How Hyperliquid defied crypto’s DAT death spiral—and built the industry’s only flourishing digital asset treasury

Hyperliquid has become one of crypto’s loudest success stories, but the stranger story is what happened after the token boom. Its treasury vehicle, Hyperliquid Strategies, ticker PURR, has climbed 251% this year and now controls more than 35 million HYPE tokens worth roughly $3.3 billion. That makes it the rare digital asset treasury that has actually rewarded shareholders while most of the category has been getting dragged under.

The contrast is stark. DATs built around Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana have had a rough year, with many share prices sliding below the value of the coins they hold. Hyperliquid Strategies, launched 10 months ago, has gone the other way: its market value has pushed past $3 billion, and it did so by turning its holdings into a business rather than a shelf full of tokens.

That matters because Hyperliquid itself is not some empty promise machine. The blockchain, launched in 2023 and based in Singapore, offers fast 24/7 derivatives trading built around perpetual futures. It also brought in traders using tokenized versions of oil, gold and other commodities. Those users generate fees in HYPE. Some of those fees go to validators, but much of the token is burned, cutting supply and helping drive HYPE’s price, which has risen more than 2,200% according to CoinGecko.

Hyperliquid Strategies was built to let more traditional investors access that engine. David Schamis, a former Barclays executive and founding partner at Atlas Merchant Capital, set it up because buying HYPE directly can be awkward for people who don’t live inside crypto wallets and decentralized exchanges. Atlas Merchant Capital and Paradigm later announced an $888 million raise for the DAT, and by December the company was trading on Nasdaq as PURR.

The key difference from the failed DAT playbook is that PURR is not just passively hoarding tokens. The New York team runs a validator, earns fees, and stakes its HYPE for rewards, all of which add to the pile backing each share. When the stock trades above the value of its HYPE and cash, it can issue more shares and buy more tokens. When that multiple slips, it can buy back shares instead. A cash cushion of about $292 million gives it more room to breathe than the average crypto treasury with a death wish.

But the moat won’t stay wide forever. Hyperliquid still is not legally available in the United States, though that may change, and spot HYPE ETFs are already starting to roll out. The easy money here is probably over. The interesting part is that Hyperliquid’s treasury didn’t survive by being more religious than the others. It survived by being less stupid.