Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token surged to a historic all-time high (ATH) of $367.24 (CoinGecko) on May 23, cementing its place among the most-watched digital assets in the market.

The rally capped a week of explosive growth fueled by regulatory momentum, eye-popping whale activity, and a $9.37 billion open interest (OI) milestone showcasing the platform’s growing dominance in decentralized derivatives trading.

Regulatory Breakthrough Meets DeFi Ambition

At the time of this writing, HYPE was up 14.5% over the past 24 hours, rising from $30.78 to a new ATH of $35.35, and marking gains of 37.7% in the last seven days.

In the past month alone, the token has skyrocketed 94%, and has registered even better numbers year-to-date, adding an impressive 868.7% to its price since hitting a low of $3.81 late last year.

The pump comes against a backdrop of Bitcoin’s own dramatic rise to nearly $112,000, pushing its market cap above $2.2 trillion.

At the heart of the HYPE uptick is Hyperliquid Lab’s proactive regulatory engagement. On May 23, the team announced it had submitted two formal comment letters to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), addressing perpetual derivatives and 24/7 trading.

Praising the agency’s openness, Hyperliquid advocated for decentralized finance (DeFi) frameworks as a path to market efficiency, integrity, and user protection.

“Supporting defi in the U.S. with open dialogue and a clear regulatory framework is an opportunity to ensure the U.S. remains a leader in financial innovation while robustly protecting users,” the team stated.

It also positioned itself as a case study for how blockchain-based systems can improve market efficiency and user protection, a narrative that seems to have resonated with traders.

Open Interest Hits All-Time High

Open interest across the protocol reflects this investor frenzy. Recent data from the on-chain analytics platform CoinGlass revealed that active derivatives contracts had jumped to over $9.3 billion, shattering the previous record of $8 billion from just days ago.

HYPE contracts alone drew $747 million in demand, only trailing Bitcoin’s $4.06 billion and Ethereum’s $1.21 billion. Trading volume was also high, with more than $492 million in HYPE trades recorded in the last 24 hours.

However, the bullish momentum wasn’t without casualties. According to blockchain tracker Spot On Chain, a whale, who initially bet heavily against HYPE with a 5x leveraged short position worth $57 million, was forced to capitulate today, locking in a $23.5 million loss as prices soared.