- Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF reported $9.11M net income for its first partial period, with staking rewards of $156K and a waived sponsor fee of 0.34%.
- Four asset managers—Bitwise, 21Shares, Grayscale, and VanEck—are racing to launch the first US spot HYPE ETF, though SEC approval remains pending.
- HYPE price climbed to $59.5, supported by ETF holders refusing to sell and Bitwise clients adding over $5M in HYPE during the past week.
- Declining network activity and a 33% drop in monthly revenue from June to July pose risks to sustained bullish momentum.
The race to bring Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE to mainstream brokerage accounts is intensifying, with Bitwise’s spot ETF already showing strong early financial results and three other asset managers waiting in the wings. Bitwise’s Hyperliquid ETF (ticker: BHYP) reported a net income of $9.11 million for the period from May 14 to June 30, 2026, according to its first SEC 10-Q filing. The fund also recognized $156,000 in staking revenue during that short initial window, while the sponsor waived its 0.34% annual fee and reimbursed staking expenses for the listing period, making the early numbers even more notable.
Meanwhile, HYPE’s price has been on a tear, recently trading at $59.5 after a 4% daily gain—its highest level this month and just shy of the psychologically important $60 mark. The token’s recovery follows a rough June and July, but institutional behavior is telling a different story. Arkham data shows Hyperliquid ETFs did not sell any HYPE last week; instead, they added roughly $2.8 million to their holdings, while Bitwise clients bought more than $5 million worth of HYPE over the same period. This institutional conviction is providing a solid floor under the price, even as broader market activity cools.
Bitwise ETF Financials: A Strong Start With Caveats
Bitwise’s first quarterly report as an ETF issuer reveals a fund that hit the ground running. The trust launched on May 14, 2026, and grew net assets to $128 million by June 30, driven by large Hyperliquid inflows. The fund began staking immediately upon launch and earned 1,830 HYPE in staking rewards, which are allocated to the trust net of fees. The sponsor’s fee stands at 0.34% per year, though it was waived for the initial listing period, and the fund maintains an unstaked Liquidity Reserve to meet redemptions, with the ability to long-settle, borrow, or swap liquid assets if needed.
However, the fee structure has raised some eyebrows. Bitwise’s original S-1 amendment from April 10, 2026, listed a 0.67% annual management fee, but the actual 10-Q filing shows a 0.34% sponsor fee. This discrepancy likely reflects a reduction in the final fee structure or a distinction between the gross management fee and the net fee after waivers. Either way, the fund’s early performance—$9.11M net income in just six weeks—suggests strong demand from institutional investors looking for regulated exposure to a DeFi-native protocol.
Hyperliquid and HYPE: The Platform Behind the ETF Hype
Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange built on its own custom Layer 1 blockchain, purpose-built for perpetual futures trading at the speed and feel of a centralized exchange—but without the centralized exchange. Perpetual futures, which let traders speculate on asset prices with leverage and no expiration date, are the most actively traded product in crypto, and Hyperliquid has captured a massive share of that market. The platform runs a fully on-chain central limit order book, processing over 100,000 orders per second with sub-second finality, and commands over 70% of the entire decentralized perpetuals market by open interest as of early 2026, according to Artemis data cited by BingX.
HYPE, the platform’s native token, launched in November 2024 via an airdrop to over 90,000 early users, with no VC allocation, no private sale, and no early investor discount. Approximately 70% of the total supply went directly to the community, making it one of the few major tokens launched entirely without institutional seed funding. What makes HYPE’s economics distinctive is that roughly 97% of all trading fees flow into an Assistance Fund that programmatically buys back and burns HYPE tokens, creating a direct mechanical link between trading volume and token scarcity. As of April 12, 2026, HYPE had a market cap of approximately $10 billion, ranking 13th among all cryptocurrencies, and the token is up about 200% over the past 12 months, reaching an all-time high of $59.30.
The ETF Race: Four Managers, One Prize
Bitwise was the first to file, submitting its S-1 registration statement in September 2025, and has since added the BHYP ticker, confirmed a NYSE Arca listing, and named Anchorage Digital as custodian. Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that the addition of a ticker and management fee typically signals a product is close to launch. 21Shares followed in October 2025 with its own S-1, though no finalized ticker has been confirmed, and the firm filed for a Hyperliquid HYPE ETF on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Europe, providing a template for what US institutional access could look like.
Grayscale entered the race on March 21, 2026, filing for the GHYP ETF to list on Nasdaq with Coinbase Custody and CoinDesk Benchmark providing pricing data. Grayscale’s fund currently prohibits staking, though the filing notes that future conditions may permit it. VanEck confirmed plans for its own spot staking HYPE ETF under the proposed ticker VHYP, with senior digital asset analyst Matt Maximo stating that Hyperliquid had become the firm’s broader strategy for liquid digital asset funds. The sheer number of issuers racing to bring a HYPE product to market signals that the industry sees real demand for regulated exposure to a DeFi-native protocol, as ETF analyst Nate Geraci pointed out.
SEC Approval: The 240-Day Window and Regulatory Hurdles
None of these funds has received SEC approval yet, and all remain under review. The SEC has up to 240 days from Bitwise’s original filing date to issue a decision, setting an outside deadline around late May 2026. However, HYPE faces a regulatory hurdle that Bitcoin and Ethereum did not: Hyperliquid does not yet have CFTC-regulated futures contracts trading in the US market. The SEC’s generic listing standards approved in September 2025, which streamlined the approval process for many crypto ETFs, apply primarily to tokens with an established futures trading history—and HYPE does not currently qualify for that fast track.
That said, the regulatory environment is materially more favorable than it was a year ago. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has approved broader generic listing standards for crypto-based exchange-traded products, and the wave of altcoin ETF filings across XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, and HYPE reflects an industry reading that the door is open. If any of the four filings receives approval, it would be a first: the first spot ETF in the United States tied to a DeFi-native decentralized exchange token. Every previous crypto ETF approval has covered Bitcoin or Ethereum, both long-established assets with deep institutional liquidity and existing CFTC futures markets. A HYPE ETF approval would establish that the SEC is willing to extend regulated access to DeFi infrastructure tokens, potentially opening the door for a wider pipeline of protocol-native ETFs.
Recent Market Dynamics: Institutional Conviction vs. Cooling Network Activity
HYPE’s recent price action has been driven largely by institutional behavior. Hyperliquid ETFs did not sell any HYPE last week, instead adding about $2.8 million to their holdings, while Bitwise clients bought more than $5 million worth of HYPE over the past week, according to Arkham data shared on X. Cumulative net inflows across all listed HYPE spot ETFs reached $283.56 million by August 11, with total net assets standing at $259.19 million. The buying matters because ETF flows can bring new demand without relying only on existing traders in the spot market, and continued buying would give HYPE another source of demand.
However, the broader picture is more mixed. Weekly address activity on Hyperliquid dipped to the lowest levels observed since March 2025, and DEX volumes registered just $735 million between August 10 and 16—the lowest since mid-March 2025. This declining network activity translates to lower organic demand for HYPE, and the platform’s monthly revenue tells a similar story: June revenue reached $70.92 million, the strongest month on record, before falling to $47.58 million in July, a 33% monthly decline. August is running at about $12 million through its first ten days, pointing to another weaker month if the current pace continues. Most of the revenue has come from Hypercore, Hyperliquid’s trading engine, which puts the platform at about $788 million in Hypercore revenue compared with roughly $13 million from HyperEVM and the wider ecosystem—meaning the platform remains heavily dependent on trading activity.
For HYPE, the key question is whether renewed ETF buying can offset the cooling network activity. Solid institutional positioning has been the key driving force behind HYPE’s bullish momentum, and if that trend continues, the price may maintain its upward trajectory. But declining DEX volumes and falling monthly revenue remain risk factors that could hammer down on the token price in the short term. The next few weeks will be critical: if ETF inflows hold through August and network activity picks up, HYPE could push past $60 and establish a new trading range. If flows fade and activity continues to cool, the market may need other reasons to push the price higher. With the SEC’s 240-day window closing around late May 2026, and four asset managers waiting for a decision, the Hyperliquid ETF race is now one of the most closely watched product launches in the industry—and the outcome could reshape how DeFi tokens are brought to mainstream investors.
