What to Know
- Paradigm now holds 19.14M HYPE tokens worth $763M, making it the largest holder with 1.91% of total supply.
- HYPE unlocks on Nov 29 may release 237.8M tokens, raising supply pressure concerns.
- HIP-5 proposal divides the Hyperliquid community over fee allocation and tokenomics.
Institutional investor Paradigm has quietly become the largest holder of the token HYPE, the governance and native token of the Hyperliquid ecosystem. On-chain analytics firm MLM OnChain reports that Paradigm holds 19,141,655 HYPE tokens, currently worth around US$763.18 million, spread across 19 separate wallets.
That means Paradigm owns roughly 1.91% of HYPE’s total supply and 5.73% of the circulating supply, a significant concentration for any token.
Why this matters
When a well-known institutional firm buys a lot of a token, it could mean a lot of things: they believe in the project’s future, they expect it to grow or be useful, and maybe they’re making a strategic move instead of just short-term speculation. This big stake by Paradigm may make the token more credible for HYPE holders and the market as a whole. But it also makes you wonder what will happen if Paradigm decides to sell or change its mind. A lot depends on their choices when they concentrate.
MLM OnChain says that Paradigm not only accumulated this stake but has consolidated HYPE holdings into newly identified wallets making it clearer which addresses belong to the firm. According to the posts, the addresses range in size and appear to form a coordinated portfolio.
Token Unlocks
Recently, attention has turned to upcoming HYPE token unlocks and what they may mean for the market. A major unlock event is scheduled for 29 November 2025, when roughly 237.8 million HYPE tokens representing about 23.8% of the total supply will begin vesting over 24 months.
Some reporting shows smaller unlocks sooner which add to the supply pressure. These unlocks have triggered concern because if demand doesn’t rise to match the new supply, price pressure could build.
What’s going on with Hyperliquid
The Hyperliquid community has also been debating HIP-5, a new governance proposal that aims to divert 1–5% of platform fees (up to $55 million a year) into buybacks for smaller ecosystem tokens like PURR and HFUN. The goal is to make the ecosystem stronger, but not everyone agrees.
Critics say that HIP-5 could lower HYPE’s long-term value and make its tokenomics more complicated, since 97% of fees already go toward HYPE buybacks under the current AF-1 model. People who support it say it encourages more growth by rewarding people who participate in the community and making the protocol more widely used. The proposal is still one of the most divisive issues in Hyperliquid’s history of governance.
Hyperliquid, on the other hand, is still in charge of the perp DEX space, bringing in about 32% of blockchain revenue and having $9 billion in open interest. However, rising competition from players like Aster, which is backed by Binance’s CZ, has weakened its dominance, which fell from 80% in August to 34% in November. The platform’s HyperEVM and low fees are still big pluses, but people are still worried about centralized validator control and scalability.
HYPE Price Action
HYPE’s price has been under pressure despite Paradigm’s stake. The price has dropped about 11% over the week and 0.7% in the last 24 hours, which is a little less than the market’s overall drop of 1.77%.
HYPE’s price of $39.49 is below important Fibonacci retracement levels of 38.2% at $40.90 and the 30-day SMA. The MACD histogram at -0.323 and the RSI at 42.24 show that the market is going down. There is also token unlock anxiety because more than $11.9 billion in HYPE will be unlocked starting on November 29. Investors worry that upcoming unlocks of about $410 million worth of new tokens monthly could flood the market unless offset by strong buybacks or increased demand.
Bottom Line
Paradigm’s emergence as the top HYPE holder nearly three-quarter-of-a-billion dollars worth is a major highlight in the token’s story. It may point toward institutional confidence in Hyperliquid, but it also places pressure on how the project and token ecosystem navigate upcoming supply events. For HYPE investors and watchers, the next few weeks and months could be critical.
Also Read: Japan’s FSA Officially Supports Multi-Bank Stablecoin Pilot Project
