Hyperliquid Made Circle Blink
- Coinbase takes Hyperliquid stablecoin role from USDH
- Senate advances Clarity Act to full floor as crypto rallies
- Grove launches Basin with $1B daily liquidity for tokenized RWAs
- Lido picks Chainlink CCIP for cross-chain expansion
- Dune Analytics cuts 25% of staff, pivots to AI and institutions
- BChat: A Decentralized Privacy Messenger Built on the Beldex Network [Sponsored]
- RocketPool: How to Earn Yield on ETH Starting With Just 0.01 ETH [Sponsored]
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OPINION
Hyperliquid Made Circle Play by Its Rules. But Let's Drop the Governance Pretense.
Today, Hyperliquid was able to make Circle agree to hand over the yield generated from USDC held in the perps platform. A deal only Coinbase, Binance, and a handful of other (undisclosed) companies get.
So how did it do it?
Eight months ago, Hyperliquid ran an unprecedented contest, where it pitted some of the biggest crypto companies against each other, all vying to be the issuing partner of the perps platform's native stablecoin. The field was serious: Paxos had offered 95% of yield for HYPE buybacks; Ethena offered 95% plus a minimum of $75 million in ecosystem incentives; Frax and Agora pledged 100%. Native Markets offered a 50/50 split of reserve yield between the Assistance Fund and ecosystem growth initiatives. Native Markets won as validators favored a Hyperliquid-native team over institutions offering better economics but less ecosystem integration.
Circle didn't even participate. The stated purpose was to reduce dependence on USDC and direct the yield generated from stablecoin collateral to Hyperliquid's coffers instead of Circle's. The vote was a rejection of the incumbents and a bet on a more aligned, ecosystem-native alternative.
Circle understood the message. Within days of the vote, the company began making moves: staking HYPE, launching native USDC on HyperEVM, exploring validator status — signaling it wanted back in.
In the time since, Native Markets' USDH supply on Hyperliquid stagnated at $100M, while Circle's USDC supply doubled year over year to $5B.
Today, we learn the rest: after a governance vote that captivated the crypto industry, the actual decision about Hyperliquid's canonical stablecoin was made behind closed doors between Native Markets, Coinbase, Circle, and Hyperliquid. No validator poll. No token-weighted referendum. No competing proposals.
USDH, chosen by the community in September, is being wound down, and USDC is back on top.
Is this bad? Honestly, not for HYPE holders or for Hyperliquid as a trading platform. Under the new AQAv2 framework, the majority of reserve yield gets redirected back to the protocol, funding HYPE buybacks, the Assistance Fund, and ecosystem growth. Holders who stuck around through the USDH experiment are getting what USDH promised, just with better liquidity underneath it.
Circle gets distribution on the fastest-growing on-chain derivatives platform in crypto. Coinbase deepens its on-chain footprint.
But it is bad for the story Hyperliquid has told about itself.
Hyperliquid is already more centralized than its fans like to admit. The team controls upgrades. The validator set is small and curated. The Hyper Foundation holds enormous influence over protocol direction. That's the pragmatic reality of building a high-performance exchange that needs to move fast.
What is worth calling out is the gap between the theater and the reality. September's governance vote was framed as a landmark moment for on-chain democracy. It generated weeks of debate, prediction market action, competing proposals, and genuine community engagement.
And then, eight months later, the outcome it produced was quietly reversed in a deal that none of those voters had any say in.
Hyperliquid doesn't need to pretend. The economics of today's deal are fine and thet got Circle to share the bag. But governance as a legitimizing ritual, deployed when convenient and bypassed when not, is something the space has seen before. Hyperliquid is too good a product to put on that tired show.
Own the centralization. Drop the charade.
With love, Cami
WATCH
Is DeFi Worth the Risk?
REGULATION
Crypto Rallies as Senate Committee Advances Market Structure Bill to Full Senate
Bitcoin climbed to $81,500 Thursday as the Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act to the full Senate floor. The vote pushed crypto-related stocks sharply higher: Coinbase surged more than 8%, Strategy rose 7%, Galaxy Digital gained more than 6%, and Circle — which had been down as much as 6% earlier in the session — rebounded into positive territory. It's the most consequential US crypto market structure legislation to clear committee since the space took off.
Why this matters: Market structure has been the missing piece in US crypto policy. A full-Senate floor vote pulls regulatory certainty closer than it's been at any point in the last cycle.
DEFI
Grove Launches Basin With up to $1 Billion in Daily Liquidity for Tokenized Real-World Assets
Grove launched Basin, a DeFi protocol providing instant on-chain stablecoin liquidity for tokenized real-world assets — with up to $1 billion in daily liquidity. The platform addresses an infrastructure gap in the tokenized RWA market: rapid settlement of stablecoin transactions tied to on-chain real-world assets. Basin lets RWA holders redeem against stablecoins without waiting for off-chain settlement loops, a chokepoint that has kept institutional flows out of the category.
Why this matters: RWAs have been waiting for a credible liquidity backstop.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Lido Selects Chainlink CCIP for Cross-Chain Expansion, Citing Security Principles
Lido's Network Expansion Committee selected Chainlink CCIP to bridge its liquid staking token across chains, publishing a set of security principles that explicitly cite the nearly $3 billion lost to cross-chain bridge exploits — including the recent Kelp/LayerZero vulnerability — as the deciding factor. The decision reflects heightened protocol-level scrutiny of bridge infrastructure following a cascade of high-value cross-chain hacks over the past two years.
Why this matters: Lido is the largest staking protocol on Ethereum. Its choice of CCIP becomes a de facto endorsement that will shape every other major protocol's bridge decision.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Dune Analytics Cuts 25% of Staff, Doubles Down on AI and Institutional Crypto Data
Dune Analytics laid off 25% of its staff Thursday while pivoting its product strategy to AI-powered data tools and institutional adoption of on-chain assets. The crypto data platform, which has served major industry players since 2018, is narrowing focus to two segments after years of broad public-dashboard usage: machine-readable on-chain analytics for AI systems and institutional client pipes for tokenized assets.
Why this matters: The crypto-data category is consolidating around AI and institutional pipes. Dune's cut signals that public dashboards alone are no longer a viable business.
