Hyperliquid HYPE tops Multicoin’s hedge fund as firm rejects AI pivot

Hyperliquid’s HYPE has become Multicoin Capital’s largest hedge-fund position as the investment firm has reaffirmed its focus on crypto over standalone artificial intelligence investments.

Bloomberg reported that Spencer Applebaum, Multicoin’s general partner and co-head of venture investments, identified HYPE as the fund’s largest holding without disclosing its size.

Multicoin’s largest HYPE position follows months of ownership

Applebaum told Bloomberg that Multicoin bought its HYPE exposure on public markets and generally holds publicly traded assets for several years. He declined to disclose the position’s size.

During the interview, Applebaum said Multicoin would keep investing in digital assets, citing the firm’s expertise in crypto. He questioned attempts to force connections between blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Multicoin’s own June 25 investment post establishes an earlier ownership disclosure. The firm said it had initiated a large position early in 2026 and continued accumulating, calling HYPE “one of the largest positions in our liquid fund.”

Written by Applebaum, Shayon Sengupta and Tushar Jain, the post described Hyperliquid as a blockchain and decentralized exchange designed for high-speed trading. Its investment argument centered on expanding the platform beyond cryptocurrency derivatives into other financial markets.

As crypto.news previously reported, Multicoin’s June valuation model projected a $319 HYPE price by 2028 under its base case. The coverage identified accumulation beginning in February and a three-day no-trade policy following publication of the research.

The June coverage tied that forecast to Hyperliquid’s earlier operating results, citing Multicoin’s estimate of $873 million in revenue on $2.9 trillion in trading volume during 2025. It recorded user growth from approximately 301,000 to 923,000 over that year, with open interest reaching $6 billion. Those were historical figures used in the investment case.

In June, Multicoin described HYPE as one of its largest liquid-fund positions. Applebaum identified it as the largest in the Bloomberg interview without disclosing its portfolio weight or how the allocation changed.

Multicoin’s $319 forecast rests on earnings and supply assumptions

In its full June research report, Multicoin modeled approximately $8 billion in annual earnings by 2028 and applied a 20-times multiple. Its calculation produced a $160 billion valuation, which it divided by an adjusted supply of 502 million tokens to derive a price above $319.

The report presented a $109 bear case and a $689 bull case using different assumptions about derivatives-market growth and decentralized exchanges’ market share. All three figures were investment scenarios published in June, not realized returns or newly issued October forecasts.

Among the risks, Multicoin identified decentralization and governance, regulation, competition, interoperability between HyperCore and HyperEVM, token dilution, and bad debt. In its bad-debt discussion, the firm warned that illiquid markets and gaps through liquidation levels could leave the protocol with losses.

The shorter investment post linked its expansion thesis to HIP-3 markets covering assets such as commodities and equity indexes. It described prediction markets, options and portfolio margining as further growth opportunities, while acknowledging that the investment faced regulatory and technical risks.

Multicoin-linked transfers do not establish HYPE sales

September reporting documented Multicoin-linked transfers to Coinbase alongside the firm’s public investment thesis. Lookonchain attributed a Sept. 24 deposit of 130,331 HYPE, valued at $12.15 million, to the investment manager.

The analytics firm put cumulative deposits into Coinbase Prime since July 28 at 4.23 million HYPE, worth approximately $285 million at the recorded transfer prices. Coinbase Prime provides institutional custody and execution services, so the deposits did not establish whether Multicoin sold the tokens afterward.

The available transfer reporting does not provide a complete hedge-fund balance sheet or a reconciliation of purchases, withdrawals and remaining holdings. A claim that Multicoin has continuously expanded its position would therefore go beyond the disclosed evidence.

Separate institutional buying appeared in a Sept. 25 report on Hyperliquid Strategies’ purchases. Lookonchain linked a wallet to the Nasdaq-listed treasury company and said it bought 494,200 HYPE worth $45.8 million over 16 hours.

The same wallet had accumulated 5.51 million HYPE worth roughly $476 million over the preceding month, according to that reporting. Those purchases concerned a public treasury company, not a disclosed reallocation by Multicoin’s venture-fund peers.

The company had reported approximately 29.3 million HYPE worth $1.9 billion as of June 30 after raising $647 million in equity capital, according to the September coverage.

Paradigm’s AI expansion retains a crypto mandate

Paradigm raised its fourth fund with $1.2 billion in commitments, according to July 9 coverage of its announcement. Co-founder Matt Huang and managing partner Alana Palmedo announced the vehicle on July 8.

The firm said the fund would invest across crypto, AI, robotics and other technology fields while continuing to back companies developing markets and financial systems. Its announcement named Hyperliquid, Kalshi and Tempo among examples connected to that strategy.

The same coverage recorded Framework Ventures’ $400 million fourth fund in June for crypto, AI, robotics and energy startups. Haun Ventures raised $1 billion in May for crypto infrastructure, tokenization and AI agents.