Key Takeaways
- Arthur Hayes called HYPE, NEAR, and Zcash his “holy trinity,” highlighting their strong fundamentals beyond the speculative momentum of the crypto market.
- Hyperliquid’s HYPE token stands out for its massive protocol revenue, aggressive buybacks, and dominance in decentralized perpetual futures trading markets.
- NEAR benefits from AI infrastructure narratives, leveraging co-founder Illia Polosukhin’s transformer research background and enterprise-focused blockchain compute products.
- Zcash gained momentum through privacy demand, Grayscale’s ETF filing, and growing concerns about blockchain surveillance and quantum computing threats.
On May 22, 2026, Arthur Hayes posted three tickers to his followers and called them his “holy trinity.” HYPE, ZEC, and NEAR. No elaborate thread, no macro essay.
Just a brief declaration that when you are in position, trading is easy, and then three token names. For anyone who has followed Hayes long enough to know what typically follows, the brevity alone was signal enough.
Hayes is the former CEO of BitMEX and current CIO of Maelstrom Fund. His public calls carry disproportionate weight for reasons that go beyond his genuinely mixed track record, by his own admission.
Markets react to his conviction partly because he builds macro frameworks that make the reasoning legible, and partly because his audience is large enough to create self-fulfilling short-term moves.
So when Hayes singles out three altcoins and gives them a theological label, the question worth answering is what the actual thesis is for each one, and whether the fundamentals support it independently of the endorsement.
Hyperliquid ($HYPE): Revenue as Moat
Hayes has been building his Hyperliquid thesis in public for months. Earlier in 2026, he published a detailed essay setting a $150 price target for HYPE by August 2026, grounding the forecast in protocol revenue rather than narrative. His central observation was that Hyperliquid had become the largest revenue-generating crypto project outside stablecoin issuers, with 97% of that revenue deployed into HYPE buybacks and burns.
The numbers behind the claim are verifiable. Hyperliquid processed approximately $2.6 trillion in notional trading volume during 2025, outpacing Coinbase’s $1.4 trillion over the same period.
By early 2026, the platform accounted for roughly 70% of open interest in decentralized perpetuals. Daily revenue peaked at nearly $4.3 million in January 2026, and active users had grown to 1.4 million, up more than 350% from 2024.
Hayes frames HYPE through the lens of exchange tokens during sideways Bitcoin markets, drawing a direct parallel to GMX’s all-time high in April 2023. His logic: when Bitcoin’s beta compresses, traders rotate into assets with real cash flow. Hyperliquid generates that cash flow and channels it back to token holders through a transparent buyback mechanism. That is a structurally different value proposition from most altcoins, which rely solely on narrative.
The counterarguments carry weight. Monthly team token unlocks of approximately 1.2 million HYPE introduce consistent supply pressure. Competition from rivals like Aster and Lighter has begun eroding Hyperliquid’s volume share, and the platform’s eleven-person team holds substantial token allocations outright, having taken no venture capital funding. None of those risks has broken the revenue story yet.
NEAR Protocol ($NEAR): Co-Founder Behind ChatGPT
NEAR’s inclusion in the trinity reflects a specific macro trade, not a general AI bet. Illia Polosukhin, NEAR’s co-founder, is one of the original authors of the “Attention Is All You Need” paper, the foundational research underpinning transformer-based AI systems, including ChatGPT.
Hayes’ broader macro thesis for 2026 involves global liquidity expansion and the intersection of AI infrastructure demand with blockchain-native compute markets. NEAR sits at that intersection in a way most L1 blockchains cannot credibly claim.
NEARCON 2026 in February delivered tangible catalysts rather than roadmap promises. NEAR unveiled IronClaw, a privacy-first fork of its OpenClaw framework, alongside a Confidential GPU Marketplace allowing enterprises to rent distributed computing capacity for AI training without exposing proprietary data. Polosukhin framed the protocol’s ambition as building an “open AI economy,” a narrative with genuine product grounding. NEAR’s price surged 45% in the seven days following those announcements.
The protocol has also positioned NEAR Intents as a transaction standard for AI-to-world interactions, a use case that has no direct comparable on any competing chain. Whether demand for that infrastructure materializes at scale fast enough to sustain price momentum remains an open question.
NEAR has a history of sharp rallies followed by extended corrections, and governance controversies earlier in 2026 briefly threatened the $3 support level before the NEARCON bounce.
Zcash ($ZEC): Privacy, Quantum Risk and a Grayscale Catalyst
Zcash’s inclusion in Hayes’ trinity requires the most context, as ZEC spent most of 2024 and early 2025 outside the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Several converging narratives changed that trajectory.
Multicoin Capital disclosed in May 2026 that it had been quietly accumulating ZEC since February, calling Zcash a return to cypherpunk ideals and framing the thesis around growing government surveillance of transparent blockchain balances. Bitcoin’s public ledger, Multicoin argued, leaves holders structurally exposed in ways that ZEC’s shielded transactions do not. That announcement sent ZEC to a five-month high of $642 in May.
Shortly after, Grayscale filed to convert its Zcash Trust into the first US spot privacy coin ETF, a structural catalyst comparable to what spot Bitcoin ETF approval did for BTC in early 2024.
ZEC surged more than 115% over a 30-day window before the filing, with nearly 30% of circulating supply held in shielded balances, a record level that reduces liquid exchange supply during demand spikes.
The quantum computing narrative added a second independent driver. After Google Research published a white paper in April 2026 confirming that future quantum computers may break the elliptic curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin and Ethereum, ZEC benefited from its zk-SNARK architecture, which offers stronger post-quantum resilience than either network. Institutional accumulation followed, with Cypherpunk purchasing nearly 30,000 ZEC at an average price of roughly $603.
The FCMP++ protocol upgrade, which expands anonymity set coverage across all ZEC transactions, and the relisting of ZEC on OKX after a prior delisting, have both contributed to renewed institutional and retail interest. ZEC’s revival is grounded in a confluence of regulatory, technical, and structural factors rather than a single narrative pump.
What Connects the Three
Hayes rarely picks assets in isolation. HYPE, NEAR, and ZEC share a common characteristic relevant to their current macro positioning: each has a fundamental case that does not depend entirely on Bitcoin breaking new highs.
- HYPE generates revenue regardless of BTC price direction.
- NEAR’s AI compute narrative is driven by enterprise demand cycles with their own timeline.
- ZEC’s privacy premium grows as regulatory pressure on transparent chains intensifies, accelerating independently of crypto market cycles.
Hayes tied his broader 2026 outlook to a global credit expansion cycle, arguing that central banks and governments are entering another phase of aggressive liquidity creation. Within that macro framework, owning assets with structural demand drivers, rather than pure speculative beta, represents a more defensible position as markets rotate.
Key Investment Risks To Be Aware Of
Each of the three assets carries distinct and meaningful downside risk.
- HYPE faces monthly token unlocks, intensifying DEX competition, and concentration risk from a small founding team with large token holdings.
- NEAR has historically struggled to sustain rallies beyond conference cycles, and on-chain AI infrastructure demand remains early-stage, with no guarantee of adoption velocity.
- ZEC’s privacy coin classification creates regulatory exposure in multiple jurisdictions, and several exchanges have previously delisted it under compliance pressure that could return.
Grayscale’s ETF filing does not guarantee approval. Hayes’ conviction signals his current positioning, not a forward return guarantee, and his call timing has historically been inconsistent, even when the directional thesis eventually proved correct. No position in any of these assets should be sized without accounting for the liquidity, volatility, and regulatory risks specific to each one.
FAQs
He believes all three possess independent demand drivers and strong macro positioning beyond Bitcoin price dependence.
Hyperliquid generates significant trading revenue and uses most profits for token buybacks and burns, supporting long-term value.
NEAR’s co-founder helped create transformer technology behind ChatGPT, while the protocol develops AI-focused blockchain infrastructure products.
Privacy demand, institutional accumulation, ETF speculation, and post-quantum security narratives have revived investor interest in ZEC.
The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, financial advice. We do not make any warranties regarding the completeness, reliability, or accuracy of this information. All investments involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. We recommend consulting a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
Dr. Guneet Kaur is a senior editor at CCN.com and a Science Fellow at Exponential Science. She is a fintech and blockchain expert with extensive experience in digital finance education, blockchain ecosystems, and cryptocurrency markets. She has worked with global media such as Cointelegraph, as well as education and blockchain platforms, to design and lead strategic content and learning initiatives. As an educator and assessor for top-tier executive programs, she bridges real-world fintech trends with academic insight.
Dr. Kaur is also a published researcher and peer reviewer across fintech and data science journals, including Financial Innovation Journal and International Journal of Big Data Intelligence and Applications. Her work spans data-driven analysis, Web3 innovation, and technical content development. With a strong foundation in both industry and academia, she translates complex financial technologies into practical applications, empowering learners, professionals, and institutions across the rapidly evolving digital finance landscape.
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