The gap between DeFi and TradFi keeps getting smaller, and @HyperliquidX is increasingly sitting at the center of that convergence. @21shares_us recently launched a spot HYPE ETF on Nasdaq under the ticker $THYP, giving traditional investors regulated exposure to $HYPE through normal brokerage accounts. No wallets, no exchanges, no direct onchain interaction. That changes the perception of $HYPE from a purely crypto-native asset into something institutions can access through familiar infrastructure. The ETF also includes staking exposure, meaning investors are not only exposed to price movement, but also protocol yield generation. With a 0.30% management fee, it’s currently cheaper than several competing HYPE ETF proposals still under SEC review. But the more important story is the underlying economics. Hyperliquid is generating over $630M in annualized revenue, and roughly 97% of protocol revenue is used for automated HYPE buybacks on the open market. That creates a direct relationship between protocol activity and token demand. As usage grows, buy pressure scales with it. At the same time, Hyperliquid is evolving beyond just a perpetual futures exchange. It’s increasingly becoming a broader liquidity, settlement, and collateral layer for onchain markets. Recent developments strengthened that narrative further. ▸ @coinbase became the official $USDC treasury deployer under AQAv2. ▸ @circle expanded native $USDC support and staked 500,000 $HYPE. ▸ $USDC supply on Hyperliquid has now approached $5B, nearly doubling year over year. Institutional capital is clearly becoming more comfortable with transparent reserves, standardized collateral systems, and regulated stablecoin infrastructure onchain. The scale is already significant. Hyperliquid now sits around $7B in open interest, processes roughly $35B in weekly volume, and controls close to 40% of perp DEX fee market share. Liquidity also continues concentrating into fewer high-trust venues, which historically strengthens incumbents even further through deeper liquidity and better execution. HIP-4 expands the system beyond perpetuals into event and prediction markets, but the bigger shift is what happens underneath. A shared collateral architecture allows multiple market types to exist without fragmenting liquidity, making the entire system more capital efficient. And one additional detail worth watching: Despite large token allocations available to core contributors, realized distribution has remained relatively restrained so far, reducing immediate internal sell pressure compared to what many markets would normally expect. The broader takeaway is that Hyperliquid is increasingly behaving less like a standalone exchange and more like integrated financial infrastructure.