1.2 million HYPE tokens are about to be released, valued at $31 million! Hyperliquid team's monthly unlock wave begins

Decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid’s core development organization, Hyperliquid Labs, plans to distribute approximately 1.2 million HYPE tokens to its team members on January 6, 2026. Based on the current market price of about $26 per token, the total value amounts to up to $31.2 million. This is the second monthly distribution received by the team under the linear unlock schedule since the initial token launch in November 2024.

Despite competition from emerging rivals like Lighter and Aster, Hyperliquid recorded a net fund inflow of $3.87 billion and an astonishing total trading volume of $2.95 trillion in 2025, maintaining its position as the leading decentralized perpetual contract trading platform. Although this unlock is part of an established plan, with circulating tokens totaling only about 238 million, its market impact should not be underestimated.

Details of the Unlock Event: The Flow and Rules of 1.2 Million HYPE Tokens

According to an announcement posted by Hyperliquid on Discord, a batch of 1.2 million HYPE tokens has recently been unstaked and is scheduled for official distribution to the core team members of Hyperliquid Labs on January 6, 2026. At the current market price of approximately $26, the total value of this upcoming unlock is about $31.2 million. This is not the team’s first token allocation; on November 29, 2024, they received an initial allocation of about 1.75 million HYPE tokens. Project co-founder iliensinc explicitly stated in the community, “From now on, all allocations will be made on the 6th of each month.” This marks the beginning of a regular, rule-based token release schedule.

This unlock stems from the economic model set at the inception of HYPE tokens. As the native utility and governance token of the Hyperliquid ecosystem, HYPE has a fixed total supply of 1 billion tokens. Data from platforms like DeFi Llama shows that in the initial “genesis allocation,” approximately 237 million tokens (23.7% of total supply) were reserved for core contributors. The unlocking conditions for these tokens are quite strict: a one-year lock-up period, followed by a gradual, linear release over 24 months. However, team members later clarified to The Block, “The unlock is not entirely linear.” This suggests the actual release curve may include certain conditions or adjustments, but the full schedule has not been fully disclosed, adding some uncertainty to market expectations.

Key Information on Hyperliquid Team Token Unlock

Number of tokens to unlock: 1,200,000 HYPE

Current market value: approximately $31,200,000 (at $26 per token)

Expected distribution date: January 6, 2026

Recipients: Core team members of Hyperliquid Labs

Token source: Allocation share to core contributors (totaling 237 million)

Nature of unlock: Part of the established monthly linear unlock schedule

Historical unlock: First 1.75 million tokens distributed on November 29, 2024

Future plan: Regular distributions possibly on the 6th of each month

In response to community inquiries about the token release schedule, the Hyperliquid team chose proactive communication and clarification. The Discord announcement on December 28 aimed to deliver clear information in advance, avoiding unnecessary panic or speculation as the unlock date approaches due to lack of transparency. This approach reflects progress in project governance, attempting to manage market expectations through increased transparency. Nonetheless, the inflow of several million dollars’ worth of tokens into the market each month remains a continuous test of holder confidence and secondary market absorption capacity.

Market Impact Analysis: Selling Pressure, Confidence, and FDV Dynamics

The $31.2 million worth of HYPE tokens unlocking will undoubtedly ripple through the market on multiple levels. The most immediate concern is selling pressure. While these tokens are intended to reward and retain core personnel rather than be sold immediately upon unlock, economic rationality suggests team members are likely to cash out some tokens to cover living expenses or realize financial gains. Given that the current circulating supply of HYPE is only about 238.4 million, the 1.2 million tokens unlocking this time account for roughly 0.5% of the circulating supply. In the short term, this additional supply needs to be absorbed by corresponding buying demand, potentially exerting technical pressure on the price.

The second focus is the reasonableness of the fully diluted valuation (FDV). HYPE currently has a circulating market cap of about $6.2 billion, but its FDV reaches as high as $25.1 billion. The large gap between FDV and market cap mainly stems from over 61% of tokens still being locked. Each token unlock by the team or investors effectively converts this “futures” market cap into “spot” market cap. The market must continuously evaluate whether Hyperliquid’s current business scale, growth rate, and competitive position can support a story of hundreds of billions of dollars in valuation. Recently, the Hyperliquid Foundation proposed to burn approximately $1 billion worth of HYPE tokens (these tokens come from the on-chain transaction fee “aid fund”), which, if approved, would significantly reduce future total supply and indirectly ease FDV pressure—an important correction to the long-term valuation model.

Deeper still is the impact on investor confidence. Regular, predictable team unlocks are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they demonstrate disciplined project progress and avoid “black swan” risks associated with sudden, large one-time unlocks. On the other hand, they act like a “monthly clock” hanging over the market, repeatedly reminding investors of supply expansion. The market will closely monitor the on-chain flow of tokens post-unlock: are they flowing to mainstream CEXs for sale, or being re-staked to earn ecosystem yields? The team’s behavior itself will send strong signals. In a market driven by narratives and confidence, such signals can sometimes be more important than the raw data of the unlock. Positively, if the project continues to deliver excellent operational metrics (such as impressive trading volume growth) and effectively utilizes token economics (e.g., proposal to burn tokens), the market may view these unlock events as healthy, well-priced routine processes.

In-Depth Analysis of the Hyperliquid Project: The Rise and Challenges of a High-Performance DEX

To fully understand the context of this token unlock, we must revisit the main subject—what is Hyperliquid? Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange focused on perpetual contracts, with a key feature being the independently built Layer 1 blockchain dedicated to derivatives trading. This chain is not based on existing frameworks like Ethereum Virtual Machine but is designed from scratch to deliver a trading experience comparable to centralized exchanges, including extremely high throughput, ultra-low latency, and low fees. According to 2025 operational data from the crypto research firm ASXN, Hyperliquid achieved an astonishing total trading volume of $2.95 trillion for the year, with an average daily volume of $83.4 billion, fully validating its technical competitiveness.

HYPE tokens play a central role in this ecosystem. Its economic model clearly reflects the project’s vision: incentivize early users, reward core builders, and ensure protocol decentralization governance. Besides the 23.8% allocated to core contributors, up to 31% of tokens were distributed via airdrops to early protocol adopters and community members at genesis, helping to build a large initial user base and strong community sense of ownership. The token’s functions include paying trading fees, participating in governance votes, and potentially sharing protocol revenue. The Foundation’s proposed burn mechanism involves permanently removing some HYPE tokens derived from transaction fees, effectively returning part of the protocol’s income to all token holders, similar to stock buybacks, creating a deflationary value accumulation model.

However, Hyperliquid also faces significant challenges. According to The Block, despite remaining the largest decentralized perpetual contract DEX by total trading volume, its market share within the entire on-chain perpetual contract space is eroding. The main threats come from two competitors: Ethereum-based Lighter and BNB Chain-based Aster. These emerging platforms leverage mature blockchain ecosystems and innovative product designs (such as more trading pairs and attractive incentive schemes) to rapidly gain ground. This means Hyperliquid must not only maintain its technological edge but also continuously invest in liquidity depth, product innovation, and ecosystem expansion. Whether the team can effectively utilize the resources gained from the unlocks to counter these competitors, rather than cashing out and leaving, will be crucial for the long-term value of HYPE.

The Track of DEX Derivatives: Competition and Hyperliquid’s Strategies

This unlock event also serves as a microcosm to observe the broader decentralized derivatives track’s competitive landscape. In 2025, this sector continued to heat up, becoming one of the hottest battlegrounds in blockchain. Hyperliquid’s reported $3.87 billion annual net fund inflow and 609,000 new users powerfully demonstrate the exploding demand for non-custodial, transparent derivatives trading. Users are voting with their feet, fleeing centralized platforms criticized for low transparency and potential single points of failure, and turning to DeFi protocols secured by code and smart contracts.

In this battle, protocols are deploying all their strategies. The competition has long gone beyond simple “trading speed”: it now includes cross-chain liquidity, diverse collateral assets, innovative risk engines, and eye-catching token incentives. For example, some protocols integrate multiple cross-chain bridges, allowing users to directly use assets like Ethereum and Solana as collateral, greatly improving capital efficiency. Others focus on developing more complex derivatives like options and structured products to meet professional traders’ needs. Hyperliquid, with its proprietary L1 optimized for performance, has established a solid foundation, but competitors are closing in through ecosystem integration and differentiation strategies.

For Hyperliquid, its offensive and defensive strategies are clear. Defense involves continuously optimizing its core trading engine, maintaining leading order execution speed (averaging 562 million orders per day in 2025) and capital efficiency, and using HYPE token economics for liquidity mining to reinforce its liquidity moat. Offense involves ecosystem expansion and innovation—exploring new financial products beyond perpetuals (such as the emerging HIP-3 trading), building a stronger developer ecosystem to attract more projects on its chain, and continuously improving protocol parameters and fee models through governance. The resources gained from monthly unlocks should serve as “fuel” to drive these strategies—funding ecosystem development or as part of compensation packages to attract top talent. Only by transforming internal unlocks into external ecosystem growth can Hyperliquid defend its throne and expand in the fiercely competitive DEX derivatives market. This financial experiment driven by code, capital, and community is just beginning to unfold its exciting chapter.