The derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid has found itself at the center of a heated discussion. The reason was the proposal of the investment company DBA Asset Management to radically change the tokenomics of the project.

The manager of the mentioned firm John Charbonneau, with the support of Flashbots strategy manager under the nickname Hasu, came up with an initiative to reduce the total volume of HYPE by almost half. At the same time, unused reserves are planned to be burned and the 1 billion token limit is to be removed.

The initiative has already divided the community into two camps, touching on the issues of asset valuation, risk management and the future of the project.

Incrypted ‘s editorial team analyzed DBA’s proposal and Hyperliquid’s current market position.

Reducing the HYPE

DBA Asset Management owns a significant amount of HYPE, as stated in the tokenomics reform bid itself. The firm’s representatives have proposed a comprehensive change to Hyperliquid’s economic model.

The essence of the initiative boils down to three steps:

1. Future Emissions & Community Rewards (FECR) — revoking the authorization to issue 421 million HYPE, originally reserved for future emissions and community rewards.
2. Assistance Fund (AF) — burning about 31 million tokens held in the assistance fund, as well as all assets that will go there in the future.
3. The maximum proposal is to eliminate the 1 billion token limit. New issuance for staking or incentivizing users must be approved through governance and increase supply.

Together, these measures reduce HYPE’s total volume by more than 45%, getting rid of unissued tokens and those coins destined for the project’s reserves. According to the authors, it is the excessive “authorized but not in circulation” supply that artificially inflates the fully diluted value of the asset (FDV) and repels investors.

DBA argues that standard metrics in the cryptocurrency industry are a poor reflection of reality. According to the company, while market capitalization understates value by ignoring tokens with known unlocking schedules, FDV, on the other hand, takes into account even coins that may never come into circulation.

In the case of Hyperliquid, the authors believe this is particularly noticeable. DBA representatives claim that the platform is building revenue and liquidity, but is valued by the market below its competitors precisely because of the notional 421 million “invisible” tokens.

“It is important to note that this proposal will not affect the relative share of existing HYPE token holders in the protocol economy, Hyperliquid’s ability to fund value-enhancing initiatives, or how those decisions are made,” the proposal states.

Charbonneau said the changes do not affect the relative shares of existing holders or restrict the protocol from pursuing future initiatives.

The issuance of new tokens is still possible, but only with community approval. Thus, it is more a matter of an accounting adjustment than a change in development strategy. At least, this is how the situation is described in the DBA.

The authors emphasize that abandoning the formal limit brings the model closer to the practices of other large ecosystems. As an example, they cited such projects as Ethereum or Solana, where there is no hard supply limit.

“Maximum issue limits are, in fact, an echo of the famous 21 million BTC limit. However, in most cases, this limit does not reflect reality. The issuance limit is just a reflection of the current public consensus and expectations around it,” the authors of the proposal said.

Two Camps

The DBA’s proposal sparked a lively reaction among investors and developers. Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi was one of the first to publicly support the idea.

There are some sacred cows in crypto that just stick around forever and refuse to die.

The post-airdrop “50% to community” allocation, which we all know means “an amorphous slush fund that we’ll decide what to do with later” is a cow whose time has come. Good on @jon_charb for … https://t.co/ijh46WqEKg

– Haseeb ?||? (@hosseeb) September 22, 2025

He noted that when the team reserves half of the offering for the community, that amount of asset becomes “an amorphous fund with no real purpose.” He said investors usually mentally cut the valuation of such projects by 50%, as such reserves are unlikely to be utilized effectively.

Qureshi emphasized that it is acceptable to spend tokens to stimulate growth. However, this should be done transparently and with the consent of the asset owners, rather than keeping aside a “slush fund“.

A similar position was taken by Jesse Walden, co-founder of Variant Fund. He noted that the practice of “50% for the community” was once seen as a way to show decentralization and reduce regulatory risk. In reality, it has turned into a form of “legal gymnastics,” the expert said.

50% to community was part utopian, part decentralization theater serving the compliance goal of “sufficient decentralization”

For purposes of the latter, it was seen as a good fact for governance to control the community allocation. Foundation control eviscerated most of..

– Jesse Walden (@jessewldn) September 23, 2025

Actual foundation control, the head of the Variant Fund believes, has offset the intended effect. In Walden’s opinion, it’s time to either abolish or significantly scale back this model. Qureshi agreed, adding that such tricks have not saved anyone from the claims of regulators.

Linea developer Declan Fox also reacted to the words of Dragonfly’s managing partner. He drew attention to a possible conflict with the FIT21 law, which states that a single entity cannot control more than 20% of the offering.

“If you reduce the supply to accommodate future community distribution as inflation, the token could be labeled as a security,” Fox said.

Qureshi parried that this is specifically about the asset in circulation, and does not refer to the total supply. Therefore, simply removing the “for the community” provision and writing it down as a future issue would not change the situation from a legal standpoint, according to the Dragonfly representative.

Representatives of other companies also joined the discussion. Andrei Anisimov, head of engineering at 8base, supported Qureshi’s position. He added that in 2021, so-called “fair launches” often turned out to be outright deception. We are talking about models where half of the asset issue was intended for the project’s community.

“performative 2021 token socialism” – well said. Back when fair launch meant “we will rug you”

– Andr?i Anisimov (@AndreiAnisimov_) September 23, 2025

Trustless Media founder Zach Guzman, on the other hand, stressed that decentralization remains key. If decisions are made by insiders and not by the community, it is “not socialism, but the protection of one’s own interests.”

The reaction of the developers of the D2 Finance project was harsh. They called the DBA initiative “activist theater from TradFi” designed to save the losses of funds that entered the asset at late stages.

TL;dr: Lmao.

Yes, FDV, MCAP metric are dumb.

We’ve said for ages the adjusted approach that you proposed is actually closer what we feed to our models.

But this proposal reads less like “fixing HL economics” and more like TradFi activist theater:

?? ‘Save my bag this year or … https://t.co/FE89LxGtAa pic.twitter.com/9xotoTUNnM

– D2 Finance (@D2_Finance) September 22, 2025

Hyperliquid is already showing strong performance, they said, and it’s up to investors to model the actual token supply themselves. D2 Finance said that if someone bought HYPE at $30 or $40 and now requires a $80 exchange rate to survive, it’s about a “skills issue” and not a problem with the project.

Thus, there is a polarized picture around the DBA proposal. On one side there are large investors in favor of tokenization simplification and transparency. On the other hand, there are developers and individual analysts who see this initiative as an attempt to shift market risks onto the shoulders of the ecosystem.

Problems on the Horizon?

Despite the heated debate over tokenomics, Hyperliquid itself continues to show strong performance. According to Dune Analytics, cumulative trading volume on the platform has crossed $5.35 trillion.

Asset inflows into the ecosystem have exceeded $5.9 billion, and the total number of trades completed has passed the 157 billion mark. The number of users also continues to grow, as the platform has about 699,000 registered accounts, of which nearly 2,800 have been added in the last 24 hours.

The average daily trading volume remains at a high level — on September 24, the figure amounted to $11.5 billion. This emphasizes the stable activity of traders even against the background of HYPE rate decrease.

At the same time, the dynamics of users indicates a constant inflow of new audience. In recent months, there has been an increase both in the absolute number of registrations and in daily activity.

Importantly, the ecosystem is also withstanding significant strain. Cumulative liquidations on the platform have exceeded $69 billion, with over $55 million in September 24 alone. This reflects not only the risky nature of derivatives trading, but also Hyperliquid’s ability to cope with challenging market conditions.

However, amid the growing metrics, the platform faces increasing competition. The recent surge of a derivatives DEX called Aster has propelled it to the forefront in terms of daily trading volume, overtaking Hyperliquid for the first time. This episode indicated that even with continually improving performance, market leadership cannot be considered guaranteed.

The HYPE exchange rate also reflects the duality of the situation.

After reaching an all-time high above $59, the token corrected to below $46, losing about 15% over the week. Nevertheless, from a global perspective, the asset is still performing strongly. From December 2024 to September 2025, it has gained over 1300%.

The asset has a market capitalization of $15.5 billion.

Overall, Hyperliquid maintains its position as one of the most successful projects in the DEX sector.

USDH Launch and the Role of Stablecoins

Amidst the tokenization debate, Hyperliquid has made a move to strengthen its own infrastructure. on September 24, the USDH steblecoin, created by the Native Markets team, was launched. The first trading pair was USDH/USDC, and trading volume in the first hours totaled about $2.2 million.

USDH stands out because it is issued on HyperEVM and integrated into the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Its reserves are backed by cash and US Treasuries.

The economic model envisions directing a portion of the income from the reserves to HYPE cryptocurrency redemption. This will in the long run strengthen support for the token, by increasing the volume of the buyback.

The launch of USDH reinforces Hyperliquid’s strategy of creating its own settlement layers. This is especially important against the backdrop of the overall growth of the stackablecoin market, with the combined supply approaching $295 billion.

Thus, Hyperliquid is not only protecting its liquidity, but also taking a step to diversify its revenue sources in the face of growing competition.

As a result, we can say that the platform is at a crossroads. On the one hand, the project demonstrates high performance and launches its own stablecoin, strengthening its infrastructure. On the other hand, it is under pressure from external factors such as the upcoming unblocking, falling exchange rate and strengthening of competitors led by Aster.