Crypto enters the week mixed. Equities outperformed last week, while BTC and gold lagged, and BTC/ETH ETFs saw their first net outflows in three weeks. Still, BTC briefly reclaimed $80K, supported by continued corporate demand as BTC DATs bought $4.1B over the past four weeks.

Under the surface, risk appetite is returning in pockets. Gaming and AI led sector performance, while NFT-linked tokens and floors rallied sharply. The main structural story, however, is Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 launch, which brings fully collateralized outcome markets to HyperCore and expands the platform beyond spot and perpetuals.

Last week’s performance was mixed, with equities leading the way. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 posted gains of 1.76% and 0.50%, respectively, while BTC and gold lagged, ending the week down -2.9% and -4.1%. We covered the key drivers behind this divergence in last Friday’s edition. 

Flows also turned negative for the first time in three weeks, with BTC and ETH ETFs seeing outflows of -$387M and -$144M, respectively. Despite this, BTC has shown resilience, briefly reclaiming the $80K level in premarket hours.

A key driver behind this strength continues to be corporate demand. BTC DATs, led by Strategy, have purchased $4.1B worth of BTC over the past four weeks, outpacing ETF inflows by roughly 25%. That said, DAT flows showed signs of slowing last week, making both ETF and corporate flows critical indicators to watch for near-term momentum. 

Across crypto sectors, performance was led by Gaming and AI, up 6.3% and 3.8%, respectively. The Gaming rally was driven largely by APE, which surged 45% on the week. Other NFT-linked tokens like PENGU have also seen strong momentum, up 60% over the past month. This has been mirrored in underlying NFT prices, with Pudgies up ~40% and BAYC up ~110% over the same period, suggesting a return of risk appetite in that segment of the market. 

In AI, TAO continues to lead, up 3.1% on the week. Despite recent concerns around governance following Covenant’s departure, onchain fundamentals remain constructive. The share of TAO staked in alpha subnets has climbed steadily and now sits at 28%, pointing to continued capital rotation within the ecosystem. 

Looking ahead, macro and earnings will take center stage. Unemployment data on Friday will provide a key read on labor market strength, while earnings results from AMD and ARM should offer further insight into the durability of AI-driven demand. 

— Kunal

Hyperliquids’ HIP-4

Just two days after its May 2 mainnet launch, Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 outcome markets have processed $12.93 million in notional volume and $8.36 million in premium volume. After two settled 1-day BTC up/down markets paid out $3.81 million to winning positions, the new primitive has attracted 3,544 unique traders executing 96,321 trades.

Architecturally, HIP-4 introduces fully collateralized event contracts as a native primitive within HyperCore. Unlike standard perpetuals, it operates without a liquidation engine or continuous funding mechanisms. While market listing is currently permissioned, in the future it is expected that market creators can leverage the existing HIP-3 slot infrastructure and 500K HYPE staking requirement, simply appending a new outcome module to instantiate an event market. 

Each market opens with a 15-minute single-price auction designed to clear at the level that maximizes executable volume, establishing the initial YES and NO price marks.

Continuous Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) trading begins once the auction closes. By design, the YES and NO outcome tokens strictly sum to $1, so the order book midpoint serves as a direct expression of the market-implied probability of the underlying event. To manage exposure dynamically, traders rely on several native primitives that operate outside the standard order book: SplitOutcome (mints paired YES and NO tokens against deposited collateral), MergeOutcome (burns a YES/NO pair to redeem collateral), and NegateOutcome (atomically flips a long YES position into a short NO position).

At expiration, settlement is deterministic and executed via a single call from a deployer-designated broadcaster. For objective, price-linked outcomes, the broadcaster is typically a system wallet, while subjective events may use custom addresses. The broadcaster posts a final resolution value, either a binary 0 or 1 or a fractional scalar, and upon broadcast, the protocol immediately halts trading, cancels all open orders, and processes collateral payouts to the winning side of the market within the same block. These deployer markets are not currently live, however, and only Hyperliquid's canonical markets are listed. 

Ultimately, HIP-4 is not about directly competing with consumer-facing prediction markets for retail distribution. Rather, it is a structural play for ecosystem lock-in and infrastructure dominance. By adding fully collateralized event contracts as a third native primitive alongside spot and perpetuals, Hyperliquid is expanding its unified backend for the ecosystem.

Although market listing is currently permissioned to Hyperliquid's canonical markets, the platform plans to open this up to permissionless deployment in the future. Crucially, frontends can access these markets without paying the heavy 50 to 100 basis point infrastructure fees charged by external venues; instead, they pay just 4 to 7 basis points on HyperCore. This lets builders layer their own fees on top while keeping user collateral securely within the ecosystem. As the primitive matures and deployment opens up, expect aggressive adoption from frontends and builders.

— Shaunda 

1. The Disappearance of the Ten-Year Fund

   

   The piece argues that the traditional ten year venture fund structure no longer reflects reality, as modern funds hold large unrealized positions well beyond year ten due to companies staying private longer and scaling to higher valuations. This shift has created a bifurcated market where mega funds operate with effectively permanent capital and extended horizons, while smaller funds face pressure to maintain discipline and deliver liquidity within a decade. The implication is that fund structures should diverge accordingly, with large managers embracing long-duration models and smaller managers using the ten year framework as a competitive advantage through earlier exits and secondary sales. 

2. TradeXYZ Pre-IPO Perpetuals
   

   

   XYZ Pre-IPO Perpetuals are cash-settled derivatives that create a 24/7 market for price discovery around private companies expected to list publicly, without giving traders equity, IPO allocation rights, dividends, voting rights, or any claim on the issuer. Before listing, there is no external public share price, so XYZ uses an internal oracle based on a 30-minute moving average of market impact prices, reduced funding, and Discovery Bounds to support continuous but risk-managed trading. If the company lists, the contract is expected to convert into a standard equity perpetual using external oracle pricing; if the listing is delayed, cancelled, or materially altered, it may enter a predefined settlement process, typically based on a TWAP of the IPOP market price.