Hyperion DeFi, Inc. (NASDAQ: HYPD), the first US-listed company to build a strategic treasury of Hyperliquid's native HYPE token, is terminating two active token deployment agreements worth a combined $29 million in HYPE, according to The Block, following the wind-down of a stablecoin that could not compete with USDC's growing dominance on the network.

The NASDAQ-listed company disclosed the unwindings in an SEC material event filing on June 6, 2026. Taken together, the two deals involve the return of approximately 800,000 HYPE tokens to Hyperion's corporate treasury. At current prices near $58 to $59 per token, that tranche is worth roughly $46 to $47 million, well above the $29 million figure cited at deal inception, when HYPE traded closer to $36 at or around the time the agreements were struck.

Two Deals, Two Timelines

The first agreement to terminate involved Native Markets, the issuer of USDH, a stablecoin built natively on Hyperliquid.

Native Markets terminated its Temporary Use Agreement with Hyperion on May 18, notifying the company that the partnership would end June 18. In practice, the handoff moved faster: 300,000 HYPE plus accumulated staking rewards were unstaked and returned to Hyperion's treasury on June 3.

The second termination covers a larger position. On June 5, Hyperion and Felix Protocol agreed to end their HAUS (Hyperliquid Asset Use Service) arrangement, under which Hyperion had deployed 500,000 HYPE to support a HIP-3 perpetual futures market on Hyperliquid. Felix is a borrowing and lending protocol modeled on Liquity V2, where users deposit HYPE, UBTC, or LSTs to mint feUSD, the protocol's native stablecoin.

The HIP-3 markets Hyperion helped fund offered permissionless perpetual contracts on tokenized US equities and commodities. Hyperion expects to receive the 500,000 HYPE back on June 22.

In its filing, the company said it intends to redeploy the returned tokens into strategies it expects to be more profitable. Hyperion's other active HYPE deployments, including positions with Credo for proprietary trading and Kinetiq for liquid staking, remain in place; the unwindings represent two specific partnerships, not a full reversal of the company's HYPE treasury strategy.

CFO David Knox had originally described the Native Markets deal in December 2025 as one "expected to generate returns exceeding traditional staking yields."

What Killed USDH

USDH's wind-down was not a sudden failure. The stablecoin had plateaued at roughly $100 million in circulating supply while USDC ballooned to more than $5 billion on Hyperliquid. The decisive blow came in May 2026, when Coinbase was formally named the Aligned Quote Asset (AQA) treasury deployer for USDC on the platform. The AQA designation carries meaningful trading advantages: markets denominated in an aligned quote asset receive 20% lower taker fees, 50% higher maker rebates, and 20% more volume credit toward fee tiers. USDH once held that status. USDC now does.

Native Markets acknowledged the shift directly in a statement reported by CoinDesk, noting that Coinbase's involvement brings one of the largest US crypto companies into the ecosystem.

Circle, USDC's issuer, is separately staking 500,000 HYPE toward validator status on Hyperliquid, deepening the institutional infrastructure around the dollar-pegged stablecoin.

USDH redemptions remain available fee-free through the Native Markets dashboard, exchangeable for USDC or fiat. New USDH market creation has been suspended, and HIP-1 spot markets using USDH have been terminated. HIP-3 markets, including the one Hyperion supported with Felix, continue to operate at individual deployers' discretion.

What This Means Outside the US

Hyperliquid restricts access to US residents, meaning its reported $800 million in 2025 trading fee revenue came almost entirely from international users, with significant activity across South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

That geographic concentration makes changes to Hyperliquid's stablecoin and yield infrastructure particularly consequential for those regions.

USDH's fee advantages were relevant for retail traders in markets like Nigeria, Kenya, India, and Pakistan, where trading costs at thin margins matter. The consolidation around USDC, a US-regulated instrument issued by Circle, concentrates stablecoin infrastructure on Hyperliquid around a single American counterparty. For users who access crypto through Africa's mobile money networks (VALR and Onafriq integrated in April 2026 to support deposits across 43 African markets), narrowing the stablecoin menu on-chain has direct downstream effects.

Felix's HIP-3 perpetual markets, the product Hyperion's 500,000 HYPE helped capitalize, also carried specific relevance in these regions. Retail investors in South Asia and Africa who cannot access US equities through traditional brokers found in those markets a 24/7 alternative via tokenized stocks and ETFs structured through Ondo Finance. The end of Hyperion's HAUS agreement does not shut Felix down, but it removes an institutional anchor that contributed both liquidity and reputational credibility to the product.

Looking Ahead

Felix's total value locked has declined from a peak near $333 million to roughly $128 million, with annualized fees running at $13.83 million as of this week, per DefiLlama. Whether Hyperion's departure accelerates that decline or spurs Felix to find a new capital partner will be one signal to watch in coming weeks.

For Hyperion itself, the reallocation of 800,000 HYPE into new strategies comes at a favorable moment. HYPE hit an all-time high of $75.51 on June 2 before pulling back, and the token currently sits as a top-ten asset by market capitalization with between $1.1 and $1.4 billion in daily trading volume.

A director at the company purchased 8,000 shares of HYPD stock at $3.64 to $3.81 on June 1 and 2. The purchases predate the material event filing disclosed on June 6 and are not necessarily connected to it.

HYPE was trading near $58.50 at time of publication.