HYPE Unlocks Overshadow HIP-3 Growth, MORPHO Sees Major Expansion

Hyperliquid Nears Pivotal Moment on First Team Unlocks

HYPE’s first team unlocks begin on Nov 29. Approximately 9.9M HYPE tokens (~$300M or 3.7% of circulating supply) will unlock monthly through Nov 2027. Investors are on edge as the team has not yet publicly addressed the unlocks and began unstaking 2.6M HYPE ($80M). These are poised to complete the 7-day unstaking process right around the day of the unlock. Fear around the unstaking headlines were likely the culprit behind HYPE’s 15% intra-day decline on Nov 22, which saw HYPE break under $30, a level not seen since May.

The unlocks come at a weaker period of activity for HYPE and in the market. Majors and alts are broadly down, and revenue for HYPE has softened since the summer, most recently annualizing to under $1B, according to data from Artemis. Consequently, HYPE’s Price/Revenue multiple has compressed to 9X as of Nov 23, levels comparable to the tariff-related selloffs in March and April this year.

We note that the amount of HYPE the team is unstaking is similar to its current monthly revenues ($78M) that goes towards buybacks, but the full unlocks would otherwise outnumber buybacks nearly 4:1. 

HIP-3 Volumes Soar on More Markets, Lower Fees

While the unlocks may be top of mind for investors in the interim, HYPE has seen a few other notable developments. HIP-3 volumes have grown to a record $300M+ in recent days, driven by the launch of more equity perps, such as NVDA, GOOGL, and TSLA. Volumes last week were propelled by the NVDA market around the company’s earnings release.

This week, volumes are driven by perps on the XYZ100 index, akin to the Nasdaq, after Trade[XYZ], the operator of the market, leveraged the recently implemented ‘growth mode’ feature to reduce trading fees on all its markets by 90%. HIP-3 markets by default had trading fees double that of validator-operator markets, so this move stands to drive volumes considerably. The lower fees may now be incentivizing airdrop farmers to trade these markets, as suggested by the relatively high Volume/Open Interest ratio on XYZ100 (4x as of Nov 24). There are now 13 tradeable HIP-3 markets, with another 10 launched but not yet tradeable.

Moreover, aligned quote tokens are now live. Markets with USDH as a quote asset have 20% lower taker fees, 20% higher maker rebates, and 20% higher volume contribution toward fee tiers. There are now several newer HIP-3 markets using USDH as a quote asset which could further drive volumes by attracting fee sensitive traders.

One other development worth noting is that the TGE for Kinetiq (KNTQ), a leading HYPE staking protocol ($1B TVL) will occur on Nov 27. This would be one of the highest profile token launches for HYPE-related projects this year and comes ahead of a slate of anticipated TGEs for HyperEVM protocols. Its performance will be a key barometer for investor appetite for HYPE-adjacent tokens but comes around difficult market conditions for new launches overall.

Morpho’s Sees Expanded Coinbase Integration

Potentially overlooked during the selloff last week was Coinbase’s announcement that its users are now able to take out USDC loans on their ETH via Morpho on the backend. This marks a significant expansion from their prior integration which was limited to BTC-backed loans only, and builds on its previous rollout of enabling access to USDC yield via Morpho.

This is notable because Coinbase is estimated to have driven as much as $1.3B of loan originations on Morpho solely from its BTC offering. Outstanding loans from this integration of up to $765M as of Nov 24 would comprise nearly 25% of Morpho’s active loans per Artemis.

The caveat here is that the total size for ETH markets on Morpho is lower than that of its BTC markets right now, which may slow the immediate impact of ETH-backed loans on overall protocol activity. However, the size of these ETH markets is similar to that of BTC markets (cbBTC) when Coinbase’s initial integration started in January 2025. So, it is likely we see the ETH markets scale up with demand. For context, the cbBTC market on Base is now largely driving 5-7% yields on USDC depending on vault curator, highlighting strong demand from both sides of the market (borrowers and lenders).

And considering these ETH and BTC integrations are on Morpho on Base, these moves further solidify MORPHO as a key beneficiary of growth in Base activity and as a potential way to play the upcoming Base token.

Martin Gaspar , Senior Crypto Research Associate

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