Hyperliquid’s New Power Shift | Shaundadevens & Carlos

Hyperliquid restructured its stablecoin arrangement with Coinbase and Circle under Aligned Code Asset 2, replacing the prior Aligned Code Asset 1 terms. Hyperliquid now receives 90% of revenues after costs, up from 50%, while Coinbase and Circle each stake 500,000 HYPE to run validators. Carlos flagged that how Circle accounts for costs is unclear, meaning the effective revenue share could differ materially from the headline figure. Shaundadevens estimated that at a 4.5% yield on a 5 billion dollar USDC supply the deal could generate roughly 160 million dollars in annualized revenue, a 26% increase to Hyperliquid's current run rate. Carlos pushed back, arguing the 3.7 billion USDC on Hypercore is tied to trading activity and would leave if volumes declined, making it cyclical income rather than an independent yield stream.

Carlos described the deal as an unfathomably poor acquisition from Coinbase and Circle's perspective given that USDH had not yet gained serious traction. A reported personal relationship between Brian Armstrong and Hyperliquid's Max Villager was cited as a possible explanation for the favorable terms. The wind down of USDH caught teams building on Hyper-EVM off guard. Under Aligned Code Asset 2 there are no fee discounts, so Hyperliquid transitions its stablecoin supply to USDC without the subsidies USDH had provided through lower fees and higher rebates. Markets by Kinetic announced it is working with Native Markets and Hyperliquid to transition its DEX margin asset to USDC, and HIP-free markets where USDH was the quote asset may see USDT enter as a replacement.

TradeXYZ applied Hyperliquid's internal price discovery model to pre-IPO equities, listing CBRS roughly one month before its IPO and generating over 200 million dollars in volume before the stock launched on NASDAQ. The pre-IPO price opened very close to where CBRS actually opened on NASDAQ, with the market running from approximately May 1st through May 14th before transitioning to a normal equity perpetual. Carlos noted this derivative structure is likely less regulatory-scrutinized than tokenized stock products on other chains that claim underlying ownership, since companies like Anthropic could publicly disavow those products as not real investments.

Shaundadevens argued markets are likely overweighing HFP4's revenue contribution relative to HFP3 and natively deployed markets. Even assuming Hyperliquid captures 100% of Polymarket volumes at spot fees, annualized revenue would be approximately 62.3 million dollars. Carlos noted that Polymarket and Kalshi have pricing power because retail users accessing them through IBKR and Robinhood are not fee-sensitive, and Hyperliquid lacks the retail distribution funnels those platforms have built. Carlos predicted HFP4 will likely perform similarly to spot markets and said the bull case requires a Kalshi or Polymarket partnership pushing markets to a Hyperliquid-connected front end. HFP3 is expected to outperform HFP4, with Carlos noting it enables 24/7 perpetuals trading for equities. Any forward estimates for HFP4 should account for a ramp-up period as spinning up sufficient markets will take time.

CME and NYSE are reportedly moving against Hyperliquid citing sanctions evasion and insider trading, though the Bloomberg source for this claim could not be independently verified at the time of recording. Carlos noted that ICE, NYSE's parent company, owns a stake in Polymarket or Cauchy, both of which have themselves faced insider trading allegations, with accounts reportedly being correct on Iran-related oil trades five or six times in a row from freshly funded wallets.

Sky, the evolved form of MakerDAO, outsources capital allocation to external agents currently named Spark, Ovex, and Grove, which borrow USDS at a wholesale base rate of 3.95% and keep the spread above that rate. Sky's current annualized net interest income is approximately 160 million dollars. The protocol trades at roughly 1.5 to 1.6 billion fully diluted valuation, implying about 10x price to sales compared to Aave at approximately 20x and Morpho at above 100x. Combined USDS and DAI supply totals approximately 12.5 billion dollars, making Sky the third largest stablecoin issuer behind Tether and Circle. Carlos projected base case annualized yield for Sky stakers at 10% and bull case at up to 25%, characterizing Sky as a potential value play for on-chain credit exposure rather than a three to five times multiple play.

The primary investment caveat Carlos acknowledged is governance risk, specifically that Sky governance can change capital allocator mandates or the net interest income waterfall at any time without warning, and that a single actor such as Roon could propose changes on the Sky governance forum at any time. MakerDAO has approximately seven years of track record in DeFi with no major security incidents or significant bad debt, but convincing investors of the protocol's durability remains the central challenge.