Hyperliquid [HYPE] price prediction – Is a breakout past $50 still possible?

Throughout Q4 2025, the broader crypto market experienced widespread losses, and Hyperliquid has not been excluded.

In fact, Hyperliquid has been trading within a descending channel since it was rejected at $50 towards the end of October. 

At press time, Hyperliquid [HYPE] traded at $24, down 9.2% on the daily chart and 39.9% on the monthly chart, indicating intense bearish sentiment. 

Over the same period, its market cap dropped from $13.88 billion to $8.24 billion, marking a $5.64 billion drop, indicating massive capital outflows.

Hyperliquid: Whale activity dominates

Although Hyperliquid has traded within a downtrend since late October, whale activity remained elevated. Spot average Order Size data from CryptoQuant showed Large Whale Orders for more than two consecutive months. 

Source: CryptoQuant

Often, whales have dominated the spot market by accumulating or dumping their holdings. 

Although whales offloaded a significant amount of HYPE over the period, accumulating addresses dominated the market. 

According to CoinGlass data, Exchange Outflows have outweighed inflows over the past two months. In fact, $2.48 billion worth of HYPE flowed out of exchanges while $2.37 billion flowed into exchanges. 

Source: CoinGlass

As a result, the altcoin recorded a negative Spot Netflow of -$106.56 million, a clear sign of aggressive spot accumulation. Thus, while sellers were aggressively active on the market, buyers too kept pace. 

On-chain activity signals recovery

Despite the market pullback, on-chain activity has remained relatively within recent highs. According to data from Hyperscan, Daily Transactions bounced back from a 231k dip two weeks ago to 493k at press time. 

At the same time, Active Addresses bounced back to 969k, closing in on 1 million, with an average of 2k new users daily.

Typically, high addresses backed by higher transaction volumes showed higher network usage and adoption rates. 

Source: Hyperscan

Historically, a jump in these metrics has signaled strengthened fundamentals, a key to market recovery and sustained upside momentum.

Hyperliquid Futures in de-risking mode

Significantly, while the Spot market showed minimal sentiment shift, Futures market participants reduced exposure.

According to CoinGlass, Hyperliquid’s Open Interest dropped 10.4% to $1.38 billion, while volume jumped 30.78% to $1.99 billion.

Usually, when OI dips while volume rises, it signals market investors are actively unwinding or derisking, thus positions have closed significantly. As such, Hype’s OI dropped by over $600 million from $2 billion.

Source: CoinGlass

Even so, active participants have only shown interest in shorting the market, with the Long/Short Ratio dropping to 0.885.

Such market behavior indicated most traders were bearish and anticipated a further market dip.

2 factors holding HYPE off

Hyperliquid’s market structure remained weakened at press time, driven by capital outflows from the Futures market.

Coupled with that, the Risk-on vs. Risk-off metric showed an inclination towards a risk-off regime, as investors jumped into defensive mode. Thus, HYPE investors reduced risk, while others turned to profit realization.

Such a market signals a market stuck in capital preservation, with investors sitting on the sidelines waiting for favorable market conditions.

Source: TradingView

Therefore, in the short term, HYPE is facing intense bearish pressure from Futures, while Spot participants have slowed down. Thus, if the current conditions persist, HYPE could breach $24 support and dip towards $21.

However, backed with strong fundamentals and spot demand, Hyperliquid could still rebound. The altcoin’s recovery potential lies in a shift in sentiment in the Futures market.

If Futures see renewed demand and reclaim its EMA20 at 29, the altcoin could gather enough strength to target EMA200 at $36 in the short to medium term.