Pseudonymous developer and cofounder of Hyperliquid, Iliensinc, shared an X submit after a scheduled token distribution to staff members triggered issues about potential promoting stress amongst HYPE holders, with some neighborhood members mistaking the actions for exterior traders dumping tokens.
The assertion posted to X famous that the 1.75 million tokens went solely to staff members as a part of vesting schedules introduced a 12 months in the past, reminding the neighborhood that Hyperliquid didn’t share any tokens to exterior traders, because the platform by no means raised enterprise capital.
Hyperliquid: There aren’t any investor unlocks
The submit included a Discord screenshot stating: “As introduced a 12 months in the past, Hyperliquid Labs’ tokens unlocked on Nov 29, 2025. Totally different staff members have totally different vesting schedules and may select what to do with their vested tokens.
Right now, 1.75M tokens had been distributed to totally different staff members. We’re grateful for every particular person’s contributions to the staff and the broader ecosystem.
For perspective, ~270M tokens had been absolutely unlocked on Nov 29, 2024, within the largest airdrop in historical past, measured in as we speak’s market worth at ~$9.5B.
There aren’t any investor unlocks, as Hyperliquid by no means raised any exterior capital.”
Why the clarification was wanted
Some analysts flagged the token motion, and it sparked hypothesis that exterior traders had been making ready to promote.
On-chain monitoring and analytics platform Lookonchain posted in the course of the early hours of November 30 that the Hyperliquid staff had been unstaking and restaking. It wrote, “The HyperLiquid staff lately unstaked 2.6M $HYPE ($89.2M).
Of that quantity: 1,088,822 $HYPE($37.4M) was restaked; 900,869 $HYPE($30.9M) stays within the pockets; 609,108 $HYPE($20.9M) was despatched to #Flowdesk;
1,200 $HYPE was bought for 41,193.45 $USDC.”
Nonetheless, the staff solely bought a fraction of HYPE, which has tipped the scales again towards optimism, as many observers speculated that the staff was nonetheless very a lot bullish with its holding place.
HYPE fell 4.6% following the unlocking information and has fallen by over 6% previously 24 hours as of the time of writing. The token has declined by over 43% since its September all-time excessive of $59.40.
The no-VC construction
Hyperliquid distributed 31% of its one billion token provide to customers throughout its November 2024 airdrop, with 23.8% allotted to the staff underneath a one-year lockup. The remaining 38.888% is reserved for future emissions.
The management says it hasn’t raised any funds, and the assertion from its founders additionally reveals that it’s fairly sentimental. Co-founder Jeff Yan mentioned previously that the concept of elevating funds from VCs appeared faux to him.
Though the platform introduced final month that it had filed with the SEC to lift as much as $1 billion for HYPE token purchases and enlargement.
