Hyperliquid’s HYPE token set a fresh all-time high on Friday, touching $90.92 within minutes of the protocol switching on manual borrowing, and traded near $91 to $92 through the session, up roughly 12 percent on the day. The move capped a week in which two separate developments landed on the platform within 48 hours: a new lending feature on the exchange itself and a five-year regulatory exemption from the US Securities and Exchange Commission that covers part of its business. HYPE closed the week as one of the strongest performers among the top ten tokens by market value, and the exchange’s native token now carries a market capitalization of roughly $31 billion.
Borrowing goes live
On Friday, Hyperliquid enabled manual borrowing on HyperCore, letting users supply HYPE and bitcoin as collateral to borrow the stablecoins USDC and Tether’s USDT. Jeff Yan, who leads the protocol, said every borrowed asset comes from a supplier rather than platform margin accounting, meaning the books match one-to-one and no synthetic liabilities are created. Roughly $269 million was borrowed on the first day, according to figures cited by Crypto Economy and KCEX.
The feature matters for the token price for a simple reason: it gives HYPE holders a way to unlock liquidity without selling. A holder who posts HYPE as collateral and borrows USDC keeps the token position intact. That reduces immediate sell pressure at the margin, and traders read the first-day borrowing figure as evidence the channel is being used rather than sitting idle. Crypto.news reported the token rose 10.5 percent to $91.20 as the loan feature went live, and the price extended to a peak of $92.56 on Friday before settling near $92.
The SEC’s Innovation Exemption
The second catalyst came a day earlier. On September 17, the SEC issued what it calls the Innovation Exemption, a temporary, conditional order that lets Tokenized Securities Venues trade tokenized versions of National Market System stocks using permissioned automated market makers without registering as exchanges under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The relief runs for five years, expiring September 17, 2031. A parallel exemption covers certain liquidity providers supplying tokenized stocks to AMM pools, shielding them from the Exchange Act’s dealer definition.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins framed the order as a way to bring US capital markets on-chain after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act earlier in the week. Commissioner Hester Peirce described it as a testing window while the agency evaluates the technology, and Commissioner Mark Uyeda said the framework lets the SEC observe how tokenized markets develop before writing permanent rules. The order carries conditions: token holders must get the same rights as traditional shareholders, smart contracts must sit on public, auditable ledgers, trading halts must sync with the underlying stocks, and synthetics are excluded. Issuers may also object to third-party tokenization of their shares.
For Hyperliquid, the exemption maps directly onto its HIP-3 framework, which allows permissionless deployment of perpetual markets, including tokenized-equity perps. On-chain data cited by Cryptopolitan shows tokenized equity perpetuals grew from about 2 percent of platform volume in January 2026 to roughly half of all volume today. That shift has changed what Hyperliquid actually is: less a crypto-only perp venue, more a tokenized-markets exchange. Kraken’s parent Payward said this week it plans to route US clients to HIP-3 markets for on-chain perpetual futures, adding an established exchange group to the distribution chain.
Where the price stands
HYPE traded near $92.30 on Saturday, up about 14 percent over seven days, with a market capitalization around $31 billion, per tracking sites including Flicker and TheDailyCoins. The previous record, set September 6, fell as the borrowing launch pushed the token past $90 for the first time. Over the past month the token has climbed roughly 13 percent even as bitcoin spent the week swinging between $77,000 and $81,000.
The rally rests on more than one leg. Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund, which receives most net protocol fee revenue and buys back HYPE on the open market, has absorbed supply all year. Derivatives volume on the exchange set records in August, and whale accumulation continued through the week, according to KCEX’s breakdown of the move. The buyback mechanism works like a corporate repurchase program funded by trading revenue rather than token emissions, which supporters cite as the reason the token has held up through a choppy September for the broader market.
What to watch
The next scheduled cliff unlock falls on October 6, and it will test whether buyback demand can absorb new supply without a visible price impact. Traders will also watch whether borrowing demand holds past the launch burst, and whether the SEC’s exemption survives public comment unmodified. The agency has asked for feedback on ten potential changes and said durable rulemaking must follow the temporary relief.
The relief does not rewrite market-structure law and does not replace the stalled CLARITY Act. It opens a bounded path for secondary trading of tokenized US equities while leaving primary issuance and unregistered exchange activity outside the safe harbor. Anti-fraud and anti-manipulation provisions continue to apply in full, and the SEC said it will monitor how the exemptions are applied before deciding on permanent rules.
For Hyperliquid, that path is now open for five years, and the market has priced the first day of it enthusiastically. The token’s record week leaves it within striking distance of a larger milestone, and the October unlock will show whether the demand behind the rally is durable or borrowed against the next supply event.