The competition for Hyperliquid ETF dominance just got significantly more intense.
Grayscale announced Wednesday it launched the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF, trading under the ticker HYPG on Nasdaq, with a 0.29% sponsor fee, the lowest among all U.S.-listed Hyperliquid products. The fee undercuts rival Hyperliquid funds from both 21Shares and Bitwise.
This is a deliberate price play. Grayscale isn't just entering the HYPE ETF market, it's entering it with the explicit goal of winning investors away from already‑established competitors.
The Fee War Laid Out Clearly
The numbers tell the competitive story plainly. 21Shares' Hyperliquid ETF, THYP, began trading on Nasdaq on May 12 with a 0.30% expense ratio. Bitwise's BHYP launched three days later on the NYSE with a promotional 0% fee for its first month, but will rise to 0.34%. On a normalized basis, Grayscale's 0.29% fee is now the lowest among the three offerings.
Three funds. Three different fee structures. Three asset managers fighting for the same institutional dollars. That kind of fast‑moving competition in a brand‑new ETF category is rare, and it signals just how seriously Wall Street is taking Hyperliquid's rise.
Staking Makes HYPG Different
Grayscale isn't just launching a standard spot ETF. It's doing something the competitors aren't, building staking rewards directly into the fund structure.
HYPG is designed to generate additional returns through staking. The fund will seek exposure to HYPE while participating in the network's staking process, allowing investors to capture staking rewards through the ETF structure. Grayscale said HYPE staking rewards have historically averaged about 2.2% annually.
That extra 2.2% annual yield on top of any price appreciation makes HYPG a meaningfully different product from a simple token‑holding fund. For institutional investors who think in terms of total return, that distinction matters.
Why Hyperliquid Is Attracting This Kind of Attention
The rapid launch of three competing ETFs in under a month isn't random. There's a real business case behind HYPE that institutional investors can actually analyse.
According to Grayscale, the protocol generated approximately $857 million in revenue during 2025, making it one of the highest‑earning applications in crypto. Much of investor interest has centred on Hyperliquid's economic model, roughly 99% of protocol fees are directed toward token buybacks, a mechanism supporters argue links network usage directly to HYPE's value accrual.
A protocol that generates nearly a billion dollars in revenue and channels almost all of it back into buying its own token is a genuinely compelling investment story. That's not a speculative narrative, that's a business model.
What Grayscale Believes It's Building
Grayscale's senior vice president of capital markets, Krista Lynch, framed the launch in terms that go beyond just another ETF product.
"The launch of HYPG on Nasdaq reflects our conviction that Hyperliquid represents something genuinely differentiated in the digital asset landscape, a protocol built to support onchain trading and market activity at scale," Lynch said.
The Bigger Picture
The rapid emergence of multiple Hyperliquid funds reflects growing investor interest in the protocol. Hyperliquid began as a decentralized perpetual futures exchange but has expanded into a broader blockchain ecosystem that supports smart contracts, tokenized assets and new financial markets.
Three asset managers. Three ETFs. One month. Hyperliquid has gone from a crypto‑native trading platform to a full‑blown institutional ETF category in a remarkably short time, and the fee competition suggests this fight has only just started.
