Arthur Hayes Makes Bold $1M Ethena Bet as Hyperliquid Governance Vote Looms
Crypto heavyweight Arthur Hayes just dropped nearly seven figures on Ethena tokens—right before a crucial Hyperliquid governance decision drops.
The Strategic Play
Hayes isn't just throwing cash around. His million-dollar move signals deep conviction in Ethena's protocol ahead of a vote that could reshape its liquidity landscape. This isn't amateur hour—it's a calculated position from someone who's built and blown up empires in this space.
Why It Matters
When founders buy, you pay attention. When they buy big before major protocol events, you lean in. Hayes' purchase screams confidence in Ethena's mechanics at a pivot point for Hyperliquid's governance—a classic 'skin in the game' move that separates traders from believers.
Timing Over Everything
The vote could boost Ethena's utility across Hyperliquid's perpetuals ecosystem—or leave it sidelined. Hayes clearly bets on the former. His play mirrors the old Wall Street adage: buy the rumor, sell the news... though in crypto, we usually just buy both and hope the tokenomics don't implode.
Bottom Line: Watch this vote. Watch this token. And when the guy who predicted the last two cycles moves, maybe stop scrolling and start thinking.
Other contenders
Paxos, backed by PayPal, is also a top contender, according to Lawant. It revised its proposal on Wednesday, expanding from an emphasis on regulatory pedigree to pledging a larger share of reserve yield to Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund and deferring any issuer take until the product scales past $1 billion.
On Wednesday evening, Paxos announced it had received an offer from Kraken to list USDH and HYPE from day one, with free USD on- and off-ramps, pending the exchange’s standard review.
It’s worth noting that Native Markets, despite being a newly-formed company, remains the top contender with 90% odds in its favor, according to live data on Myriad Markets.
Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market developed by Decrypt's parent company DASTAN.
Native Markets pitched a GENIUS-compliant USDH managed through Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin issuer, with reserves in cash and Treasuries overseen by BlackRock off-chain and Superstate on-chain.
Its plan splits yield evenly between Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund and ecosystem growth, and promises a HyperEVM launch with seamless interoperability.
Decrypt has reached out to Hayes, Paxos, and Ethena for comment. A separate request was sent to Native Markets through an ecosystem operator (Max Feige).
Other contenders include Sky, the issuer of USDS (formerly MakerDAO’s DAI), Frax Finance with a bank-partnered bid, and Agora, which has warned against Native Markets’ reliance on Stripe-owned Bridge while pledging to channel all net revenue back into Hyperliquid.
