Bitcoin is bleeding billions. One token breaks records – Bitcoin.pl

The week behind us sends a strong signal. BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and other spot Bitcoin ETF issuers recorded six consecutive sessions of outflows, totaling $1.26 billion. Ethereum ETFs lost another 215 million. These are the worst seven days for both categories since the beginning of the year.

And at the same time, in the same week, Bitwise THYP and 21Shares BHYP, two fresh spot ETFs for the Hyperliquid cryptocurrency, received 72.38 million. Together with 22 million for the XRP ETF and 15.6 million for the Solana ETF, a picture emerged that is not panic, but rotation.

What exactly does the data show?

The HYPE token itself took off during this time. On Sunday, May 24, it registered a new ATH of USD 64.24, this morning it is hovering around USD 63. That’s 47% in a week, 101% since the beginning of the year, a market capitalization of USD 16 billion and eleventh place among all cryptocurrencies. For comparison, BTC this week hit a five-week low of $74,344 on Saturday, rebounded to $77,200 this morning and is still 39% below October.

Tim Misir, head of research at BRN, put it succinctly in correspondence with CoinDesk: “capital does not leave crypto, it is redeployed with precision.” This is an accurate observation, because usually during market panic all categories disappear at once, and here most altcoins fly to new lows, but one, two, three assets with a specific profile attract millions.

What exactly does the data show?

The HYPE token itself took off during this time. On Sunday, May 24, it registered a new ATH of USD 64.24, this morning it is hovering around USD 63. That’s 47% in a week, 101% since the beginning of the year, a market capitalization of USD 16 billion and eleventh place among all cryptocurrencies. For comparison, BTC this week hit a five-week low of $74,344 on Saturday, rebounded to $77,200 this morning and is still 39% below October.

Tim Misir, head of research at BRN, put it briefly in correspondence with CoinDesk: capital does not leave crypto, it is redeployed with precision. This is an accurate observation, because usually during market panic all categories disappear at once, and here most altcoins fly to new lows, but one, two, three assets with a specific profile attract millions.

Why the market’s attention goes to HYPE

This is a question worth pausing because BTC and ETH aren’t going anywhere. Bitcoin remains the largest market asset with 1.5 trillion capitalization, Ethereum is the second. ETFs for these two assets still have the largest AUM. What’s happening this week is simply a momentary shift in focus, not a revolution.

Except this shift has a logic. Hyperliquid is a trading platform that generates specific income from fees for perpetuals, and part of this income is directed to purchasing its own token and burning it. BTC is sold as a store of value, ETH as an infrastructure layer with yield from staking, HYPE as a share in the exchange with buyback. Three different investment theses, three different time profiles.

This week, the “share of cash flow from the stock exchange” narrative played better than the other two. Why? Gold is trading at $4,500 and is attracting capital looking for defensiveness. The dollar is holding strong, so the thesis about a flight to BTC is temporarily losing strength. Ethereum is facing a high-profile dispute over the future of the Foundation. In such an environment, an investor looking for something new naturally focuses on assets with a specific income mechanism.

Let us add that Hyperliquid has collected 42% of all blockchain fees in the world in recent weeks, more than Tron, Solana and Ethereum combined. The platform expands pre-IPO to include prediction contracts and 24/7 stock trading. This is not an argument that BTC and ETH are losing something, it is an argument that today there is a new soloist in the crypto orchestra that the market wants to listen to.

Three caveats that should not be ignored

First, scale. USD 72 million for the HYPE ETF sounds impressive until we remember that BlackRock’s IBIT has USD 70 billion under management. Hyperliquid is a niche segment, not Wall Street.

Secondly, risk. The token, which has grown 101% in five months, has a volatility profile that other assets do not have. Arthur Hayes predicts USD 150 by August, but the same Hayes deposited USD 6.33 million in HYPE on Bybit on May 23, which the market interpreted as an exit signal, not a buy signal.

Third, the model. The HYPE buyback ETF bought 2.5 times more tokens in the first six sessions than the burning mechanism removed them from circulation. That is, issuers create demand that exceeds the deflationary structure of the token. This is the fuel today. What happens when this inflow stops?

What does this mean for you

If you’re building a long-term digital gold portfolio, this week doesn’t change your thesis. BTC remains BTC, the narrative works in a multi-year cycle, and the ETF outflow in the first six-day period is dramatic, but on an annual basis it is still USD 536 million in plus.

If you treat crypto as a rotating portfolio, this week is a message: smart money is currently giving a premium to tokens with specific cash flow, not stores of value. This may be a temporary move ahead of the FOMC and PCE data on Thursday. It may also be a new cycle trend. From today’s perspective, I’m not sure, but I know that HYPE won’t be in my brother-in-law’s wallet anytime soon. In an investor’s portfolio with 2-5% in crypto and an open mind to specifics, it may be worth watching.

PCE – a key macroeconomic indicator in the US (Consumer Expenditure Deflator), on the basis of which the Federal Reserve (Fed) makes decisions on interest rates on Thursday. Everything you read today may look different on Friday morning.