Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Solana (SOL) have separated themselves from the rest of the altcoin market by one metric traders care about most: revenue.
As per Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley, Hyperliquid has moved from a niche perpetual futures platform into one of the highest fee-generating networks in crypto, while ETF demand and institutional positioning around HYPE continue to accelerate.
The crypto executive has now grouped Hyperliquid alongside Solana under a new category he calls “revenue chains,” the blockchains generating meaningful income from real trading activity instead of relying mainly on speculation.
While Hyperliquid dominates perpetual futures revenue, Solana continues to control large parts of retail trading activity across meme coins, stablecoin transfers, decentralized exchanges, NFT activity, and consumer-facing applications.
Horsley compared the relationship between the two chains to iOS and Android, arguing that both could grow together as more capital markets move on-chain.
The timing lines up with strong HYPE performance. The token is up roughly 120% this year and has become one of the best-performing large-cap crypto assets of 2026.
Hyperliquid originally built its business around crypto perpetual futures. However, the platform is now pulling trading activity from outside crypto as well.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said nearly half of Hyperliquid’s trading volume now comes from non-crypto assets, including commodities, S&P 500 futures, prediction markets, and pre-IPO stocks.
According to Hougan, non-crypto markets could account for 70% of platform activity before the end of the year. The platform processed around $170 billion in trading volume over the last month alone. Fee generation has closely followed volume growth.
Last week, Hyperliquid generated nearly 40% of all blockchain fees across crypto networks. Ethereum produced around 14% during the same period, while Solana accounted for roughly 10%.
On the other hand, even with lower transaction fees, Solana continues to maintain one of the largest active user bases in crypto. The chain still handles major stablecoin settlement volume and remains one of the strongest networks for high-frequency retail trading activity.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Unlike older DeFi governance tokens that struggled to connect platform usage with token value, Hyperliquid routes almost all trading revenue directly back into HYPE.
Hougan described HYPE as a “Gen 2” crypto token because roughly 99% of trading fees generated on the platform go toward buying back the token. More trading volume creates more fee revenue, and more fee revenue creates more HYPE buybacks.
