HYPE Falls 15% Even as Analysts Stay Most Bullish
CryptoQuant sees HYPE as the most bullish major token, despite a 15% drop over the past month. Selling pressure around a team unlock is outweighing Hyperliquid's buybacks.
Key Takeaways
- HYPE fell 15% over the past month and traded at $76.55 on Sunday, about 22% below its record of $97.96.
- The price pressure is tied to a team payout of 3.75 million HYPE, while $71 million in buybacks did not fully offset that selling.
- CryptoQuant calls HYPE the most bullish crypto asset among analysts, with an optimistic range of $100 to $120.
Hyperliquid token HYPE has fallen 15% over the past month, while analysts at CryptoQuant are actually the most bullish on the token out of all major cryptos. The price dropped more sharply than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, but sentiment among analysts stayed notably positive.
Price Falls Harder Than the Market
HYPE traded at $76.55 (€68) on Sunday, about 22% below the record of $97.96 (€87) set on September 23. That still gives the token a market value of about $17 billion (€15.1 billion).
For comparison, Bitcoin was roughly flat over the same period, while Ethereum and Solana each lost around 9%. HYPE clearly pulled back more than the broader market.
Part of that weakness is tied to a planned payout to the Hyperliquid team. On October 6, the team received 3.75 million HYPE, worth about $340 million (€302 million) at the time, according to unlock tracker Tokenomist. A co-founder said that batch would be sold over the counter to a single institutional buyer. Who that buyer is and what price the sale happened at were not disclosed.
Buybacks Do Not Fully Absorb the Selling
That payout was almost five times larger than the $71 million (€63.1 million) that Hyperliquid generated in buybacks over the past 30 days, according to data from DefiLlama. The platform, a venue for trading crypto futures, uses about 99% of trading fees for daily HYPE purchases, according to CoinShares.
That makes the token sensitive to the balance between new selling and buybacks. Traders who had used borrowed money to bet on higher prices lost $688.56 million (€612 million) this month through forced liquidations, BeInCrypto previously reported in its coverage of Hyperliquid whales.
Why Analysts Still Stay Bullish
CryptoQuant ranks how strongly analysts lean bullish on each coin compared with its own recent history. HYPE ranked first, at 2.3 standard deviations above normal. BNB, Solana, Bitcoin, and Cardano followed.
According to CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju, that makes HYPE the most bullish crypto asset based on analyst sentiment. On the company's chart, the most optimistic forecast sits at $100 (€89) to $120 (€107).
For European crypto followers, this matters because HYPE shows how quickly sentiment and price can move in opposite directions. The token combines strong trading activity with a large unlock and heavy buybacks, but for now the market is mostly watching whether that is enough to absorb the supply.
Recent history matters too. During the previous sharp drop, from about $75 (€67) in early June to nearly $52 (€46) in August, sentiment on CryptoQuant flipped bearish. This time it stayed bullish even as the price fell. On Sunday, HYPE was still trading just over $1.50 (€1.33) above the $75.14 (€67) support level mentioned in BeInCrypto's weekend analysis.
