Hyperliquid launches native lending as HYPE tops $90

Hyperliquid launched native lending on Sept. 18, allowing users to pledge HYPE tokens or Bitcoin as collateral to borrow USDC or USDT directly through its HyperCore infrastructure.

The platform reported $269 million in loans on Friday. HYPE traded above $90 that day with an intraday high near $91.06, surpassing its prior record around $89.60.

HyperCore exposes a lending primitive that previously operated beneath Hyperliquid’s portfolio-margin system. Manual borrowing opens that credit engine to direct user loans while using the same supplied liquidity that supports other HyperCore products.

Founder Jeff Yan invoked the Unix principle “Do one thing and do it well” and compared the design to Amazon Web Services, noting Hyperliquid separated lending from margin accounts so borrowed assets come from supplied liquidity other products can access.

Yan added borrowers had access to more than $400 million of supplied liquidity at launch; the $269 million borrowed Friday indicates activity within that supply base.

The new product sets HYPE at a 65% loan-to-value ratio with an 82.5% liquidation threshold. Bitcoin is accepted at a 50% LTV with a 75% liquidation threshold. Stablecoin suppliers earn variable interest based on pool utilization, and borrowers pay interest when they draw USDC or USDT.

Portfolio-margin users can earn interest on idle stablecoin balances because those balances feed the same supply pools borrowers use. Hyperliquid described the architecture as allowing each financial primitive to keep separate risk parameters even when accessed through a single interface.

Total stablecoin supply on the network is approaching $7 billion, with circulating USDC at about $6.77 billion. That level of dollar liquidity forms the supply side for the expanding credit market.

Two days before the lending rollout, Payward, Kraken’s parent, announced plans to deploy on-chain perpetual futures markets for U.S. clients using Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework.

Ryan Watkins, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, observed that HyperCore’s combination of perpetuals, spot trading, prediction markets, lending and vaults lets collateral, liquidity and trading activity move more directly between products.

The native borrowing feature gives HYPE holders a way to access dollar liquidity without selling tokens and extends USDC’s role as a settlement and collateral asset on Hyperliquid.