A second engine now feeds the buybacks: the interest on the USDC parked on Hyperliquid.
That yield used to flow to Circle and Coinbase under their USDC revenue-share. Under Hyperliquid's Aligned Quote Asset v2 framework, Coinbase became USDC's treasury deployer and Circle its technical deployer (May 14, 2026); each staked HYPE, and in exchange roughly 90% of the reserve yield is rebated to the Assistance Fund — the same fund that already turns 99% of trading fees into HYPE buybacks.
HOW THE DEAL WORKS
Announced
May 14, 2026 · USDC named Hyperliquid's Aligned Quote Asset
Treasury
Coinbase — deploys the USDC reserves, shares the yield
Technical
Circle — native USDC minting/redemption & CCTP rails
Stake
500,000 HYPE per role · 1,000,000 HYPE total · slashable
Yield share
100% of the "AQA rate" ≈ ~90% of post-cost reserve yield → AF
Cadence
30-day cycles · paid to the AF 8 days after each cycle closes
Accruing
since Aug 26, 2026 · USDH markets sunset in favor of USDC
3-mo T-bill 3.91% (Sep 4, 2026) · share to AF fixed at 90%
→ AF PER YEAR
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→ AF PER 30-DAY CYCLE
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≈ — HYPE bought per year at the live price · — of circulating supply
NEXT YIELD PAYOUT TO THE AF
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—
ANALYST ESTIMATES
$135–160M / yr to Hyperliquid at today's deposits — Ryan Watkins, Syncracy Capital
$300–500M / yr if stablecoin balances keep growing
−$60–80M EBITDA / yr for Circle + Coinbase — Compass Point
≈ $20M first cycle (est.) · lands Oct 3, 2026
Before AQAv2, this yield stayed with the issuers: under the Circle–Coinbase revenue-share (renewed for a multi-year term in Aug 2026) Coinbase keeps 100% of reserve income on USDC held on its own platform and ~50% of the rest; Circle paid Coinbase ≈ $908M in 2024. Estimates are illustrative — actual payouts depend on reserve balances, T-bill yields and issuer costs, and Hyperliquid has published no official projection.
Sources: Coinbase · CoinDesk · Yahoo Finance · Decrypt (Circle S-1) · AQAv2 explainer
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