Elon Eyes Hyperliquid Coinshares CEO INTERVIEW

ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, is partnering with Hyperliquid through TradeXYZ. Paul said Hyperliquid had already risen from 81 to 95 before Elon Musk amplified the partnership by retweeting a post from Stan Druckenmiller on X. He identified 100 as a possible psychological level, but the sequence he described does not make Musk’s post the cause of the earlier rise. The partnership and the attention it received put Hyperliquid’s growth and roadmap at the center of the discussion.

Jean-Marie Magnetti said Hyperliquid’s roadmap, presented by Jeff at Token2049 in Singapore, was inspiring. He sees perpetual futures as a way to provide liquidity and funding, but not as an ideal vehicle for long-term equity investment. In his view, they are preferable to having no available product, drawing a comparison with GBTC as an earlier U.S. route to Bitcoin exposure. Terry Duffy, by contrast, emphasized that perpetual futures are highly leveraged products intended strictly for speculators. He cited Bitcoin’s drop from 118,000 to 80,000 as an illustration of the risks, while arguing that such products do not threaten CME because CME is not in that business.

Duffy said CME is exploring a stablecoin with Google on a centralized network. The aim, as he described it, is to let clients move account inventory over weekends and trade both crypto and non-crypto products. Tokenized cash could be one way to manage margin, though he said other approaches also matter. The CoinShares CEO disagreed with the premise of a centralized token, calling the idea nonsensical. He nevertheless viewed Google’s work on custody and private-key management as potentially valuable, including research into quantum resistance.

The CoinShares CEO also argued that digital assets could function as the native currency of AI agents, which cannot practically depend on bank accounts. He said banks do not want agents accessing their systems, citing JPMorgan shutting down MUSE and other agent access. He characterized Google’s focus as managing secrets and private keys, and said the company had stepped back from digital assets after Facebook’s Libra episode. The discussion therefore linked token infrastructure not only to trading and margin, but also to the question of how autonomous software might hold and use value.

CoinShares withdrew several U.S. altcoin ETF filings but retained its Bitcoin ETF. The CEO said U.S. crypto products are commoditizing faster than products elsewhere, and that CoinShares does not have the distribution of Fidelity or BlackRock to compete in a price-driven contest. The firm instead wants products that generate fees by adding value, although he acknowledged that other companies may continue offering products that are unprofitable. CoinShares launched a Zcash product in Europe the day before the interview and continues to rotate products on and off its shelf. The CEO said the firm began offering European ETFs in 2014 and had to pursue something else in 2016, illustrating the need to adapt as investment narratives shift.

Magnetti said Asian appetite for volatile assets could support blockchain integration and tokenized products, including access to assets unavailable during U.S. market hours. He cautioned that Robinhood’s tokenized product represents a share of an SPV rather than direct tokenization of the underlying stock. He also said Asian demand already fuels much of the U.S. market for 2x and 3x leveraged ETFs; CoinShares may expand in Asia if it finds the right business case. Magnetti added that robo-advisory services have succeeded over the past five or six years, and that AI agents could appeal to retail investors seeking guidance, including people who trust them more than their bankers.