I’ve been staring at the Hyperliquid chart for weeks now, and honestly, the feeling in my gut isn’t great. There’s something about the way price keeps grinding lower inside this descending channel that makes tomorrow’s unlock feel like the final push that could send everything tumbling. When you pair weakening volume with a $351 million cliff event, you don’t exactly get the recipe for a quiet Friday.
Let me paint the picture for you the way I see it right now.
The Calm Before the Storm
As I write this, HYPE sits around $35.20. That’s down another 1.7% today, nothing dramatic on its own, but zoom out and the damage becomes clearer. We’re 41% off the September high near $59, and the bleeding has been remarkably orderly, almost too orderly. Price has respected this descending channel since August like it’s following a script.
The thing that keeps nagging at me? Activity is drying up exactly when you’d want to see buyers stepping in ahead of a major supply event.
Spot volume dropped 36% in the last 24 hours to roughly $272 million. Futures volume on the major platforms fell nearly 30% to $1.12 billion. Even open interest, usually a decent gauge of committed money, slipped 5% to $1.43 billion. These aren’t crash-level numbers yet, but they’re the kind of quiet contraction that often precedes a bigger move.
What the Unlock Actually Means
Tomorrow, November 29, roughly 9.92 million HYPE tokens become free to move. At current prices that’s about $351 million hitting the market in one go, tokens that have been locked since the project’s launch a year ago and belong primarily to early contributors and insiders.
To put that in perspective, that’s 2.66% of the circulating supply appearing overnight. Only 37% of the total supply is unlocked so far, so this isn’t some gradual vesting schedule we’re talking about. This is a genuine cliff.
I’ve watched plenty of these events over the years, and the psychology is almost always the same. Holders who have been waiting a year suddenly have liquidity. Some will want to realize gains. Others will want to rebalance. A few might even panic if price starts sliding the moment the tokens hit exchanges.
The size of tomorrow’s release is several magnitudes larger than daily buybacks.
The Buyback Safety Net – How Strong Is It Really?
Hyperliquid has been one of the most aggressive projects when it comes to buying back its own token. The Assistance Fund has repurchased over $600 million worth of HYPE this year using trading fees, and daily buybacks often run between $2-5 million.
That’s genuinely impressive in normal market conditions. But tomorrow isn’t normal conditions.
Even if the fund throws $10 million at the market (which would be an extraordinary day), that’s still only absorbing about 3% of the unlocked tokens by value. The math simply doesn’t favor the buyers if any meaningful percentage of those newly freed tokens hit the market at once.
- Daily buybacks: $2-5 million typical, maybe $10 million absolute max
- Unlock size: $351 million
- Ratio: Buybacks cover roughly 1-3% of potential new supply
- Historical absorption rate during similar events: Often 10-30% sold in first week
Now, not every insider is going to sell tomorrow. Many probably believe in the long-term vision. But markets don’t need everyone to sell, they just need enough selling to overwhelm current bid stacks.
Reading the Technical Tea Leaves
Let’s talk about the chart, because it’s screaming caution right now.
Since August, HYPE has been trapped in a textbook descending channel. Each bounce has produced lower highs, each dip has found buyers at slightly lower levels, but the overall direction has been relentlessly down. There’s been no real conviction to the upside for months.
Right now price is testing the middle of that channel around $33-35. This area has acted as support multiple times, but each test has been weaker than the last. Volume on the bounces is shrinking. The recoveries are getting shallower.
The RSI tells the same story. It’s been below 50 for most of the past three months, making its own series of lower highs. Every push toward neutral territory fades quickly. Momentum simply isn’t there.
Possible Scenarios – No Sugarcoating
Here’s how I see the next few days potentially playing out:
- Best case: The unlock passes with minimal selling. The lower channel line near $32 holds firm. Buyers step in aggressively, perhaps viewing the event as “overhanging supply finally cleared.” We get a relief rally toward the upper channel near $42-45.
- Base case: Moderate selling pressure emerges. Price dips below $33 but finds support near the lower channel around $30-32. We grind sideways for weeks as the market digests the new supply.
- Worst case: Significant insider selling coincides with broader market weakness. The $33-35 zone completely fails. We break the lower channel and accelerate toward $25-28, potentially triggering liquidations and panic selling.
In my experience, the base case is the most common outcome for these events, but the technical setup here makes me nervous. When price is already weak and volume is fading, even moderate selling can create outsized moves.
What Would Change My Mind
I’m not married to the bearish view here. There are definitely things that could flip the script:
- Volume surging into the unlock with strong bids stacking below $33
- Major announcements from the Hyperliquid team about expanded buybacks or new utility
- Broader crypto market strength pulling everything higher
- Evidence that most unlocked tokens are moving to cold storage rather than exchanges
Right now though? None of those things are happening. The chart looks heavy, activity is fading, and there’s a massive supply event tomorrow.
I’ve been trading crypto long enough to know that these situations rarely resolve cleanly. The path of least resistance, at least in the short term, feels lower.
That doesn’t mean Hyperliquid is dead or the project is failing. The fundamentals of a high-performance perpetuals DEX remain strong. But price and fundamentals can stay disconnected for longer than most people expect, especially around major token unlocks.
If you’re holding HYPE, tomorrow is going to be interesting. If you’re thinking about buying the dip, maybe wait until we see how this supply actually hits the market.
Either way, one thing feels certain: the next few days are going to tell us a lot about where this token is headed into 2026.
Whatever happens, I’ll be watching the order books like a hawk. These moments are when real money is made and lost in crypto. Stay sharp out there.
