The adjustment will clarify key metrics for analysts and institutions.
Hyperliquid opened a governance vote to formalize a rule that, in practice, already defines its economic design: the roughly $1,000 million in HYPE tokens accumulated in the Assistance Fund will never be usable and should be treated as excluded supply. The proposal does not burn tokens or alter the issued supply. It aims to close an ambiguity that currently distorts readings of effective supply.
The Assistance Fund is a protocol-level mechanism embedded in the layer 1 execution. It automatically converts trading fees into HYPE and sends them to a system address with no keys or control. That architecture prevents any withdrawal except through a hard fork. Operationally, the tokens are out of reach from the moment they are created. The vote proposes to recognize this reality as binding social consensus: if validators approve, those HYPE will be treated as permanently inaccessible for governance purposes and supply metrics.
This is particularly relevant given the institutional interest attracted by Hyperliquid’s model. Cantor Fitzgerald described the protocol as a system that returns nearly all of its revenue to holders through automated repurchases. According to the firm, the DEX generated around $874 million in fees year-to-date in 2025 and routed 99% of those fees to the Assistance Fund to repurchase HYPE. That dynamic is often read as a reduction in circulating supply. The foundation had to clarify the point: the fund’s balances were never intended to be spent or recovered.
The impact also reaches USDH, the native stablecoin issued by Native Markets. Half of the yield from its reserves is directed to the Assistance Fund and converted into HYPE. If the vote passes, those contributions will also be formally recognized as unusable. The change does not alter flows or incentives. It adjusts the conceptual accounting to reflect the actual design.
The protocol is a key player in on-chain perpetuals. Over the past 30 days, it surpassed $205,000 million in volume and ranked among the top three perps DEXs, according to DefiLlama. At the same time, an ecosystem of HYPE-focused treasury vehicles is growing. Cantor identified Hyperion DeFi holding about $46 million in tokens and Hyperliquid Strategies holding roughly $340 million.
The vote will bring order to supply readings, reduce noise for analysts and institutions, and align metrics with the code
