Coinbase to Route About 90% of Cost-Adjusted Hyperliquid USDC Reserve Yield

Coinbase will serve as Hyperliquid’s official treasury deployer for USD Coin (USDC), directing about 90% of cost-adjusted reserve yield from the network’s USDC supply to the protocol. The arrangement moves Hyperliquid’s stablecoin model further toward USDC and establishes a payment schedule for the resulting yield.

Yield began accruing Aug. 26 under Hyperliquid’s Aligned Quote Asset v2 framework. The first transfer to the protocol’s Assistance Fund is scheduled for Oct. 3, with subsequent transfers occurring eight days after each 30-day accrual period ends.

Circle is the technical deployer, supporting native USDC and Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol infrastructure, while Coinbase manages the treasury role. Native USDC and CCTP V2 support transfers between Hyperliquid and supported blockchains, including deposits into HyperCore, spot and perpetual trading, and applications on HyperEVM.

The framework requires Coinbase and Circle to each stake 500,000 HYPE. Those stakes can be slashed if required balances or services are not maintained. It also requires a 9:1 balance ratio between the treasury address and Circle’s linked HyperEVM contract for minted HyperCore USDC.

Coinbase agreed on May 14 to become USDC’s official treasury deployer on Hyperliquid. The arrangement shifts the network’s earlier USDH-centered model toward USDC while preserving fee-free conversions to USDC and fiat during the transition. USDH markets were slated to sunset as part of that process.

A projection assuming a $5 billion USDC balance and steady interest rates estimates annual protocol revenue at about $160 million. The projection also put potential additional HYPE buybacks and burns at $450 million. Those figures are estimates rather than confirmed payments or protocol commitments, and the assumed balance is not established as the same amount previously described across Hyperliquid.

The first scheduled payment under the framework is Oct. 3.