The decentralized perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid has emerged as one of the standout projects in crypto for 2025, but competing rewards systems are attempting to attract investors.
Cantor Fitzgerald anticipates that Hyperliquid’s HYPE (HYPE) token will soar to $200 by 2035. Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, which manages the HYPE treasury, asserts that this increase will be driven by the Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 3 (HIP-3).
“We view HIP-3 as a fundamental catalyst for Hyperliquid’s growth and a significant component of the valuation framework suggested by Cantor,” Jung told Cointelegraph.
Perpetual swaps are future-derived contracts that reflect the price of an underlying asset without an expiration date. These contracts maintain a price closely aligned with the spot assets through a funding mechanism that shifts payments between long and short position holders.
The market share of perpetual futures decentralized exchanges (DEXs) climbed from 2.1% in January 2023 to an all-time high of 11.7% in November 2025, according to a report by CoinGecko.
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Cantor Fitzgerald anticipates $200 HYPE token value by 2035
Earlier in December, a report from Cantor Fitzgerald suggested that the increasing popularity of decentralized trading platforms would drive the HYPE token above $200 in the next decade.
“Considering that all fees are returned to token holders via buybacks, we argue that HYPE should trade closer to 50x by 2035,” wrote the company in a research note dated Dec. 16, adding:
“With this approach, we foresee HYPE surpassing $200.”
This estimate hinges on the token’s price experiencing a 15% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) while the Assistance Fund repurchases approximately 291 million HYPE tokens, reducing the total supply to 666 million tokens.
The AF is an onchain body that utilizes 99% of protocol trading fees to repurchase HYPE tokens, which aims to artificially increase demand for the token.
The optimistic forecast also presumes that centralized exchanges (CEXs) will lose about 1% of their annual market share to DEXs, which translates to an estimated $600 billion in trading volume.
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New competitors pose the greatest risk to Hyperliquid
Emerging DEX competitors are the primary threat to Hyperliquid’s predicted growth, especially with the upcoming token generation event (TGE) of Lighter DEX.
“In the short term, competition from other perpetual DEXs poses a risk, particularly newer entrants like Lighter that leverage token generation events to capture market share,” Jung noted.
The Ethereum-rollup-based DEX, Lighter, has begun to gain traction with its zero-fee trading model and unique points-based yield farming system, boasting daily trading volumes exceeding $8 billion.
Lighter’s reward farming initiative has sparked significant trader anticipation for an imminent TGE, rumored to take place at the end of 2025. Although the platform hasn’t formally announced a token, Lighter points have been trading for around $12 in the over-the-counter market as of Dec. 20, according to airdrop farming account Legends Trade.
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