HYPE, the native cryptocurrency of the Hyperliquid layer-1 blockchain and decentralized trading platform, climbed to a fresh all-time high above $90 on Friday as the protocol rolled out manual borrowing.

The token surged as high as $90.92 shortly after Hyperliquid announced that users can now supply HYPE and Bitcoin () as collateral to borrow the stablecoins USDC and Tether's USDt (USDT). An all-time high marks the highest price level a token has reached since it began trading, a benchmark that resets with each new peak.

"Manual borrows are live on Hyperliquid," the protocol said, adding that the feature and its portfolio-margin system use the same underlying HyperCore infrastructure.

Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan said the design means every borrowed asset comes from a supplier rather than being created through platform-level margin accounting. That supplier-backed structure aligns manual borrowing with a core decentralized finance mechanism, in which holders post collateral such as HYPE or Bitcoin to draw stablecoin liquidity without selling the underlying asset.

Direct borrowing beyond portfolio margin

The new feature lets users borrow USDC or USDT directly against HYPE or Bitcoin collateral, extending direct access to borrowing beyond Hyperliquid's portfolio margin system. Hyperliquid reported $269 million in assets borrowed across the underlying infrastructure on Friday, a figure that sizes total borrowing activity across the shared HyperCore stack at the moment the standalone feature went live.

The rollout comes two days after Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, announced plans to deploy onchain perpetual futures markets for United States clients, starting with Hyperliquid's HIP-3 markets. From here, the checkpoints to watch are how borrowing uptake compares with the $269 million baseline and how Payward's HIP-3 deployment for United States clients progresses.

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Source: Cointelegraph