futures exchange built on the blockchain. It works around the clock for traders outside the United States. It has been quiet until last summer, when the US-Iran war sent traders scrambling to access oil markets over the weekend. Volume quickly reached nearly $1 billion a day in crude oil alone, said Stephen Coltman, 21shares vice president and head of macro.
For a token that many financial advisors and investors had not heard of last month, the reception has been difficult to ignore, especially at a time when bitcoin is facing a steep selloff. Spot bitcoin ETFs have been hemorrhaging assets. Rating of the company iShares Bitcoin Trust ETFIBIT), for example, ended the week down about 16%.
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The influx of HYPE is less likely to be a spin off of an existing crypto than a movement of investors to something truly new.
“Hyperliquid brings new investors from outside the crypto ecosystem to this particular digital asset. I think it speaks to a very different type of investor than bitcoin,” said Zach Pandl, head of research at Greyscale.
Pandl said investors are attracted to a revenue model they can understand. Most crypto tokens have an indirect relationship with the activity of the underlying platform, but hyperliquid is different.
“In the case of hyperliquid, 99% of the money generated on the platform goes to buy HYPE, the asset,” Hougan said. “There’s this strong mechanism between the activity that happens in crypto and the value of hyperliquid assets,” Hougan said.
This is a market trend that traditional equity investors can recognize immediately: the trend of public companies using their own cash to buy back their own shares. “It’s very similar to buying a stock, where every trade is generated and used to return the token,” Coltman said.
Hyperliquid ETF performance since launch in May 2026.
ETF experts say these funds are a viable entry point for investors who want exposure without the complexity of setting up a digital wallet or navigating limited exchanges.
As of Friday, the newly launched Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF had $4.5 million in assets. The 21shares Hyperliquid ETF has $75.8 million in assets under management, while the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF has $71.14 million.
Geraci said that as investors become more familiar with hyperliquid ETFs, it is reasonable to expect that the products could help accelerate the adoption of the platform itself.
“I see crypto ETFs as an important bridge between TradFi [traditional finance] and DeFi [decentralized finance]. “While it is difficult to determine the degree of overlap between HYPE ETF investors and hyperliquid users, ETFs undoubtedly increase awareness of the platform,” he wrote in an email to CNBC.
But ETF experts cautioned that awareness remains low, competition is widespread, and risks remain high.
21shares points to its record, listing the HYPE brand in Europe, in August 2025. Grayscale has a low cost rate, at 0.29%, compared to 21shares at 0.30% and Bitwise at 0.34%. Bitwise has strong relationships with family offices.
“Hyperliquid’s biggest challenge may be the growing competition from both TradFi and DeFi, driving the favorable regulatory environment to tighten,” wrote Geraci.
The platform isn’t available in the US, but Pandl said his expectation for approval is 2027, which he called “a reasonable timeline where we might have enough regulatory clarity around limited exchanges that US users can start accessing the platform.”
The landscape can be very dense at that time. The rapid growth of hyperliquid ETF assets shows that some investors are not waiting.
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