Most altcoins were changing hands in mildly negative territory.
Altcoin Hyperliquid was recently down more than 6% over the past 24 hours, the poorest performer among the 100 leading cryptocurrencies by trading volume in Thursday trading.
HYPE fell below $36 at one point, its lowest level in 10 days, and well off its all-time high of $45.59 set just three days ago, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. The token of the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange remains up more than 40% over the past 30 days, a result at least partly of its dominant position in perpetual futures trading volume.
Perpetual futures support unusually high amounts of leverage. The token debuted in December 2024.
HYPE’s decline came on an otherwise uneventful day of trading as the U.S. celebrated the Juneteenth national holiday. Most major altcoins were in negative territory or flat with XRP and Solana recently off a few fractions of a percentage point. The market capitalization of the overall crypto market dipped 2.5%.
Rajiv Sawhney, head of iInternational portfolio management, at crypto asset management firm Wave Digital Assets International, attributed HYPE’s drop to a not unexpected retreat by investors who loaded up on the token following recent large buy-ins by Eyenovia and Lion Group, firms looking to create crypto treasuries.
Eyenovia, a NASDAQ-listed U.S.-based ophthalmic technology firm, raised $50 million via a private equity deal to buy over 1 million Hyperliquid tokens earlier this week, while Singapore-based trading platform Lion Group Holdings also recently announced it had secured a $600 million credit facility to build a crypto reserve that will include Hyperliquid.
“This phenomenon has been occurring quite regularly recently, whereby corporates announce a crypto buying program, and the market immediately buys the pop and then sells following the announcement,” Sawhney told Decrypt.
The analyst also highlighted conventional trading trends, among other factors. “Given that HYPE hit new all-time highs, it doesn’t surprise me that the token has witnessed some reversion as the rest of the market has recently been light on volumes and direction.”
Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO, noted a 50% decline in trading volume since mid-May and its “buy-and-burn mechanism” as the cause of the decline.
“The platform’s buy-and-burn mechanism, where HYPE is automatically purchased whenever users pay trading fees, was a key driver of the recent rally,” he said, adding: “As platform activity slows, this price-supporting mechanism has weakened, removing a major source of upward pressure.”
