Hyperlane HYPE airdrop: protocol breakdown and value estimates
Post1,221 words
Explains Hyperlane as a permissionless interop layer and estimates the speculative HYPE airdrop. At a $500M FDV with 10-15% airdropped, he sizes it at $50M-$75M, about $625-$875 per early user wallet and $1000-$2000 per Celestine Sloth.
Key claims
Hyperlane raised an $18M seed led by Variant
Peer FDVs: ZRO $3.3B, W $2B, AXL $0.6B
Reasonable launch FDV of $500M-$1.5B on 15-25% circulating
šŖ š§āš $HYPE is coming š§āš šŖ
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Over $2B in value bridged and raised $18M seed round.
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Supporting >40 chains and 5+ VMs.
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@hyperlane is the permissionless interop layer of the modular stack.
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What does it mean and will you get an airdrop?
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How much could this be worth?
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Everything you need to know. š
š§āš WTF is Hyperlane?
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@Hyperlane is the first universal, fully permissionless interoperability layer and built to enable composability within & beyond the modular stack.
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It is designed with modularity at its core and provides a framework for cross-chain communication that is permissionlessly accessible to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
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@Hyperlane connects any chain and passes messages, moves tokens, and allows users to perform cross-chain queries.
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The permissionless accessibility of interoperability in a modular multichain future is key to maintain the composability across modular app-chains that exists among apps on monolithic chains.
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Applications (or rather app-chains) that build @hyperlane like @MitosisOrg can leverage this technology to build cross-chain liquidity layers, multichain DEXes and more that will finally end the fragmentation of UX and liquidity across execution layers.
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@Hyperlane works seamlessly across various VMs and chains, including all EVM chains, @solana, the @Cosmos ecosystem, Move-based chains & more.
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Hyperlane can literally be implemented in any environment.
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Finally, Hyperlane allows builders to customize their interchain security with options ranging from authority-based security and economic safeguards to ZK light clients, rollup bridges, and external security providers.
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Integrators can use their own validators, set rate limits, or leverage $5B in economic security via the Hyperlane AVS.
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They can simply select the security modules that best meet their evolving needs, while Warp Routes enable them to take any token multichain with affordable, fast, no-slippage bridging.
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šŖ What about $HYPE and the Foundation?
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First, let's have a look at @hyperlane's funding.
@Hyperlane raised a $18M seed round in 2022 led by @variantfund with other prominent participants including @circle, @krakenfx or @Figment_io.
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The next step towards TGE was taken today:
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"Today, the Hyperlane Foundation* introduces HYPE, a token that will establish an alliance between motivated users of the Hyperlane network. Most importantly, HYPE is designed to build the foundation for a developer-owned network, one where those who make it useful become owners."
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The announcement also states that the Foundation will initiate a "Hyperlane Alliance", which will steward ecosystem development and oversee future grant programs.
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"The Hyperlane Foundation will initiate the Hyperlane Alliance. The Hyperlane Alliance will represent the interests of users and developers who collectively shape the future of the Hyperlane network and ecosystem. Members of the Hyperlane Alliance will also oversee a grants program, which recognizes meaningful contributions to the Hyperlane network."
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Based on this announcement by @hyperlane_fdn, we can expect $HYPE to launch very soon. We don't have a date yet though.
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We also don't have any tokenomics yet, but it also looks like there will be some sort of allocation and/or longer term incentivization mechanism for developers building with @Hyperlane's tech.
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The devs are probably not the only ones due for a stimmy check though.
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š§āš Aside the devs, who will get $HYPE?
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I assume there will be a broader airdrop too that could include communities across the modular space, including:
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ā¦ Early Hyperlane users
ā¦ $TIA stakers
ā¦ Sloth holders
ā¦ +++
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Please note that this is only speculation. We don't have any specific information on tokenomics or airdrop allocations yet.
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However, the snapshot is likely done.
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If you have interacted with @hyperlane in the past, you might have a stimmy check incoming soon.
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Why I believe $TIA stakers and sloths have good chances?
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Hyperlane is built for the modular expansion.
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A movement pioneered by @CelestiaOrg.
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The sloths are one of the most active communities in the modular space with an origin story closely tied to Celestia.
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However, I do think the focus will lie on builders and likely early users.
That will include users of @hyperlane's Nexus bridge, the @nautilus_chain bridge, the @Formachain bridge, @MitosisOrg and others.
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Regular modularium(.)art users that have also sent some $TIA across the interchain with @hyperlane are likely well positioned.
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š° I'm a user, what could my airdrop be worth?
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The other interoperability players all have tokens valued in the 100s of millions, if not in the billions of dollars.
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ā¦ $ZRO at $3.3B FDV and $377M circ. mcap
ā¦ $W at $2B FDV and $514M circ. mcap
ā¦ $AXL at $0.6B FDV and $400M circ. mcap
ā¦ $ZKJ at $1.1B FDV and $75M circ. mcap
ā¦ $OMNI $0.76B FDV and $70M circ. mcap
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$HYPE has a good chance of making it to a few $100M in FDV too, maybe more if the tokenomics are good and the market recovers in the months to come.
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At launch and assuming an initially circulating supply of 15-25%, I think $100M-$250M in circulating mcap and an FDV of $500M-$1.5B is reasonable.
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In the absence of any specific information on the tokenomics, it's hard to speculate beyond that though.
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But looking at other examples in the past and with increasing pressure on projects to reward we can reasonably assume 10-15% of supply to be airdropped at TGE.
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For the sake of this calculation, we assume a $500M FDV (a rather conservative approach imo), which would result in a total airdrop value of $50M-$75M
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Let's assume a $HYPE airdrop allocation that is roughly distributed like this:
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ā¦ Builders 50% (of airdrop allo)
ā¦ Early users 25%
ā¦ Others 25%
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That would mean $12.5M-$17.5M in $HYPE airdrop for maybe 20k eligible early users (seems like a lot considering 70k Twitter followers and 54k Discord members) or on average $625-$875 per wallet.
In reality, it will likely be depending on activity (volume, transactions, etc.) though.
There might be many more eligible users, even some that don't follow on Twitter. But many will likely get much lower allocations (depends on strictness of criteria though) and some more active users that get significantly more.
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Broader airdrops that end up spraying tokens at users of supported ecosystems rather than your core community and other communities that are aligned, only dilute individual rewards, disappoint people and rarely achieve good "user retention or acquisition" results.
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š¦„ I'm a sloth, what could my airdrop be worth?
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With 2.5-3.75% of $HYPE supply assumed to be dedicated to partner communities such as NFT collections, let's have a look at what a 0.5-1% for sloth holders could mean.
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At $500M FDV, that would be $2.5M-$5M in sloth allocation. Considering there is 2500 sloths, that translates into $1000-$2000 per sloth.
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ā ļø Final notes
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There is a lot of variables in this calculations and it is (as mentioned before) wild speculation.
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However, I think the numbers are not necessarily completely outlandish.
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The TLDR is I think this could be one of the first airdrops for the modular community (and maybe the sloths?) to kick off a full season of airdrops.
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However, this is not financial advice and as I mentioned before, the snapshot might be taken already.
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What do you think?
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What will the $HYPE airdrop look like?
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Will you be eligible?
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š§āš āØ
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What came next Ā· since 08 Aug 2024
Show how the covered asset moved
This breakdown analyzes the project without making a call on the token, so price moves since publication are shown as market context.
Covered, no call
Since then
Zero has written 22 more pieces on $HYPE since this one.
- State of Hyperliquid: two years after the airdrop (A1 Research report)Covers $HYPE
- Hyperliquid onshore: Payward and Bitnomial's permissioned HIP-3* venueBullish call on $HYPE
- Hyperliquid ecosystem briefing: 14 days of regulation, HIP-3/4, RWAs, revenueBullish call on $HYPE
- HYPE at $60 vs BNB at $10: the Binance trajectory argumentBullish call on $HYPE
Daily closes in USD from DefiLlama and Yahoo Finance. Only a bullish or bearish call in a thesis or market take is tracked; explainers, lists, maps and mentions are neutral context. Not financial advice.