Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF Filing Updated — Launch Could Be Near, Analyst Says

Bitwise Asset Management has filed another amendment to its pending U.S. spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) tied to Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, reaffirming the proposed BHYP ticker and a 0.67% management fee. The update comes as Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas suggested a launch could be near.

SEC filing update signals late-stage review

Balchunas said the type of update Bitwise submitted typically precedes a near-term listing. He also pointed to HYPE’s performance, noting the token is up about 200% over the past year, alongside market conditions that may be supportive for the product.

Bitwise originally filed its S-1 registration statement in September 2025 and later submitted Amendment No. 1 on Dec. 15, 2025. That earlier amendment added the BHYP ticker, the 0.67% fee, and an 8-A registration statement—steps described as standard late-stage markers in the SEC’s ETF review process.

The U.S. spot ETF has not yet been approved and remains under SEC review. Still, the repeated amendments indicate Bitwise has finalized key elements of its offering structure.

Fee level and rationale

The proposed 0.67% fee is above the 0.20% to 0.25% range commonly seen among bitcoin spot ETFs. Bitwise says the higher cost reflects direct exposure to a high-margin decentralized finance (DeFi) perpetuals platform, where trading fees support an on-chain buyback-and-burn program linked to HYPE’s value.

Related European product launched under the same ticker

One day before the latest U.S. filing update, on April 9, 2026, Bitwise Europe launched the Bitwise Hyperliquid Staking ETP on Deutsche Boerse Xetra using the same BHYP ticker. The European product carries a 0.85% total expense ratio, holds HYPE in cold storage, tracks the Kaiko HYPE Reference Rate, and targets approximately 1% net staking rewards annually.

Race among issuers for U.S. HYPE spot exposure

Bitwise is one of four asset managers pursuing U.S. spot ETF exposure to HYPE:

• 21shares: filed an S-1 on Oct. 29, 2025 for a 21shares Hyperliquid ETF, with no finalized ticker.
• Grayscale: filed for a Grayscale HYPE ETF on March 21, 2026, proposing the GHYP ticker on Nasdaq, with Coinbase Custody as custodian.
• Vaneck: confirmed plans for a HYPE spot staking ETF under the proposed ticker VHYP, with filings referenced alongside European ETP announcements in September 2025.

No filings from BlackRock, Fidelity, or other issuers were publicly available at the time of writing.

Hyperliquid platform and token mechanics

Hyperliquid is a layer one (L1) blockchain built for onchain derivatives trading. Its Hypercore engine supports fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books with sub-second block times, single-block finality, and throughput exceeding 100,000 orders per second. HyperEVM provides EVM compatibility for smart contracts that interact directly with the exchange.

The platform uses HyperBFT consensus and executes orders in milliseconds with no off-chain components. Hyperliquid reported billions of dollars in perpetuals volume during macro volatility events in 2024 and 2025, including oil and gold perps, positioning it as a leading onchain perps exchange by volume.

HYPE supply, use, and buyback-and-burn link

The HYPE token launched on Nov. 29, 2024, via an airdrop to more than 90,000 early users. Total supply is fixed at 1 billion tokens. The token is used for governance, staking, gas on HyperEVM, and as the primary economic beneficiary of platform revenue.

A significant portion of Hyperliquid’s trading fees flows into an Assistance Fund that continuously buys back and burns HYPE, creating a direct link between platform activity and token value. The article also notes that annualized protocol revenue runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, with margins analysts estimate above 97%, and that the buyback mechanism gives HYPE a deflationary structure that differs from most governance tokens.