Hyperliquid's HYPE Up 69% YTD as Pre-IPO AI Perpetuals Drive Trading Boom

Huoshan Finance reports that Hyperliquid's native token, HYPE, is outperforming a broader crypto market pullback. As of May 18, HYPE rose more than 5% over the past 24 hours, taking its year-to-date gain to 69%. Investor focus has shifted to Hyperliquid's HIP3 pre-IPO perpetuals ecosystem, where cumulative trading volume has topped $120 billion. The platform has introduced pre-IPO perpetual contracts tied to high-profile AI names including SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. One data point drawing attention: TradeXYZ's Cerebras perpetual price is said to be only about 3% away from the stock's Nasdaq debut opening price, versus a roughly 35% gap typically seen in traditional secondary markets. Hyperliquid currently lists SpaceX's pre-IPO contract, SPCX, implying a valuation of about $1.78 trillion. Market estimates peg a potential SpaceX IPO raise at $75 billion to $80 billion, while Anthropic and OpenAI are also being discussed at $1 trillion valuations. Analysts say the HIP3 structure allows retail investors to take part in price discovery for major tech IPOs via on-chain markets for the first time, while also potentially drawing U.S. regulatory scrutiny over what they describe as "unregistered securities exposure."