Hyperliquid's native token has picked up an unusual new holder even as US institutional demand for it dries up. Tokyo-listed firm Eole has become the first Japanese publicly listed company to hold HYPE, purchasing 1,078 tokens for 10.08 million yen at an average price of 9,352.776 yen per token, according to a company disclosure.

Eole says it plans further purchases in tranches, eventually bringing its total HYPE holdings to 100 million yen. The company is tying the buy to a previously announced Neo Crypto Bank plan first unveiled in October 2025, arguing that AI-driven, always-on financial infrastructure will increasingly run on decentralized rails.

HYPE ETF Flows.
Image via BeInCrypto

“As part of driving that infrastructure forward, eole has now acquired HYPE — the native token of Hyperliquid,” the company said in a statement announcing the purchase.

“As part of driving that infrastructure forward, eole has now acquired HYPE — the native token of Hyperliquid.”

US Funds Are Moving the Other Way

Eole's entry stands in sharp contrast to sentiment among US-listed HYPE funds, which have not recorded a single day of inflows since July 15. Over that stretch, the funds posted seven separate outflow days and have shed roughly $27 million in assets across ten trading sessions, according to data tracked by SoSoValue.

Large token holders have been moving in a similar direction. Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain identified a wallet that transferred 137,100 HYPE, worth about $7.51 million, to Coinbase Prime. Separately, a wallet linked to Multicoin Capital unstaked 1.07 million HYPE worth $58.86 million and deposited 86,314 of those tokens, worth $4.78 million, into Coinbase Prime — a position Lookonchain noted was originally bought via Galaxy Digital's OTC desk at an average price of $37.5 and now sits roughly $18.75 million in profit.

Price Action Reflects the Divergence

HYPE traded at $53.9 on Thursday, down 19.4% over the past month — the worst performance among the 20 largest tokens by market capitalization over that window. The token remains 29.8% below its June 16 all-time high of just over $76, having given back essentially all of the gains it built since that peak.

The split between a first-mover Japanese corporate buyer and retreating US fund flows leaves HYPE in an unusual position: a token gaining a symbolic institutional foothold in a new market just as the funds that were supposed to be its primary US institutional gateway keep losing assets.