Hyperliquid HYPE Near $88 as EU Weighs Perp Futures Rules
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token changed hands near $88.45 on October 1, down 2.74% on the day and about 9.6% below the $97.88 peak it reached in late September, Coincentral reported. The move lower coincided with fresh regulatory outreach: the Hyperliquid Policy Center asked European authorities to classify perpetual futures as ordinary derivatives under MiFID II instead of a standalone category of crypto product.
The group’s submission fed into the European Commission’s review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA. The HPC argued that a financial instrument should keep its usual legal treatment even when it settles on a public blockchain. Blockonomi also covered the filing and described the same $88.45 print and 2.74% daily decline, putting the token roughly 9.6% below the $97.88 high.
Key facts
- HYPE closed near $88.45 on October 1, with TradingView data showing a $91.10 intraday high and an $88.12 low.
- The daily RSI read 52.58, above neutral but below its 61.17 moving average, while the 4-hour Bollinger Bands spanned $90.95 to $84.84.
- Hyperliquid’s real-world asset volumes slid from $37.5 billion in late July to $8 billion last week, per HyperScreener, while open interest held at $3.9 billion, 9.3% below its record.
- Analyst Whale Insider said on X on October 2 that Grayscale ETF clients bought $4.96 million in HYPE.
- Network fees reached $72 million last month, a 7.5% month-over-month rise, according to DeFi Llama.
Regulatory push meets cooling momentum
The EU request is the policy leg of a story that also has a product leg. On September 18 Hyperliquid switched on manual borrowing, letting users supply HYPE and BTC as collateral to borrow USDC and USDT against the same HyperCore infrastructure that underpins portfolio margin. The platform’s own post put cumulative borrows at $269 million.
Kraken’s parent, Payward, said on September 16 that it intends to bring Hyperliquid perpetual markets to US clients, using Bitnomial for market operation and NinjaTrader Clearing for client accounts. That plan still depends on regulatory approval. The Payward sequencing appears only in Blockonomi’s write-up of the story.
On the charts, Coincentral described a first resistance zone close to the $91.10 daily high, with a break above $91 opening the path to $92-$95 and, eventually, the $97.88 peak. A loss of the $87.89 midpoint would point down toward $84.84 or $81.29.
Why it matters
Where perpetuals land under EU law shapes how venues list, margin and report them, so the HPC filing is a direct bet that treating perps as familiar derivatives will keep more of that business inside existing compliance channels rather than in a bespoke crypto regime. For US readers, the Payward plan is the nearer-term test: a fully regulated perp offering would put Hyperliquid’s order flow in front of a much wider customer base. Meanwhile the divergence between collapsing RWA volumes and rising fees suggests the platform’s revenue is being carried by derivatives and lending activity rather than its tokenized-asset experiment.
Broader crypto markets got a lift from the September 30 inflation report. The Core PCE Price Index rose 0.2% in August, below forecasts, cutting the perceived odds of an October rate hike from near 50% to 37%. Hyperliquid remains the best performer among the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, up 270% year to date. None of this is financial advice, and crypto prices are volatile and can move sharply in either direction.
What to watch
The European Commission’s MiCA review is the process to track for the perp-classification question, while Payward’s US rollout waits on regulatory clearance. Near term, traders are watching whether HYPE clears $91 or loses $87.89, and whether the Grayscale-linked buying cited by Whale Insider continues.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
Sources: CoinCentral, Blockonomi
