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Comparing HYPE & PURR: The Most Stock-Like Crypto Play
Summary Hyperliquid's cryptocurrency, HYPE, is a late breed of crypto but designed so that it can be valued like a stock. With a built-in exchange, the chain produces major revenue, giving HYPE's market cap a reasonable P/E for growth. As a treasury, PURR gives additional upside through active management. Both are good, but PURR has outperformed and enjoys some of the best staking yields possible in HYPE. I am fascinated by Hyperliquid's cryptocurrency, HYPE ( HYPE-USD ). It's a later breed of crypto. It's not like Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) or ETH ( ETH-USD ). I think it's a lot like a stock. There's actual stock on the table too. I'm talking about Hyperliquid Strategies Inc. ( PURR ). They're a digital asset treasury ("DAT"). Let's look at which is better. First, explaining the Hyperliquid blockchain . It's an exchange as much as a chain. That's what makes it special. The HyperCore component handles the trading. It earns trading fees. HyperEVM allows for more general smart contracts. It earns gas fees. Both are done in USD. Hyperliquid Daily Revenue History (tokenterminal.com) The chain's daily revenue is recently around $2M. Almost all of this is trading fees. This is where the Assistance Fund comes in. 99% of trading fees go to it. It uses the USD to buy back HYPE. People love this. It reduces supply. It creates upside. I think there's tunnel vision on buybacks. Let's take a step back. They're possible because of revenue. Revenue is essentially free cash flow for a chain. HYPE is not just any cryptocurrency. It has fundamentals. Annualized, it's about $730M in revenue. HYPE Market Cap (CoinMarketCap.com) The market cap is near $17B. Roughly, that's a P/E of 23x. Look at that. We can talk about HYPE almost like it's a stock. This might explain why PURR exists. CEO David Schamis said the following : I would say that we are corporate finance geeks before we are crypto zealots is the way I would describe us. PURR Dashboard PURR has $1.6B of HYPE. They are the largest HYPE treasury . Sort of like the Strategy ( MSTR ) of HYPE. So they should share in its upside. What's the advantage of PURR? Balance Sheet (Q3 Fiscal 2026 Form 10Q) Normally, a DAT would give levered upside. They'd use bonds for this. It avoids margin calls and the like. PURR's balance sheet shows no debt. They just use equity. What about operating leverage? Income Statement (Q3 Fiscal 2026 Form 10Q) Well, they can stake their HYPE. That's their only revenue. I think that's better than MSTR. MSTR's problem is lack of revenue. HYPE Staking Top APRs (app.hyperliquid.xyz) Staking yields about 2.21%. It somewhat explains the balance sheet. Interest expense would exceed that. Strikes me as a weak incentive for debt. Still, it's one of the best HYPE yields. Capital Framework (Q3 2026 Earnings Presentation) There's one more thing PURR can do. They can buy and sell their stock. They can buy and sell HYPE. The former is based on discounts or premiums to holdings. Latter is based on the intrinsic value of HYPE. Done right, PURR can outperform HYPE. Total Return History (Seeking Alpha) PURR hasn't been around long. It merged to go public in December. In 6 months, it's beaten HYPE. We have the method. The record supports it. PURR seems like the better choice. But do I think HYPE itself has more to offer? Can trading fee revenue grow? Perps By Asset Type (CoinShares) Right now, most of that is " perps ." These are futures, but they never expire. It's a backdoor way to trade stocks and commodities. More trading, whether perps or other assets, means more revenue for HYPE. The exchange could grow for a simple reason. It's effective 24/7 trading of real assets. It's not purely crypto. It's blockchain-meets-reality. Crucial acknowledgment came from Coinbase ( COIN ). They made a deal last month . Hyperliquid's stablecoin got bought out. It's replaced by USDC ( USDC-USD ). I think Hyperliquid will continue to grow. Passage of the CLARITY Act helps generally too. Crypto Market Caps (CoinMarketCap.com) Plenty of cryptos have higher market caps. Such a well-oiled machine can catch up. At least I think. I perceive a 5x in HYPE from this. Buybacks help it further. Then you get PURR's alpha. That's why I prefer it. I think the biggest risk is the perps. The chain may be too dependent. Perps entail lots of leverage. It can magnify a crash. Plus, not everyone wants perps. They need to offer many vehicles. That is key to growth. CLARITY could be defeated in the Senate. This hurts the sector. It might delay wider adoption of on-chain finance. That could hurt HYPE's growth. Overall, there's a lot to like. You get a fast grower. You don't get a huge P/E. You get the most stock-like crypto. Active management can enhance it too. This makes PURR the better choice. Despite crypto's uncertainty, this is one of the better buys out there.

2026-06-05 20:08
Bitcoin breaks below $60K as risk-off sentiment intensifies
More on markets Dividend Roundup: UnitedHealth Group, Verizon, Alphabet, American Express, and more Treasury yields jump after May payrolls crush expectations Nonfarm payrolls soar past consensus in May; unemployment rate holds at 4.3% AI-powered startup boom could bring major labor market shifts, Apollo says JPMorgan sees the bond yield surge fading in the second half of 2026

2026-06-05 19:28
Bitcoin: Strategy's Sales Point To More Downside
Summary Bitcoin (BTC-USD) faces renewed downside risk as Strategy (MSTR) begins selling its significant BTC holdings after 41 months of accumulation. MSTR’s potential for further sales, given its 4.2% share of all mined BTC, could exert substantial selling pressure and amplify price declines. Valuation metrics like the NVT ratio suggest BTC is historically expensive, while TAM analysis implies limited future adoption and a slow grind lower. With faith in BTC waning and its explosive growth era over, the asset now appears mature, fully penetrated, and unlikely to deliver superior returns. Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) took a substantial dip recently when Strategy ( MSTR ) revealed that it had sold some of its BTC for the first time in 41 months. The company sold 32 Bitcoin when BTC traded at $77,000 . Although the sale was not large as a percentage of MSTR’s total Bitcoin holdings, the news shook many Bitcoin holders, who saw Strategy’s holdings as a backstop of the cryptocurrency’s value. Strategy's sales come after a period of considerable weakness for Bitcoin. At the time of this writing, the cryptocurrency was down 36% year-to-date (that may change by the time you see the article), and was trending lower. There are many reasons why Bitcoin’s price may be falling right now, but the biggest one is sentiment. Head anywhere that stocks and crypto are discussed, and you’ll see people questioning whether Bitcoin is really useful, really has intrinsic value, or really is a store of value. And in most cases, those asking the question are not so sure of the answer. The truth is that Bitcoin cannot be valued according to normal methods. As a digital currency, it does not generate cash flows. So, discounted cash flow [DCF] valuation is out where Bitcoin is concerned. You might think that no-arbitrage currency valuations could be used to value Bitcoin. But as a currency not backed by a central bank, Bitcoin also doesn’t have a set interest rate or stable foreign exchange trading band. So, it can’t really be valued using normal currency valuation methods either. Nevertheless, there are ways of approaching Bitcoin’s “true” value, and most of them do not point to the current level being the lowest that BTC could possibly go to. On the contrary, several imply that Bitcoin could go lower. This is a major conundrum. On the one hand, Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value going by conventional securities valuation techniques. On the other hand, it appears to be overvalued going by the unorthodox valuation methods that Bitcoin fans advocate. This isn’t exactly a recipe for optimism about the returns that Bitcoin holders will earn in the future. Speaking of Bitcoin’s returns: One of the main arguments that Bitcoin fans use to support their bullish theses on the coin, is the fact that it has performed so well since inception. Since being invented in 2009, Bitcoin has gone from near-zero (i.e. pennies) all the way to $66,000. Assuming the starting value was $0.01, then that’s a 190% CAGR return–certainly among the best of any asset in the 2009-2026 period. But more recent history reveals a different trend. Bitcoin is actually down over the last 12 months, and underperforming over the last five years . The days of BTC as a driver of explosive returns are long gone. Bitcoin underperforming the S&P 500 (Seeking Alpha Quant) When I last covered Bitcoin , I wrote that the cryptocurrency was subject to immense uncertainty owing to the lack of good methods for valuing it. I thought it was something of a dice roll. Since then, my knowledge of Bitcoin valuation methods has improved, and I now actually think there’s a case to be made for the coin having more downside from here. I will elucidate on this thesis in the ensuing paragraphs. How Saylor’s Sales Could Drive More Losses Before going any further, I should explain one potential cause of continued downside in Bitcoin, that being further selling by Strategy. CEO Michael Saylor said that Strategy would continue to sell Bitcoin if doing so would strengthen the company’s financial position. This was interpreted as Saylor pivoting to active management of Strategy’s balance sheet. Truthfully, active management would probably be a positive for Strategy itself–it would strengthen the company’s balance sheet in a scenario where Bitcoin went lower. The lower Bitcoin goes, the lesser the asset side of Strategy’s balance sheet, and the higher the company's ratio of debt to equity. So, selling Bitcoin periodically could help Strategy. The problem is that the more Strategy does this, the more selling pressure there is on Bitcoin. Strategy currently owns 843,706 Bitcoin. To date, 19.95 million Bitcoin have been mined. Therefore, Strategy owns 4.2% of all the Bitcoin that exists. This is a non-negligible percentage, meaning that Strategy heavily selling Bitcoin could move Bitcoin’s price. The percentage by which it could move the price is actually greater than 4.2%. The price of an asset is not determined by all of that asset being on offer at all times; it comes from the amount sold vs amount demanded at a given moment. Lately about 26,000 Bitcoin have been exchanging hands daily. Were Strategy to start selling a sizeable percentage of that amount, then it would move Bitcoin's price significantly. And the company could sell a sizeable percentage of the daily volume. Strategy has over 800,000 Bitcoin in its arsenal. It could offer many of those for sale in a single day. I'm not saying that Strategy will in fact start selling Bitcoin in size--Saylor did say he'd buy 10 or 20 Bitcoin for every one he sells after all. But it's factually established that he has enough Bitcoin to sell price-moving amounts of it. If Michael Saylor felt that his company's financial future were in jeopardy, he'd have the option of selling large amounts of Bitcoin to patch up his balance sheet. We can't rule out the possibility of him doing so in a scenario of continued Bitcoin price declines. Further, it's not clear that Saylor would be able to get enough financing to meaningfully offset a really large Bitcoin sale by buying more Bitcoin at a later date. Were Bitcoin to sell off severely, by high percentages, then lenders might become hesitant to lend money to Strategy, a company that is by and large a Bitcoin proxy. Given this, Saylor's stated intent of buying 10-20 Bitcoin for every one he sells, is not necessarily indicative of what will actually happen going forward. Valuation Having looked at a possible downside catalyst for Bitcoin, we can now move on to valuation. In previous articles, I wrote that this was essentially impossible because Bitcoin produces no cash flows. I still think there is no economically rigorous way to value Bitcoin. However, after researching the matter further, I’ve found that there are some metrics indicating how expensive Bitcoin is relative to historical norms. These can’t produce a “target” price, but they can shed light on Bitcoin’s value relative to transactions. The first of those is the network value to transactions [NVT] ratio , often called the P/E ratio of cryptocurrency. This measures how the actual usage of Bitcoin relative to its market cap. As the chart below shows, this ratio has been trending up since 2022, albeit erratically (the blue line is the ratio). From early 2022 to today, the ratio has gone from 9.8 to about 35. This indicates that Bitcoin has gotten more expensive in this period. Bitcoin NTV ratio (blockchain.com) Another approach we could use to value Bitcoin is to measure its total addressable market [TAM]. This approach is a little more subjective, because nobody knows exactly what the maximum userbase for Bitcoin is. We do, however, know that 95% of Bitcoin that will ever be mined, have been mined, so the supply side of the equation is near certain. If we knew the exact TAM then we could come up with a price target, too. I can’t put an exact number on Bitcoin’s TAM; however, Gallup reports that almost all American adults know what Bitcoin is, but only 14% own it . This would seem to imply that 86% of Americans are more or less content with conventional bank-based finance. The 14% who own BTC are presumably a mix of speculators and black market actors. It would seem that the potential for Bitcoin's TAM to increase in the United States is severely limited. As mentioned previously, polling shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans know what Bitcoin is, and only 14% have adopted it. The logical conclusion here is that the overwhelming majority of Americans are knowingly choosing not to adopt Bitcoin. With banks and credit card networks generally functioning well this year, it's hard to see what could get them to change their minds on this--why fix what isn't broken? So Bitcoin adoption in the United States appears unlikely to increase much. Global markets are a different story. Many countries in the global south still aren't widely connected to the internet--they could become a source of Bitcoin TAM growth. It's hard to put a precise timeline on such countries coming online, though, and some of their governments might ban Bitcoin. So, assuming a big, sudden increase in Bitcoin's TAM from developing countries appears an unwarranted assumption. The increase might never come, and would likely take a long time to materialize if it did come. With that said, TAM based valuation models are notoriously imprecise. It’s especially hard to guess the TAM for an asset whose users are anonymous. A large holder–let’s say Strategy–could easily push Bitcoin’s price down more than what I'm predicting. But it’s hard to predict that one of them will do so. The assumption of Bitcoin’s TAM already being addressed, and its supply slowly increasing from mining activities, points to a slow grind lower for BTC. The Bottom Line The bottom line on Bitcoin is that it is a mature asset at this point, and can no longer be counted on to deliver superior returns like it did in its early days. At this point, most people have heard of Bitcoin and decided whether or not they need it. The TAM would appear to be penetrated, or near-penetrated. On top of that, even known crypto “whales” like Michael Saylor’s Strategy are selling. Faith in this project appears to be waning, and in crypto, faith is everything.

2026-06-05 16:33
US Senate passes $70B ICE, CBP bill: Is CLARITY Act next as banks prepare?
More on Clarity Act MercadoLibre: The Stock Is Down, The Bull Case Isn't Marvell To A Trillion Dollars: Don't Fall For The Hype (Rating Downgrade) Alger Growth & Income Fund Q1 2026 Commentary Ultimate AI showdown: Anthropic and OpenAI head for Wall Street Franklin Resources' Wamco to pay $100M in SEC settlement

2026-06-05 16:28
Prediction markets price in higher odds of deeper Bitcoin decline

2026-06-05 15:44
Bitcoin slides, stocks rally, gold shines over the past year
More on Bitcoin USD, Gold Spot Price, etc. Bitcoin Whales Are Thrashing Around. What's Going On? Yes, This Feels Like 1999 - There's Just One Problem Gold Market Commentary: Hiking Up A Volcano AM Markets Need To Know: Switch funding round, JPM upgrades Tesla, and more Stock index futures fall as investors await key labor data

2026-06-05 14:05
Bitcoin Whales Are Thrashing Around. What's Going On?
Summary Bitcoin is experiencing significant whale sell-offs, with over $1.8 billion unloaded in late May, signaling potential market weakness. Technical analysis shows a head-and-shoulders formation and a 13% drop in May, reinforcing caution amid macroeconomic and geopolitical risks. Rising Treasury yields, Middle East conflict, and surging U.S. debt service costs heighten recession risks, historically leading BTC to underperform equities in downturns. I recommend taking profits or cutting losses in BTC, as its history suggests it falls faster and further than the S&P 500 during sharp economic contractions. Three Bitcoin whales emerged from the deep in the last week of May, and while whales tend to play their hand close to the vest, all of them appear to be unloading. On Sunday, May 24, a Satoshi-era Bitcoin whale transferred 2,650 Bitcoins worth $203 million to Falcon and Cumberland OTC trading desks. The cryptocurrency was drawn from funds linked to wallets that hadn’t shown activity since 2010, the primordial days of Bitcoin. On Tuesday, May 26, an anonymous investor at BlackRock dumped $1.29 billion worth of Bitcoin , all in one block sale. That same day saw a $333 million exodus from U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs. This follows $2.26 billion worth of Bitcoin withdrawals over the past two weeks. Even Strategy, the software company that went all in on Bitcoin and fashioned itself into a heavily leveraged Bitcoin ETF , recently sold off 411 Bitcoins for $30.3 million, ostensibly to pay up dividends. Admittedly, this is a small amount for a company of Strategy’s size, but it rattled some cages in the crypto community in so far as Strategy CEO Michael Saylor has vowed for years to never sell Bitcoin. Until he did on May 29. While Saylor claimed he will buy 20 Bitcoins for every Bitcoin sold, Polymarket predictions that Strategy will sell more Bitcoin before the end of the year have jumped to 91%. What The Bitcoin Chart Has To Say While Bitcoin’s recent head-and-shoulders formation isn’t as clear as it is in similar formations, the May price trend seems to be reacting to the first neckline, as shown in Figure 1 below. In the first week of May, the chart rises until it is barely above the first neckline of the head-and-shoulders, and then it quickly trends down for the rest of the month, falling 13% from its early May peak. Finance.Yahoo Figure 1 Having reached an all-time high of $126,198 in October 2025, Bitcoin is currently down 47% since then. The Iran War's Impact On The Global Economy May Be Affecting Bitcoin Before February 28 (Israel’s decapitation strike in Tehran), roughly 140 ships passed daily through this busy waterway. Today, that shipping traffic has plunged by 95% , thereby sidelining roughly 1/5 of the world's petroleum as well as 1/3 of the world's fertilizer supply. Trump, nonetheless, assured the public in early April that the war would be over soon, and the market, including Bitcoin, reacted positively. But now June is here, and Trump continues to insist the end of the war is near, but the US seems to be more entrenched in the Iran war than ever. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/03/oecd-warns-of-global-slowdown-as-iran-war-stymies-growth-prospects-.html While the Iranians are willing to come to the table to talk about ceasefires, they are also making demands the US and Israel will likely never agree to. Rather than playing hardball, it is possible that they are just running down the clock as fuel and fertilizer prices soar, all in the hopes of pulling the global economy into a deep recession. This could put the US and Israel at a severe disadvantage and make Iran appear powerful by comparison. If the Iran war is the next black swan to darken the global economic skies, the tide may already be turning. It's likely that Bitcoin is leading the charge because it is so heavily leveraged due to Bitcoin whales borrowing large sums of money to get into the game. This strategy could unwind quickly in the event of another one of Bitcoin's famous plunges. The Bond Market Reacts With Higher Rates The bond market reacted immediately to the bombing of Iran and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz as the benchmark 10 Year Treasury rose by 74 basis points. 10 Year Treasury Bill (Finance.Yahoo) Figure 2 Treasury’s Bond Buyback Program Struggles This dramatic rise happened even as the Treasury Department was ramping up their bond buyback program in its struggle to hold down interest rates, which are currently ravaging the government’s balance sheet. On April 16 of this year, the Treasury Department set a new record, buying back $15 billion of US treasuries in a single day. But to no avail. As you can see from the chart above, the rate of the 10-year Treasury kept on soaring. If the rates continue to rise on their own, the Fed may be forced to follow with a rate hike, lest it seem completely out of touch with market realities. Failing to do so could invite a backlash from bond vigilantes. This past May, Fed Funds futures were pricing roughly a 60% probability of a Fed rate increase by January, a dramatic shift from earlier expectations that the next move would be a rate cut. Meanwhile, interest payments on the US debt are expected to exceed $1 trillion in 2026, which means the government is trapped between the Iran war’s inflationary pressure, which calls for an increase in rates, and the rising unaffordability of the nation’s interest payments, which is what prompted the Treasury Department’s aggressive bond buyback program in the first place. All told, it appears the global economy could be on the verge of a downturn. The question is, how would such a downturn impact Bitcoin? We can find some clues by examining how Bitcoin reacted to two significant market downturns since its creation. Covid Pandemic Flash Crash January 2020 saw the beginning of the Covid pandemic that triggered a market shutdown. The sharp downturn between February and March 2020 is shown below in two graphs: the S&P 500 and Bitcoin. While the S&P dropped 33% in that period, Bitcoin dropped by 61%. End of QE4 Market Correction Two years later, when the Fed announced the end of QE4 in December of 2021, both the S&P and Bitcoin suffered significant drops. But while the S&P dropped 21%, Bitcoin plunged by 77%, over three times further than the S&P. Finance.Yahoo Figure 3 All in all, surrounding economic events seem to be presaging an upcoming recession, and while Bitcoin has never been through a recession on the order of 2001 or 2008, it seems to drop faster and further than the general market in an overall downturn, as we can see from the charts above. Caveat: Before you sell Bitcoin, consider this While Bitcoin has always been volatile, its overall trajectory has been decidedly upwards. Many attribute this to the fact that, unlike most cryptocurrencies, there will always be a finite quantity of Bitcoin--21 million. According to Bitcoin’s defenders, this is ultimately why this king of cyber currency will retain its value in the global marketplace. Bitcoin has proven itself as an international currency Who really orders pizza or buys a house with Bitcoin, so the argument goes? But here’s one question that has recently been settled. Is Bitcoin a viable currency for international trade? Apparently so. Iran currently uses bitcoin to bypass international banking systems. Not that that’s a glowing review for Bitcoin, but it does indicate that it would likely survive even a body slam of a downturn, merely because it is a handy way to skirt international sanctions. One of its main features, for better or worse. Russia also utilizes Bitcoin for international trade. So while many predict that Bitcoin will eventually implode and fade away altogether, that is an unlikely scenario. A steep Bitcoin price drop, however, would be nothing unusual. If Markets Dive, Bitcoin Will Likely Dive Faster and Further Bitcoin seems to be well into one of its famous downturns, pausing just enough along the way to create a head-and-shoulders formation, made all the more evident by the first neckline forming a resistance that could not be overcome. Now is a good time to take profits, or even cut losses, and sell. Ultimately, the argument for selling is this. Bitcoin’s brief history has shown that it generally falls faster and further than the S&P 500 during a sharp economic downturn. So the real question is, are we at the threshold of a recession? One viable possibility is that we are indeed, and thanks to an unprecedented level of unaddressed government and even private debt , a recession could send markets spiraling downward. Having dropped 47% from its latest peak and falling fast, Bitcoin might already be that harbinger of what’s to come.

2026-06-05 13:56
AM Markets Need To Know: Switch funding round, JPM upgrades Tesla, and more
More on markets Investing In The Most Valuable Firms (Video): The MANGOS Time To Cash In The Chips AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Steps Down S&P refuses to waive rules for megacap IPOs ahead of SpaceX listing 3 things to look out for on Friday

2026-06-05 12:59
Big banks eye new tokenized deposit network - report
More on banks JP Morgan Low-Coupon Fixed Preferreds Retain Standalone, Relative Appeal Bank of America: Let The Capital Flow To Your Portfolio With This Banking Powerhouse Bank of America Preferred Shares: High-Quality Income At A Significant Discount To Par JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon to pitch SpaceX IPO to clients

2026-06-05 11:25

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