Hyperliquid Will Hit $150 by Mid 2026, Predicts BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes

Hyperliquid (HYPE) may hit $150 by August, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.

Key takeaways:

• CEX volume rotation and demand for macro-linked markets, including oil, are boosting HYPE’s bull case.

• A cup-and-handle setup is hinting at an initial breakout toward $50.

CEX to DEX rotation can grow HYPE prices fivefold

In a post published on Monday, Hayes said that if Hyperliquid keeps pulling derivatives volume away from centralized exchanges (CEX) and expands its product suite, HYPE could climb roughly fivefold from around $30.

To make it happen, Hyperliquid’s 30-day annualized revenue run rate must rise to $1.40 billion by August from $843 million in March.

Such growth is achievable if the platform captures another 3.96% share of derivatives volume from centralized exchanges after already absorbing roughly 6% as of March.

Hyperliquid uses about 97% of its revenue to buy HYPE tokens from the open market. Therefore, most of the money the platform makes is used to buy its own token, which can support the price if trading activity keeps rising.

That structure, Hayes said, boosts HYPE’s odds of rising toward $150.

Tokenized oil boom: Hyperliquid’s bull case

Hayes’s bullish call came as the US–Iran war turned oil into Hyperliquid’s top-traded assets.

On Tuesday, CL-USDC, its crude oil-linked perpetual pair, reached about $1.29 billion in 24-hour volume, overtaking ETH-USDC at roughly $1.24 billion, showing traders are increasingly using the platform to bet on traditional assets, not just crypto.

The trend also supports Hayes’s broader HIP-3 thesis. HIP-3 lets users launch perpetual markets permissionlessly by staking HYPE, and Hayes said newer listings tied to oil, gold, silver and major US indexes are already gaining traction.

Related: Oil retreats from 25% surge as G7 weighs emergency reserve release

He argued that HIP-3 now contributes nearly 10% of Hyperliquid’s revenue and could grow revenue by 160% in the coming months if the DEX keeps offering macro assets like gold and oil.

Last year, Maelstrom, a family office fund tied to Arthur Hayes, predicted declines in HYPE prices due to $11.90 billion in token unlocks. Since then, the Hyperliquid token has fallen by roughly 40%.

Still, Hayes has also made several high-profile calls that did not play out.

That includes Bitcoin targets of $250,000 by the end of 2025 and $200,000 by March 2026, as well as a January 2025 call for TRUMP memecoin to hit a $100 billion market cap by inauguration.

HYPE technicals hint at initial breakout toward $50

From a technical perspective, HYPE may rally toward $50 in March or by April, based on a cup-and-handle pattern.

A cup-and-handle forms after a rounded recovery and a brief consolidation. It confirms when price breaks above the neckline resistance, with upside typically measured by the pattern’s maximum height.

Applying the technical rule to HYPE gives a measured upside target of around $50 if the price breaks decisively above the $35.50 neckline resistance. If the pattern plays out, it will result in gains of more than 40% from current levels.

Conversely, a pullback from $35.50 could push the HYPE price initially toward $30, a level aligning with the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement line and the 50-day exponential moving average (50-day EMA, the red wave).