Hyperliquid is making waves in the crypto governance world. The Hyper Foundation has proposed a validator vote to officially recognize HYPE (HYPE) tokens in the protocol’s Assistance Fund as permanently inaccessible.
If approved, this move would exclude roughly $1 billion worth of tokens from circulating and total supply calculations.
If you are rooting for Hyperliquid to fail, you are rooting against crypto.
— onchainmonk (@onchainmonk) December 18, 2025
It is as simple as that.
Hyperliquid.
P.s. if it wasn’t for Hyperliquid in 2023 I would have left crypto already https://t.co/gvyWfgpM0G
The Assistance Fund is a protocol-level mechanism embedded in Hyperliquid’s layer-1 execution layer. Trading fees are automatically converted into Hyperliquid tokens and sent to a designated system address. Importantly, this address cannot be accessed, meaning there is no way to withdraw the funds without a hard fork.
Validators who approve the proposal will treat the Assistance Fund holdings as burned tokens. This does not reduce the total number of tokens on the network, but it formalizes the treatment of fee-derived tokens, clarifying supply metrics for governance and investor purposes.
Native Markets, the issuer of the USDH (USDH) stablecoin on Hyperliquid, explained that 50% of its reserve yield flows directly to the Assistance Fund. Those contributions are automatically converted into Hyperliquid tokens and, if the vote passes, will be formally recognized as burned.
Research from Cantor Fitzgerald highlights Hyperliquid’s unique fee-driven model. The firm estimates that nearly all protocol revenue is returned to tokenholders via automated repurchases, generating approximately $874 million in fees year-to-date. About 99% of these fees flow through the Assistance Fund to repurchase HYPE tokens, effectively reducing circulating supply and strengthening the token’s economic design.
Hyperliquid continues to perform strongly in the market. It ranks third among perpetual DEX platforms, with over $205 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days. Institutional players like Hyperion DeFi and Hyperliquid Strategies hold approximately $46 million and $340 million in Hyperliquid, respectively.
The validator vote is designed to align supply metrics with protocol mechanics rather than create artificial scarcity. As institutional attention on Hyperliquid’s fee-driven model grows, this decision could have meaningful implications for governance clarity and market perception.
