Hyperliquid Draws ICE Talks, Grayscale $115M Seed, and HYPE ETF Surge as SPACEX Perp Flash-Crashes 45%

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Hyperliquid Draws ICE Talks, Grayscale $115M Seed, and HYPE ETF Surge as SPACEX Perp Flash-Crashes 45%

Intercontinental Exchange chair and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher confirmed that the parent of the New York Stock Exchange has held multiple meetings with the Hyperliquid team to map overlapping territory in the onchain perpetual futures market. Speaking at a Bernstein conference, Sprecher said ICE is pressing U.S. regulators for a “level playing field” rather than seeking to suppress the protocol, framing recent Capitol Hill discussions as exploratory. The remarks follow reports that ICE and CME pushed the CFTC to scrutinize Hyperliquids role in 24/7 oil derivatives. Sprecher signaled ICE wants entry into the segment, citing surging non-crypto activity during weekend sessions linked to Middle East volatility.

Grayscale advanced its proposed spot product with an amended S-1 filing that rebrands the vehicle as the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF under the Nasdaq ticker HYPG. The asset manager disclosed it is negotiating a seed capital arrangement with Hyper Holdings Global LP to exchange fund shares for 2 million HYPE tokens, worth roughly $115 million at Thursdays prices. The disclosure surfaced inside the amended prospectus and was flagged by ETF analysts probing the identity of the counterparty. The filing follows earlier launches from 21Shares and Bitwise, whose products helped propel HYPE to a record above $60 amid steady inflows and rising daily volumes for the THYP ticker.

Bitwise is leaning further into the Hyperliquid thesis, with Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen describing strong investor demand for the firms recently launched BHYP product. The asset manager said it stakes HYPE in-house to maximize yield for ETF holders and routes 10% of management fees toward buying HYPE on the open market for its own balance sheet, publishing wallet addresses to allow on-chain verification of reserves. Rasmussen argued the protocol could evolve into core infrastructure for tokenized equities, prediction markets and round-the-clock trading, highlighting the buy-and-burn mechanism that recycles 99% of platform fees. He pointed to the Coinbase USDC liquidity tie-up as further institutional validation.

Infrastructure provider P2P.org broadened its trading stack with the launch of Syncro Data Stream, a real-time on-chain feed for Sui and Hyperliquid sourced directly from its validator nodes. The product targets execution-critical desks that need order-flow data before it propagates through public RPC endpoints, compressing latency to a single validator-to-client hop. For Hyperliquid specifically, the feed exposes the full order lifecycle — open, modify, cancel and fill events across every asset, complete with side, price, quantity and user attribution. The stream costs $2,000 per month per network and is offered with a one-week trial, signaling growing demand for low-latency market microstructure data on the venue.

Hypernova, a proprietary trading platform built on Hyperliquid, closed a $3 million pre-seed round led by Lemniscap, with participation from Very Early Ventures, CMS Holdings and Pivot Global. Angel checks came from Hyperliquid ecosystem operators, including Native Markets co-founder Maximilian Fiege and the HypurrCollective founders, who routed their commitment through the Echo capital platform acquired by Coinbase for $375 million. Founder Anar Bayramov said the SAFE-with-token-warrants round was oversubscribed three times and closed in mid-October. The platform uses smart contracts to automate instant payouts and aims to deliver a trustless prop trading model, with a public launch targeted within the next two months.

The HYPE ecosystem also absorbed a sharp risk event as Hyperliquids SPACEX-USDH perpetual contract suffered a near-45% flash crash on Thursday afternoon, plunging from an open of $2,277 to $1,254 within a 30-minute window before recovering to roughly $2,169. On-chain data shows 405 users were liquidated across 1,393 positions, with $1.51 million in notional value wiped out. Median margin per liquidated position sat at just $31, indicating a heavily retail, high-leverage user base. Thin liquidity amplified the move — the contract had generated only $4.87 million in 24-hour volume against open interest below $2.9 million. SpaceX is targeting a June IPO.

HYPE trades near $61.88, up 7.84% on the day, with momentum reinforcing an established uptrend. Immediate candlestick structure shows support clustered at $61.59, with deeper cushions at $56.39 and $51.36, while resistance sits at $64.79 ahead of $75.44 and the $81.00 region near prior highs. A bullish MACD print pairs with an RSI of 68.34, signaling strength but flirting with overbought territory that could invite short-term cooling. The bull case targets a reclaim of $64.79 to open a path toward fresh all-time highs; a daily close beneath $56.39 would invalidate the structure and signal a deeper correction.