Hyperliquid Fights Back: $44 HYPE Eyes Rebound with DeFi Perpetuals and $372M Volume

Hype, the native token of Hyperliquid, was having a difficult trading day on September 29, 2025, falling to approximately 44, following a 17.2% fall over a week that resembled the entire altcoin market.

HYPE fell short of the global crypto market’s 6.5% decline, despite its 24-hour volume shrinking 46.1% to $372 million and its market capitalisation of around $14.8 billion, as the external drag of its ecosystem by an incidental 3.6 million rug pull and looming competition by up-and-coming DEX Aster.

However, during the bearish conference, Hyperliquid found a new ray of hope as it announced live testnet access to its HIP-3 builder-deployed markets which will offer a variety of perpetuals and tokenized real world assets that may reclaim trading leadership.

Technical analysts are watching for a possible snapback to support and resistance at $49 when the RSI falls below the oversold level of 28.4. Long-term predictions suggest that the market will reach highs of 50 before the year ends. With hybrid liquidity vaults and on-chain innovation, Hyperliquid is battling to become the best in a highly competitive industry, as vesting unlocks loom become storm clouds on the horizon.

The price action of the day took place in the context of macroeconomic jitters, as Bitcoin stayed above $111,000, but the altcoins continued to bleed as over $1.19 billion in leveraged liquidations occurred during the weekend.

The fall of HYPE, after a September 18 all-time high of $59.39, was not only a market-wide deleveraging, with a $29.1 million ETH-USD long wipeout on Hyperliquid itself being the single largest hit, but also ecosystem-specific shocks.

PeckShield on-chain data showed an unusual withdrawal of HyperVault, a yield program created on the platform, with developers leeching $3.6 million in crypto, bridged to Ethereum and swapped to ETH and laundered through Tornado Cash before disappearing and destroying social channels.

This rug pull, which HypingBull had already warned about on September 4 over questionable audit reports, cost TVL worth $700,000 and prompted a renewed debate over more stringent dApp scrutiny on the Hyperliquid self-made L1 chain.

Social sentiment, 58/100 aggregated using LunarCrush, tilted cautiously, with X threads abuzz with the recent HYPE exit by Arthur Hayes, which earned an 823,000 profit, due to $11.9 billion of vesting tokens that will unlock beginning November 29.

The analysis by Maelstrom Fund warned that monthly buybacks, driven by 97% of the protocol fees, could only absorb 17% of the 237.8 million HYPE influx, potentially straining prices in the event of a decline in demand.

However, in opposition to the darkness, Hyperliquid NFT collection hit a new milestone of $50 million trading volume in 13 hours according to the platform data, highlighting the retail excitement behind its copy-trading vaults and permissionless liquidity pools.

Rug Pull Reckoning HyperVault Heist Reveals Vulnerabilities of Hyperliquid

September 29 was dominated by the HyperVault debacle, and it tarnished the reputation of Hyperliquid as a safe and high-performance perpetuals DEX. Introduced as a yield aggregator using Hyperliquid with the zero-gas-fee model, HyperVault offered 15 per cent APYs on staked assets using automated vaults.

However, on September 26, its dev anonymous team successfully carried out a textbook exit scam: depleting liquidity and bridging off-chain, and covering up tracks. The alert issued by PeckShield described the flow: 3.6 million in various tokens directed to ETH, and then obfuscated, which immediately triggered exits by similar protocols and a 5% HYPE drop in Asian hours.

The response among the community was so strong: X users such as @rhadamantnemes called influencers shills of the project, and the official channels of Hyperliquid repeated the promise of a $1 million bug bounty on HIP-3 and improved integrations with Oracle.

Founder Jeff Yan discussed the event in an early-morning post, noting the non-custodial spirit of the platform: “Builder-deployed markets enable innovation, but due diligence is the most important thing–our testnet tools are now equipped with an automatic audit flag.

This reaction, together with the increase in explorer queries by 20 per cent, is an indication of proactive damage control. The lesson is painful to the users: Hyperliquid has a completely on-chain order book, groundbreaking in sub-second trades, but increases the risk of unvetted dApps. TVL in Hyperliquid vaults fell 8 per cent to $2.1 billion, whereas core perpetuals volume remained at $13 billion a day, which suggests impact compartmentalisation.

Regulators also noticed, and rumours of SEC investigations of DeFi mischief reverberated with FTX-like investigations. However, the compliance toolkit offered by Hyperliquid, KYC-optional trading with optional fiat ramps, makes Hyperliquid a solution between the CeFi fast and the DeFi transparent and could turn this setback into an opportunity to introduce audited ecosystem standards.

Ignition HIP-3: Builder Markets assure RWA Perpetuals and Fee Windfalls

The antipunch of Hyperliquid came through HIP-3, its permissionless perpetuals markets infrastructure, which is under testnet and is expected to go into mainnet in October. The upgrade, announced by Yan on September 25, allows builders to deploy custom DEXs with isolated liquidity and margin, and even non-crypto assets such as tokenised RWAs or equities.

First rollouts are limited to a single market per deployer, although extensions to multiples might create niche pairs, such as oil futures to AI stock derivatives, which will trade trillions in TradFi volume.

Fees are the story: In HIP-3 markets, there are premiums, and 50% of the fees are going to the treasury of Hyperliquid to do HYPE buybacks and ecosystem grants. Preliminary simulations estimate a 20 per cent volume increase, which would support the $10 billion app fees per year target of the chain as of September 27.

This follows Hyperliquid, with its own L1, optimised to 100,000 TPS and no rollups, to spot trade and native token standards, exceeding Ethereum and its gas issues. By midday September 29, there were 15 submissions on the testnet, including a proposal to tie an RWA oracle to Chainlink to obtain real-time asset pricing.

It is a timely strike: since DeFi volumes have recovered 12% since liquidations, HIP-3 would occupy 30% of the perp DEX market share, according to LVRG Research. In an X space, Yan teased, “We are not trading crypto alone, we are putting all finance in the house.” To HYPE stakers, this represents an increased yield through the clearinghouse funding mechanisms that could go as high as 12% APY during changes of Bitcoin to alts.

Aster Onslaught: Rival DEX’s $14M Fees Challenge Hyperliquid’s Throne

There is no story of Hyperliquid that the Aster hyperliquid hides. On September 29, the DEX sponsored by YZi Labs collected $14.33 million in 24-hour fees, surpassing Uniswap and Circle to become the second globally, behind Tether, by a factor of nearly 10 times that of Hyperliquid.

The perp volume of $13 billion a day increased to $2.8 billion perp open interest increase on September 24 is due to aggressive incentives: 50 per cent of fee shares to liquidity providers and easy Solana bridges.

X chatter set the two off as the gladiators of DeFi, where @coineditionru asked whether it marks the beginning of a significant protocol revenue shift. Hyperliquid loyalists respond with better on-chain settlement, no bridges, no adventures and the memetic launch of the Aster $116 million token to $1 billion in hours.

The war closes: Arthur Hayes, fresh off his HYPE trim, looks back to re-entry in case HIP-3 comes through, but fears dilution wars with Aster unlocks. To traders, the competition squeezes liquidity, as they control 45 per cent of the perp flows combined, creating a duopoly that might drive sector TVL to over $ 200 billion by Q4.

Technical Tightrope: Oversold HYPE Eyes $49 Flip, $60 Fib in Sight

The opportunity screamed on September 29: The RSI of HYPE at 28.4 was oversold, but the upward slope in the 200-day SMA was a long-term bull. The token fell in the range of 43 to 46.54 and respected the 43 support, but failed at the 49 mark, according to CoinGecko aggregates. There is a pennant squeeze on the four-hour chart, which suggests the possibility of a breakout–volume returns 20% and the bulls head to the 1.618 Fibonacci at 60, then 70.

According to CoinCodex, a bearish short-term tilt suggests that the close of the date will be $43.50. However, with 2025 models, the average will be $ 70.10, which is 58% higher than the current price. CryptoPotato agrees: The year-end is the most: $50 to go on adopting, depending on HIP-3 mainnet and macro easing.

The bears are hiding at the 40 level, and the 50-day EMA level converges, but the whale flows up 15 per cent week over week- indicating accumulation. Swing structures prefer longs that are above 45, stops at 42, and riding rotations of altcoins as BTC dominance declines to 52.

Price Crystal Ball: $50 in 2025 or $320 by 2030? Bullish Horizons Beckon

Prognostications are full of vagueness. Coinpedia is optimistic that the highest coin will reach $50 in 2025 through the top 10 market cap entry via RWA perps, whereas Changelly cautions that it will reach an average of $48 during unlocks.

By 2030, CoinCodex forecasts $320 peaks–a 620% moonshot–powered by the Hyperliquid vision of all finance: vaults, clearinghouses, and tokenised everything. Risks? Rug echoes or Aster erosion may reach a low of $30, though zero-gas efficiency and $45.9 billion FDV highlight the paucity, with 336.68 million in circulation out of 1 billion max.

In the case of portfolios, the 5-8% allocation of HYPE is ideal with DeFi degens: high beta to alts (0.85 correlation to ETH) with a utility moat.

Hyperliquid vs. Aster: The Next Era of DeFi is Defined by Perp DEX Duel

Hyperliquid in technology Tech- Hyperliquid edges in tech-custom L1 vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. Aster- Solana layer- Hyperliquid- vs. The incentives of Aster are enticing liquidity, but the on-chain layer of Hyperliquid gives a benefit to the whales that do not want to be hacked on bridges.

¿Solana layer Uniswap? Fee-challenged at $1.2M. According to Deloitte models, the winner takes 40 per cent of the perp volumes of $500 billion in 2025. The story of HYPE: Invention rather than Hype.

Miracle to Mastabas: The Rebellious September of Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid had grit on September 29: the rugs were going down, the competitors were going up, but HIP-3 was down with growth. HYPE is not flying, but at 44 bounces and creation tools shout recovery. The forge of DeFi is getting used to turning adversity into strength–will it become the home of finance? Merchants, get into your harness; the perps revolution runs round.