HYPE token just had one of those moments when a protocol feature suddenly becomes a market story. On Friday, the Hyperliquid token climbed to a record $90.92 after the trading platform introduced manual borrowing.
The move came shortly after Hyperliquid announced that users could now provide HYPE token and Bitcoin as collateral to borrow two major stablecoins, USDC and Tether’s USDT.
That puts borrowing more directly in users’ hands. Rather than relying only on Hyperliquid’s existing portfolio-margin system, traders can now borrow stablecoins against specific crypto collateral through the new feature.
HYPE token’s $90 record came with a new borrowing tool
Hyperliquid said the new borrowing system runs on the same underlying HyperCore infrastructure as its portfolio-margin system. The protocol’s co-founder, Jeff Yan, also highlighted a particular feature of how the system works.
“Manual borrows are live on Hyperliquid,” the protocol said.
According to Yan, each borrowed asset comes from a supplier rather than being created through platform-level margin accounting. That distinction is part of the architecture behind the new borrowing setup and separates it from a system where loans would simply appear as additional margin balances.
For HYPE token holders, the practical change is straightforward. HYPE token and Bitcoin can now be posted as collateral, while USDC or USDT can be borrowed directly against them.
Hyperliquid reported that $269 million in assets had already been borrowed across the underlying infrastructure on Friday. That figure includes the infrastructure shared by the manual borrowing feature and portfolio-margin system.
The timing also adds another layer to the story. Just two days earlier, Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, announced plans to launch onchain perpetual futures markets for US customers.
Those markets are expected to begin with Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 markets, tying the borrowing rollout to a broader expansion of activity around the blockchain’s trading infrastructure.
For now, the headline number is unmistakable: HYPE token reached $90.92, setting a new all-time high as the protocol expanded the ways users can put crypto collateral to work.