Bitwise Just Filed a Hyperliquid ETF Called BHYP and What It Means for DeFi Token Investing

Bitwise filed its second amended S-1 registration for the Hyperliquid ETF on April 10, 2026, adding the ticker BHYP, a 0.67% annual sponsor fee, and a built-in staking mechanism that passes roughly 85% of rewards through to shareholders. The filing lists NYSE Arca as the intended exchange, Anchorage Digital as the digital asset custodian, and BNY Mellon handling cash custody and NAV calculations. If approved, BHYP would become the first U.S. spot ETF tracking a pure DeFi protocol token, not a Layer-1 chain, not a payment network, but a decentralized exchange that generated more fee revenue in Q1 2026 than most Layer-1 blockchains combined.

Every crypto ETF approved so far (Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana) tracks an infrastructure token. BHYP would be the first to wrap a protocol that earns revenue from trading activity and returns it to token holders through automated buybacks and burns. The precedent this sets for DeFi as an investable category is the real story.

What Is the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF and How Does It Work

The BHYP fund is structured as a grantor trust that holds HYPE tokens directly, similar to how the iShares Bitcoin Trust holds actual BTC. Bitwise acts as sponsor, Anchorage Digital Bank provides institutional custody through segregated wallets and hardware security modules, and approved trading counterparties including FalconX, Flowdesk, Nonco, and Wintermute handle token acquisition.

What separates BHYP from a simple buy-and-hold wrapper is the staking component. According to the amended S-1 filing, the trust will stake "a substantial portion" of its HYPE holdings through Anchorage and additional staking agents operating validators on the Hyperliquid network. After the 0.67% fee and staking costs, approximately 85% of rewards flow back to NAV, giving investors both price exposure and yield inside a regulated brokerage account.

The 0.67% fee sits below the Grayscale ETHE fee (2.5%) but above the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (0.20%), reflecting the added complexity of staking and DeFi-native counterparties.

Why This Is the First Pure DeFi Protocol ETF

Every crypto ETF that has reached the U.S. market so far tracks what you might call infrastructure tokens. Bitcoin is a store-of-value network, Ethereum is a smart contract platform, XRP is a payments rail, and Solana is a high-throughput Layer-1. These tokens derive value from network adoption, transaction fees, and ecosystem growth in broad terms.

Hyperliquid is fundamentally different because it runs a single product, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange that processed over $12.5 billion in daily trading volume as of early 2026 while commanding roughly 73% of the perpetual DEX market. The HYPE token captures value through one specific mechanism where 97% of all protocol revenue flows into the Assistance Fund, which executes daily market buybacks of HYPE that are permanently burned from circulation.

HYPE has a direct, measurable relationship between trading volume on the platform and value accrual to the token. That makes it closer to owning equity in a business than owning a commodity, which is precisely why the SEC's decision on this filing carries weight beyond a single fund.

Who Else Is Filing and How Competitive Is the Race

Bitwise is not the only issuer chasing this market. Grayscale filed for the GHYP ETF on Nasdaq in March 2026 with Coinbase Custody as custodian, 21Shares submitted its S-1 back in October 2025 without a finalized ticker, and VanEck has confirmed plans for a VHYP staking ETF. Four major issuers are now racing to offer spot HYPE exposure to U.S. investors, but Bitwise appears to be furthest along. The second amended S-1 is a late-stage marker in the SEC review process, and Bitwise Europe already launched a Hyperliquid Staking ETP on Deutsche Boerse Xetra under the same BHYP ticker on April 9. Having a live European product while the U.S. filing advances is the same playbook Bitwise used with Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The competitive dynamic actually helps HYPE holders regardless of which fund launches first, because multiple issuers competing means fee compression and more capital flowing in at lower cost. Bitcoin ETFs went through exactly this cycle, where the fee war between BlackRock, Fidelity, and Bitwise drove aggregate expense ratios below 0.25% and helped push cumulative inflows past $65 billion by April 2026.

What ETF Launches Typically Do to Token Prices

The XRP precedent is the most relevant comparison. When spot XRP ETFs launched in November 2025, they surpassed $1 billion in AUM within one month and removed over 500 million XRP from circulating supply. That was the fastest growth for any altcoin ETF at the time. Between October 2024 and January 2025, during the filing-to-approval window, XRP climbed from roughly $0.50 to $3.40, a gain of approximately 580%.

But the pattern is not a guaranteed moonshot. Bitcoin experienced a brief "sell the news" dip after its spot ETFs launched in January 2024, dropping from $49,000 to around $42,000 before rallying to $73,000 over the following three months, and Ethereum's ETF launch saw a similar initial correction. The consistent pattern across all three is that the filing-to-approval period generates the strongest returns, while the actual launch date produces a short-term pullback before structural demand from daily inflows takes over.

HYPE is currently trading around $42 as of April 10, up roughly 10% week-on-week after bouncing from early-April lows near $35.60. The token sits about 30% below its all-time high of $59.30 set in September 2025. If the XRP playbook applies, the window between now and an actual SEC approval decision is where the most aggressive repricing happens.

But there is one important difference that could amplify the effect for HYPE. The token has a built-in supply reduction mechanism through its buyback-and-burn program that XRP never had. An ETF locking up tokens in custody on top of daily burns from protocol revenue creates a double supply squeeze that has no direct precedent in crypto ETF history.

What Makes Hyperliquid Fundamentally Different from Previous ETF Tokens

Hyperliquid's annualized revenue run rate sits between $676 million and $843 million as of Q1 2026, making it the highest-earning protocol in crypto outside of stablecoin issuers. The platform hit a single-day volume record of $32 billion, with open interest reaching $16 billion and daily revenue touching $20 million. Most Layer-1 blockchains that already have ETFs generate a fraction of this.

And unlike Ethereum, where revenue comes from thousands of dApps paying gas fees, Hyperliquid's revenue comes from one core product with demonstrable product-market fit across 222,000 active traders and 73% perpetual DEX market share.

HYPE's market cap hovers around $10-13 billion, giving it a price-to-annualized-revenue ratio of roughly 12-19x. Traditional finance would call that reasonable for a high-growth exchange, but 97% of that revenue buys and burns the token, which is more aggressive capital return than any publicly traded exchange offers shareholders.

Frequently Asked Questions

When will the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF launch?

No confirmed date exists yet, but the second amended S-1 on April 10, 2026, is a late-stage signal in the SEC review process. Bitwise Europe already launched a BHYP staking ETP on Deutsche Boerse Xetra on April 9, suggesting the U.S. product is structurally ready and waiting on regulatory clearance. Most analysts expect a decision within Q2 or Q3 2026.

Is BHYP the only Hyperliquid ETF being filed?

Bitwise has three direct competitors in the race for a U.S. Hyperliquid ETF. Grayscale filed for a GHYP fund on Nasdaq in March 2026, 21Shares submitted an S-1 in October 2025, and VanEck has confirmed plans for a VHYP product. Four issuers competing historically leads to fee compression and faster capital inflows once any of them receives approval.

How does the BHYP staking component work?

The trust stakes a substantial portion of its HYPE holdings through Anchorage Digital and additional staking agents running validators on the Hyperliquid network. After the 0.67% sponsor fee and staking costs, approximately 85% of rewards flow back into the fund's NAV, giving shareholders yield without needing to stake tokens themselves or interact with DeFi protocols directly.

Can I buy HYPE directly instead of waiting for the ETF?

HYPE trades on multiple exchanges including Phemex, where both spot and perpetual futures pairs are available. The ETF adds a regulated wrapper for investors who need brokerage account access or tax-lot reporting, but buying the token directly gives you immediate exposure and the ability to stake independently.

Bottom Line

The BHYP filing represents something the crypto ETF market has never seen. It is the first attempt to bring a pure DeFi protocol, one with measurable revenue and aggressive token burns, into a regulated U.S. investment wrapper. If the SEC approves it, the door opens for ETFs tracking other revenue-generating DeFi tokens like Aave, Uniswap, and Maker. If rejected, the message is that DeFi protocol tokens face a higher regulatory bar than infrastructure chains, reshaping how institutional capital approaches the sector.

HYPE at $42 with a 30% discount to its all-time high, a second amended filing signaling imminent launch readiness, and four competing issuers creating a fee war before a single fund has been approved. The filing-to-approval window is historically where the most asymmetric returns occur for ETF-linked tokens, and the structural demand story for HYPE just became significantly more concrete.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always conduct your own research before making trading decisions.