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Crypto’s next $200 billion valuation debate may already be taking shape, and it’s looking a lot like Solana did last cycle, according to a new report from Cantor Fitzgerald, which is initiating coverage of Hyperion DeFi (HYPD) and Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR).
Cantor views stocks as more than passive digital asset treasury (DAT) companies. Unlike conventional DATs that simply store tokens and wait for price appreciation, both companies position themselves as yield-generating participants in the hyperliquid ecosystem through staking, validation, and market-making activities.
This operational exposure underpins a valuation thesis that treats Hyperliquid less as a speculative DeFi protocol and more as a layer 1 platform business, echoing the bull cases once applied to Solana.
In Cantor’s 10-year model, Hyperliquid generates over $5 billion in annual fees and is valued at a multiple of 50, implying a HYPE market cap in excess of $200 billion, with HYPD and PURR providing public market access to this upside via active balance sheet deployment rather than simple token custody.
The comparison is important because it reframes how decentralized exchanges are valued. In the case of Solana, investors finally stopped viewing the token as a speculative play and began modeling it as a financial infrastructure capable of generating sustainable cash flow.
Cantor makes the same argument for Hyperliquid, pointing to the protocol’s pricing structure, in which approximately 99% of trading revenue is recycled into token buybacks, directly tying volume growth to supply reduction rather than shareholder dilution.
Cantor says these fees come from an addressable market still dominated by centralized exchanges, where perpetual futures volumes have exceeded $60 trillion in 2025.
Even the modest market share gains generated by these platforms translate into hundreds of billions of dollars in additional volume and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual fees, thus rooting Hyperliquide’s growth case in migrating existing liquidity rather than creating speculative demand.
The report also addresses growing competition concerns, particularly around Aster, a rival DEX backed by interests affiliated with Binance that briefly overtook Hyperliquid in monthly volume.
Cantor argues that Aster’s business is heavily inflated by points-based incentives and airdrop farming, noting unusually high volume-to-open interest ratios that suggest trading is driven by rewards rather than directional conviction. As these incentives fade, Cantor expects liquidity to reconsolidate to venues offering larger portfolios, better execution and sustainable fee models.
Whether markets will ultimately subscribe to a 50 multiple for a leverage-driven trading network remains an open question, but the fact that the debate now mirrors Solana’s own evolution suggests that hyperliquid is being judged by a familiar and far more ambitious valuation standard.
Market movements:
BTC: Bitcoin was little changed, near $87,572, up 0.2% over one hour and 2.0% over 24 hours, but still down 4.9% over the week and 7.8% over 30 days.
ETFs: Ether was trading around $2,954, up 0.4% on the hour and day, while underperforming over the long term with a 10.9% weekly decline and a 4.6% 30-day decline.
Gold: Gold is moving choppyly near the top of its range, with signs of near-term exhaustion pointing to a possible pullback toward $4,200 as traders prepare for central bank decisions, although the broader uptrend remains intact.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Wednesday as Japanese exports beat expectations, stocks remained broadly flat in the region and oil prices rose following new sanctions against Venezuela, while U.S. stocks closed lower overnight due to uncertainty in jobs data.
Elsewhere in crypto
- US Senate’s Warren Calls for Investigation into Trump-Linked Crypto as Market Structure Bill Lags (CoinDesk)
- Coinbase risks crypto “cannibalization” with prediction market surge: Mizuho (Decrypt)
