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2026年05月14日

Hyperliquid Retires USDH and Returns to USDC — Coinbase-Led "AQAv2" Reveals a New Equilibrium in Stablecoin Economics

HyperliquidがUSDHを畳みUSDCへ回帰──Coinbase主導の「AQAv2」が映すステーブルコイン経済の新均衡

AQAv2 and the New Onchain Trading Economy

On May 14, Coinbase announced it had become the official deployer leading the second iteration of Hyperliquid's "Aligned Quote Asset" (AQA) framework. Circle, USDC's issuer, will serve as the technical deployer overseeing minting, redemption, and cross-chain infrastructure via the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP). Both firms committed to staking HYPE tokens to activate AQAv2; Circle is adding 500,000 HYPE on top of its position from September 2025. Across HIP-1 through HIP-4 markets, USDC becomes the canonical quote asset — unifying perpetuals, spot, and the newer outcome markets (HIP-4) under a single dollar rail.

The Eight-Month USDH Saga

USDH was selected by Hyperliquid validators via a HYPE-stake-weighted on-chain vote on September 14, 2025 and went live on September 24, 2025. Native Markets prevailed over Paxos (which offered PayPal/Venmo integration and 95% yield share), a withdrawn Ethena, Frax, Sky, Agora, and BitGo — despite proposing only a 50% revenue split. The team, led by Max Fiege, Anish Agnihotri, and former Uniswap Labs President MC Lader, won on the strength of ecosystem alignment. Reserves were managed by BlackRock off-chain and Superstate on-chain through Stripe-owned Bridge.

Reality eight months later told a different story. USDH supply plateaued near $100 million while USDC roughly doubled year-over-year to $5 billion. USDC's liquidity depth, regulatory standing, and cross-chain transferability proved insurmountable — USDH succeeded only in fragmenting quote-asset liquidity without scaling its own footprint.

Why Return to USDC: A Pragmatic Choice

The brilliance of AQAv2 lies in importing the yield-sharing model USDH pioneered into the incumbent stablecoin. Roughly 90% of USDC reserve yield will flow back to Hyperliquid for HYPE buybacks and the Assistance Fund — at current Fed funds rates, an estimated $180 million annual run-rate (about ¥28.8 billion). Hyperliquid projects a 22–26% protocol revenue uplift. Reactions split between "the incumbents came to the table" and the cynical "the incumbent just bought the table." Either way, Hyperliquid swapped brand sovereignty for USDC's liquidity depth and Coinbase's fiat on/off-ramps — a clear-eyed pragmatic trade.

[Business Development Insights]

  1. "Right to issue" is not "right to win" — Launching a network-native stablecoin against an incumbent backed by deep liquidity, regulatory trust, and cross-chain rails is enormously difficult. Native Markets' loss was not about technology or economics; it was an underestimation of incumbent network gravity. New Web3 entrants should reassess the economic rationality of partnering with incumbents from day one rather than competing head-on.
  2. Yield-sharing is becoming the new industry default — The protocol-level revenue-sharing model USDH pioneered has forced even Circle and Coinbase to accept terms they previously refused. Other DEXs and L1s now hold a credible negotiation playbook, and stablecoin issuer margins will compress structurally across the industry.
  3. Vertical integration of exchange × issuer × L1 is accelerating — Coinbase staking HYPE, Circle running validator infrastructure, and USDC embedded into HIP-4 outcome markets together dissolve the boundaries between trading venue, stablecoin issuer, and blockchain economy. Stablecoins are shifting from "standalone financial products" to "an inseparable layer of trading infrastructure."

[Sources]

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