On Wednesday, Hyperion DeFi, a publicly traded digital asset firm on NASDAQ, announced that it will lend 500,000 staked HYPE tokens—valued at approximately $33.6 million—to Skew Technologies. The purpose of this arrangement is to provide the necessary collateral for the development of new institutional perpetual futures markets on the Hyperliquid platform. This partnership highlights a growing approach among public crypto treasury companies to generate revenue from renting out token assets rather than letting them remain unused.
Details of the Hyperion-Skew agreement
Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetual futures trading platform, introduced its HIP-3 market framework in October 2025. This structure enables external teams to establish custom perpetual futures markets by supplying a bond of 500,000 HYPE tokens. Hyperion, which controls a treasury of roughly 2 million HYPE tokens, has opted to lend the required collateral to Skew instead of creating a market itself. In this arrangement, Skew will manage the new market listings, while Hyperion serves as a “bonded-capital layer” for HIP-3 markets.
The lending structure utilizes Hyperion’s HYPE Asset Use Service (HAUS), a platform designed for monetizing idle token holdings. In exchange for providing the HYPE tokens as collateral, Hyperion receives both an equity stake in Skew and a share in listing service revenues. According to the firm, the revenue-sharing agreement includes fixed and scaling components that are not directly linked to trading volume, offering Hyperion a stable income stream regardless of market activity.
Skew, a company led by professionals with extensive institutional trading experience, will first focus on launching perpetual futures for its institutional clients before expanding into HIP-4 outcome-based markets. Founder David Gil noted that Hyperion’s involvement provides Skew with the necessary infrastructure and alignment to drive innovation and introduce a new breed of markets to Hyperliquid. However, the firms have not yet disclosed which products Skew will debut.
Mini dictionary: Hyperliquid is a decentralized crypto trading platform that allows users to trade perpetual futures using custom market structures such as HIP-3, which rely on teams providing token collateral as bond deposits to launch new markets.
Dave Knox, finance chief at Hyperion, explained via X that this collaboration underscores the firm’s Triple-Dip strategy and demonstrates Hyperion’s evolution beyond a digital-asset treasury model.
Hyperion CEO Hyunsu Jung also stated that the partnership reflects rising interest among project teams looking to launch markets within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, as more organizations explore leveraging token reserves for income-generating activities.
Traditional finance model on-chain
The new structure closely mirrors capital and collateral arrangements in traditional finance, where liquidity providers comply with bond or collateral requirements and delegate trading operations. By implementing this approach on-chain, Hyperion differentiates funding from market services and participates in profit sharing.
Hyperion recently shifted strategy, ending HAUS agreements with Felix and Native Markets in June 2026 following the retirement of their HIP-3 offerings, which were connected to Hyperliquid’s discontinued stablecoin, USDH. Hyperliquid has since switched to USDC by Circle for trade settlement, aiming to increase its broad appeal. The company maintains new HAUS contracts with other partners, including Silhouette, which is backed by investment firm RockawayX.
| Company | Product/Service | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Felix | HIP-3 / USDH | Ended (June 2026) |
| Native Markets | HIP-3 / USDH | Ended (June 2026) |
| Silhouette | HAUS / USDC | Active |
Financial performance and outlook
Hyperion reported that HIP-3 markets represented almost half of Hyperliquid’s daily trading volume in the first quarter of 2026. The company stated it has repurchased and sequestered over 45 million HYPE tokens using network trading fee proceeds. Hyperion posted record net income of $8.8 million for Q1 and increased its full-year adjusted gross profit target to between $5 million and $7 million.
While Hyperion’s earnings and business outlook remain positive, there are still unknowns. Skew has not revealed which specific markets it will introduce, and Hyperliquid remains inaccessible in the United States, where major exchanges like CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange are urging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enhance regulatory oversight. The sector is now watching to see whether Skew’s futures markets will gain significant traction, and if other crypto treasury firms will pursue similar token-lending models to monetize their reserves.
