Bitcoin is rallying once again. On Friday, the cryptocurrency climbed above $78,200 for the first time since May—but it was not the only digital asset delivering outsized gains.

Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual futures exchange, hit a record $75, putting its HYPE token up more than 195% so far this year, according to CoinGecko.

Hyperliquid's rise has pulled in market share that might otherwise have flowed into Bitcoin, according to Ish Asad, a research analyst at crypto index fund manager Bitwise Investments.

“If Hyperliquid and perpetual futures weren’t so popular, people would just be buying spot Bitcoin,” Asad told Fortune.

Hyperliquid lets users trade through self-custody wallets rather than a traditional centralized exchange, and over the past year it has emerged as a major force in crypto derivatives trading. In the first quarter of 2026, the platform processed more than $633 billion in combined spot and perpetual futures volume—over six times its total during the second quarter of 2024, according to investment manager VanEck. For a market that has often been split between spot buying and derivatives trading, that kind of volume helps explain why the token has become a focal point for traders tracking where activity in crypto is actually happening.

Its growing success has “sucked away volume” from direct purchases of smaller crypto tokens. Perpetual futures let traders speculate on a cryptocurrency's price, often with leverage, without buying or holding the token itself—a feature that makes the platform attractive to active traders.

“All the crypto trading happens on Hyperliquid now, so most of the other crypto assets are getting less buying pressure,” Asad added.

Hyperliquid's most recent price jump came two days after President Donald Trump said his administration was working to bring the platform to the United States.

“I understand that [Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair] Mike [Selig] is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion, working very hard on that,” Trump said at a White House event.

Behind the Bitcoin rally

Even with Hyperliquid drawing some capital away from direct Bitcoin purchases, the cryptocurrency still gained nearly 25% over the past week. Macro factors, including the Treasury Department's recent bond-buyback announcement, helped set the rally in motion, but Asad said liquidations drove Bitcoin's most recent surge.

On Tuesday, as Bitcoin traded around $64,000, traders liquidated $1.3 billion in short positions in a single day. Another $1 billion in Bitcoin shorts were liquidated over the following 48 hours, bringing the week's total to $4.5 billion, according to Bitwise.

Political developments have also lent support to the rally. At a meeting with crypto industry leaders this week, Trump urged Congress to pass the Clarity Act, a bill that would establish a long-awaited market structure framework for digital assets. On Thursday, Selig said he had directed the CFTC to begin developing clearer crypto rules if Congress does not pass the legislation before the end of the year. That matters for traders and exchanges alike because the rules around how digital assets are classified and traded shape where liquidity goes next.

Meanwhile, worries over U.S. debt surpassing $40 trillion and a weakening U.S. dollar have renewed investor interest in alternative assets such as gold and Bitcoin.

Source: Fortune