Hyperliquid has officially become the largest crypto airdrop of all time, releasing nearly $1.8 billion in fully unvested tokens on Day 1. The airdrop, featuring HYPE tokens, has surpassed notable past distributions, such as Starknet, Arbitrum, and dYdX, making it a major milestone in the crypto space.
On its first day, the HYPE token surged tremendously in value with hitting $6.41, a remarkable spike of 100% from its launch price. This brought its total market cap to $2.14 billion, with over $664.94 million traded in the last 24 hours – according to data provided by Coinmarketcap.
Source: X
Hyperliquid runs on a high-speed, Layer-1 blockchain with a proof-of-stake consensus, capable of handling up to 200,000 transactions per second. The platform’s core token, HYPE, plays a dual role – it is used for both staking to secure the network and as a gas token on HyperEVM, a layer compatible with Ethereum.
During its launch, Hyperliquid allocated 31% of its total 1 billion HYPE tokens for the airdrop, while 23.8% are set aside for future community rewards, with a one-year lock and vesting lasting until 2028.
Remarkably, no tokens were sold to private investors or centralized exchanges, making this distribution fully community-driven.
This airdrop follows the footsteps of other historic DeFi giveaways, such as Uniswap’s 2022 airdrop and Arbitrum’s 2023 distribution, reinforcing the power of airdrops to engage communities and boost crypto adoption.
