Hyperliquid price reaches new $50 all-time high as DEX metrics surge

Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE surged to a new all-time high, fueled by record trading volumes and growing dominance in both spot and derivatives markets.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) reached a record high of $50.99 on Aug. 27 during Asian morning trading hours, extending a powerful rally that has lifted the token 22% over the past week and 14% in the last 24 hours.

According to Coinglass data, Hyperliquid’s derivatives volume climbed 14.57% in the past 24 hours to reach $3.05 billion, while open interest jumped nearly 17% to $2.33 billion, showing a rise in speculative positioning.

At the same time, more than $1.76 million worth of short positions were liquidated, suggesting that traders betting against the rally were caught off guard by the breakout.

The milestone comes as whale activity and decentralized exchange metrics surrounding the platform continue to accelerate.

Whale activity sparks squeeze

A key driver of Hyperliquid’s latest surge appears to be partly driven aggressive whale activity in Plasma’s XPL token perpetuals. On Aug. 26–27, a whale wallet suspected to be associated with Justin Sun deposited around 16 million USD Coin (USDC) and opened heavily leveraged long positions, rapidly pushing XPL’s price from roughly $0.58 to $1.80 in under two minutes. This violent move led to short liquidations totaling over $17 million, including one wipeout of $7 million. 

The squeeze was boosted by the arrival of three more whales. Within an hour, the four wallets collectively pocketed an estimated $47 million in profits. Due to the exodus of short sellers, open interest on XPL dropped from $160 million to just $30 million.

Hyperliquid’s entire ecosystem was impacted by the spike in trading activity, which raised fees and increased demand for HYPE through its buyback mechanism.

Hyperliquid’s rising DEX metrics

The surge follows Hyperliquid’s Aug. 26 update that spot trading volumes on the exchange hit a record $3.4 billion in a single day, largely fueled by Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) markets. With $1.5 billion in daily BTC spot volume alone, the platform is now the second-largest venue globally for Bitcoin spot trading across both centralized and decentralized markets.

Supporting this trend, DefiLlama data shows that monthly decentralized exchange volumes on Hyperliquid have already exceeded $18 billion in August, surpassing July’s $11 billion. Meanwhile, total value locked on the platform has reached $721 million, another all high. Annualized revenue is also running at $1.26 billion, demonstrating the protocol’s expanding footprint.

Hyperliquid technical analysis

The price chart shows a clear breakout above resistance at $49 with higher volumes and a relative strength index reading of 61, suggesting that momentum is increasing without going into overheated territory. Expanding Bollinger Bands suggest higher volatility, and short- to long-term moving averages are still skewed upward.

The Commodity Channel Index at 195 indicates significant upward pressure, and the moving average convergence divergence indicator has flashed a buy signal after crossing into positive territory.

The next resistance might appear around $55, if HYPE maintains support above $50. But if traders start taking profits, a drop back towards $45 would not be unusual.