Compiled & translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Mike Dudas, Managing Partner of 6MV

Host: Laura Shin

Podcast source: Unchained

Original title: Hyperliquid Is About to Face More Competition. Here's Why Mike Dudas Isn't Worried

Broadcast Date: June 5, 2026

Key points summary

In this episode, Mike Dudas, Managing Partner of 6MV, discusses the recent volatility in the crypto market and the diverging narratives of core assets such as Strategy, Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid. He believes that Strategy's sale of Bitcoin undermined the "never sell" premium that Michael Saylor has long cultivated. Ethereum's biggest problem is its inability to form a unified, market-priced asset narrative, hence both he and 6MV have zero ETH holdings. In contrast, Mike favors protocols with clear value capture mechanisms, programmatic buybacks, and sustainable revenue, especially comparing Hyperliquid to Tether in the DeFi world: it doesn't need to rely on the US market and can grow into a massive network amidst non-KYC and international transaction demands.

Summary of key viewpoints

The breakdown of the faith premium between Strategy and Bitcoin

"Strategy wanted to do two things at the same time: on the one hand, to financialize Bitcoin's exposure, and on the other hand, to shape it into a meme asset with religious connotations. The problem is that these two things are not entirely compatible."
"Saylor's long-standing promise to the market is: I will never sell this asset. I simply believe in it. So whether it's a few hundred Bitcoins or tens of thousands, the moment you start selling, a leg of the story is torn off."
"You need the market to fully believe they will buy this asset indefinitely. So when the price drops, they have to find new ways to continue buying Bitcoin."

ETH Narrative Chaos and Zero Configuration

"ETH has ultimately become what many people wanted it to be, but the problem is that the Foundation and many core writers are unwilling to truly embrace the narrative of ETH as a monetary asset."
"Look at the 100 large stakeholders in the Ethereum ecosystem; each one is telling a different story: what is this asset, what is the network's long-term mission, and of course, the market doesn't know how to value it."
"We, as a fund, do not hold ETH, and I personally do not hold ETH either. Because I can't say what its story is today, nor can I say what it will be like in three years."

Solana's Opportunities and Weaknesses

"Solana's problem is clearer: it's not a narrative mess, it's a performance issue. On-chain activity and fees peaked in early 2025 and have been declining ever since, with the price weakening accordingly."
"Solana's activity used to come primarily from Memecoin and highly speculative on-chain transactions, but there isn't currently enough sustained economic activity to offset this decline."
"If Solana can truly succeed in new areas such as perpetual contracts and prove that its L1 performance is close to that of centralized exchanges, it may become an undervalued asset at some point."

Hyperliquid and Non-KYC Markets

"My basic analogy for Hyperliquid is Tether versus Circle. The non-KYC or international markets are very large in crypto, enough to support a massive network."
"Hyperliquid's key issue isn't whether it can enter the US market, but whether it can continuously list higher-quality assets and maintain sufficient liquidity."
"Its real growth comes from asset quality and liquidity: crude oil, computing power markets, pre-IPO stocks, prediction markets—these could all become new asset classes for on-chain transactions."

Token value capture

"In the crypto world, value capture mechanisms are best implemented programmatically. Because the industry doesn't implicitly trust project teams, any mechanism relying on discretionary decisions will be undervalued by the market."
"The leadership team must consistently, professionally, and consistently communicate the product roadmap, telling investors, stakers, and ecosystem developers: this is not just for the team, but something we are all building together."
"A 100% buyback isn't always optimal. The protocol needs to convince the market that it's both rewarding token holders and continuing to invest in future growth."

AI Agents, Transactions, and Payments

"If these agents' trading volume, frequency, and number of strategies all exceed those of humans, then that's certainly good for transaction fees. I believe that in the future, these L1 platforms will primarily be valued in this way."
"The real opportunity to capture value may not lie in the simple trading execution venue, but in the front end that can reach end users and provide research, strategies, liquidity optimization, and a better trading experience."
"Agent payment may not be a huge opportunity for new entrants, because giants like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are already moving quickly, and they have customer base, trust, risk control, and compliance capabilities."

Strategy breaks its "never sell" promise; why has the market premium disappeared?

Host Laura Shin: Mike, welcome to Unchained. This week has been pretty brutal for the crypto market. Bitcoin has fallen about 12% in the past week, 22% in the past month, and 27% year-to-date. ETH's numbers are even worse, down 11% in a week, nearly 26% in a month, and 40% year-to-date.

The real news affecting prices this week seems to be MSTR selling 32 Bitcoins, amounting to only about $2.5 million, but the market seems to have lost some confidence as a result. We've not only seen the price of Bitcoin drop by nearly $10,000 in a few days, but the market has also begun to discuss the various instruments within MSTR's capital structure. What are your thoughts on all of this?

Mike Dudas:

Saylor and Strategy are actually doing two things simultaneously. The first thing, which you just mentioned and Jeff also discussed, is financializing Bitcoin and Bitcoin exposure. This is also the part analysts discuss most often, whether looking at what happened at Strategy this week or what happened this year.

But another thing is different from the financialization of Bitcoin, which is turning it into a meme asset. Saylor frequently releases various memes and tells the market in an almost religious way: Believe me, this is a savior-like asset, a chosen asset.

The problem is that these two things aren't entirely compatible. Holding both sets of logic in your mind simultaneously creates a significant sense of dissonance. The almost religious promise has always been: I will never sell this asset; I simply believe in it. So whether it's a few hundred or tens of thousands of Bitcoins being sold, the moment he starts selling, a pillar of the strategy story is removed. The market reacts very negatively to the breakdown of the "never sell" promise.

The next step will be crucial. Will they continue selling? If they do, it could alleviate some of the market's concerns about Strategy and STRC in the coming years, but that in itself would be a negative signal. Are they already doing that? The market may not be sure.

I feel that the religious fervor and faith in Strategy's story have been punctured, and I don't know how to put it back in the bottle. The market obviously doesn't like it either.

Host Laura Shin: If the price of Bitcoin continues to trade sideways or even falls further, what do you think MSTR should do to continue paying preferred stock dividends? Do you have any ideas?

Mike Dudas:

This is not a simple issue. Many people will disagree with me because they hold different assets issued by MicroStrategy, and their reasons will differ from mine. But in my view, the matter is very clear: you need the market to fully believe that it will always buy this asset. So when the price falls, they must find new ways to continue buying Bitcoin.

I think many observers had long anticipated this day would come sooner or later. It's just that it came sooner than anyone expected because they started leveraging and had to pay off so much cash flow; now it's time to repay the debt.

Why can't the ETH narrative be unified? Why does Dudas require zero configuration?

Host Laura Shin: Let's talk about Ethereum. It's currently in a period of self-reflection. The latest round of discussion was sparked by the departure of some senior members from the Ethereum Foundation. Vitalik then attempted to respond to criticism, essentially suggesting that the Foundation would scale down and become just one of many nodes.

We've also seen some long-time believers, like David Hoffman of Bankless, lose faith in ETH as an asset. Are you currently bullish or bearish on ETH or Ethereum? What's your perspective on what's happening in the ecosystem?

Mike Dudas:

David from Bankless wrote an excellent article discussing the asset ETH. ETH has ultimately become what many hoped it would be; it does possess some monetary attributes. But for some reason, the Foundation, and much of the writing surrounding Ethereum, doesn't really want to embrace this narrative.

They're telling more of a story about a "trustworthy, neutral layer ," talking about a multi-decade timescale and how it's being built. But if you look at the 100 large stakeholders in the Ethereum ecosystem, each one is telling a different story: What exactly is this asset? What is the long-term mission of this network?

So the answer is obvious. For the past five years, the market simply hasn't known how to price ETH's future. Therefore, ETH is not an asset held by our fund, nor do I personally hold it. We have zero allocation to it because I cannot tell you its story today, nor can I tell you what it will be three years from now.

I don't know who will ultimately win this tug-of-war between those who want ETH to become a monetary asset, embrace institutions, and protect trillions of dollars in value, and those who want Ethereum to become some kind of utopian world computer.

Host Laura Shin: If Ethereum wants 6MV to feel that they should hold ETH, what changes does it need to make to its token economic model, or some aspect of its entire architecture?

Mike Dudas:

We are now seeing financialized assets like HYPE that seem easier for the market to understand. They have a very clear, singular story, and the market knows what it's buying.

For an asset to attract a sufficient number of stakeholders, a consistent flow of funds, and enough confidence in its holders over the long term, it must have a clean, singular narrative. Ethereum has failed to do this in the past few years, and frankly, most other general-purpose L1 smart contracts have also failed.

Host Laura Shin: Solana is often compared to Ethereum. It's clearly had a tough year too. I know you're relatively more optimistic about Solana. Now Solana is also discussing changing its token economic model. What do you think about why it's falling and where it might go in the future?

Mike Dudas:

The reasons for Solana's poor performance are clearer. I believe the Solana Foundation and key stakeholders have done a better job than the Ethereum ecosystem in finding their North Star. They are more explicitly focused on REV, or Real Economic Value, which is the accumulated fees paid to token holders and stakers. Solana's problem is primarily a performance issue. On-chain activity and fees peaked around early 2025 and have been declining ever since, with Solana's price following suit.

Previous activity was primarily driven by Meme coin and other highly speculative on-chain activity. There were many different trends, a large influx of price-insensitive funds, and a significant number of retail investors willing to pay high fees. However, there hasn't been any other sustained economic activity to fill the gap left by the decline in Meme coin trading volume.

I believe there's still a significant chance of seeing new initiatives emerge in the future. Solana is embracing many different narratives, and its opportunities may be greater than other ecosystems, while also addressing areas where it was previously weaker. Perpetual contracts are a prime example, and Foundation and other key players are discussing them.

However, the market hasn't yet seen enough evidence to prove that the teams on Solana can actually execute these initiatives, nor has it demonstrated that Solana's L1 performance is sufficient to support them reaching near-centralized exchange levels. If these things happen, it might become an undervalued asset at some point. But for now, you need to see those promised activities start to materialize and actually take off.

Why is Hyperliquid more like Tether in DeFi than another L1 blockchain?

Host Laura Shin: Next, let's talk about another L1 cryptocurrency that has almost stolen all the attention this year, namely HYPE. It's basically one of the few crypto assets that has risen this year. But in the past week, we've also seen some news indicating that it will face fierce competition. Perpetual contracts are entering the compliant US market, with related news from Kalshi and Coinbase.

How do you think Hyperliquid should respond to this moment? It faces new competition while maintaining its KYC-free model. Do you think it can continue to maintain its dominant position?

Mike Dudas:

The no-KYC market is huge. So if you ask whether it can continue to grow, the answer seems obvious to me. As for the word "dominant," I'm not sure.

You can look at Binance. It's been the world's largest exchange to date, but it has never built a truly scalable business in the US. A platform can become very, very large even if it operates outside the US.

If Hyperliquid can eventually enter the US market through some form of KYC, that could represent potential upside that hasn't yet been priced in. However, those driving funds to HYPE today aren't assuming US users will be able to trade 50x leveraged perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid next year.

Host Laura Shin: So do you think it can handle the competition? Or do you think they are inherently different markets?

Mike Dudas:

My basic analogy is Tether to Circle, and this analogy can be very, very broad. Tron, as an L1 level, is also very valuable, even more valuable than many more high-profile L1 levels.

In the crypto space, the non-KYC or international market is already very large. So for me, the bigger question is: can Hyperliquid continue to add increasingly higher-quality assets to its platform? Much of its growth over the past six to nine months has come from this.

Could it be the next oil market? Could it become the home of the largest computing power market? Could it add more pre-IPO stocks? These assets have recently begun to take off.

So for me, HYPE's core issues are asset quality and liquidity. So far, they've consistently outperformed in these areas. Now they're also entering the outcomes market, moving into something like prediction markets. So they're expanding their market. The next thing to see is whether they can attract more people to build on it, develop a market-facing interface, and prevent the cost of attracting more liquidity and users from rising exponentially.

How exactly do ETH, SOL, and HYPE compete?

Host Laura Shin: We've talked about ETH, SOL, and HYPE. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether they are actually competitors. If so, how do you think this competition will unfold?

Mike Dudas:

They do indeed compete with each other. They compete for liquidity, for asset issuance, and for trading volume. There is no doubt about that.

However, Solana and Ethereum are more similar to each other, while Ethereum and Hyperliquid, and Solana and Hyperliquid, are less so. This is a strange competition. Solana and Ethereum both aspire to be general-purpose blockchains, with use cases far exceeding those of Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid focuses more on becoming the main platform for all financial activities.

Solana and Ethereum feature stablecoin issuance, payments, and various so-called Web3 functionalities. Therefore, their valuations largely derive from the activity of applications running on them. Hyperliquid, on the other hand, is more like a full-stack protocol; most transactions pass through its own front-end, and the value of the entire ecosystem is largely captured within the protocol itself.

So this is a complex issue. I think Solana and Ethereum would benefit more if they talked less about competing with Hyperliquid and instead emphasized their own superior features and why developers should build on their L1 stack, because they ultimately depend on developer activity.

Frankly, they're not just competing at the developer level. At the margin, both Solana and Ethereum need the next great application to emerge on top of them. And the potential range of such applications, I think, is much broader than that of Hyperliquid.

Hyperliquid certainly competes with them, but not in the traditional business strategy sense. It seems more like a very small, highly focused team, reportedly fewer than 20 people. They have their own roadmap, don't reveal too much beforehand, and then execute it consistently like a company.

Therefore, it's difficult to draw simple conclusions. They are primarily competing for liquidity, mindshare, where developers will build, and market attention; Solana and Ethereum are competing more directly with each other. But you'll increasingly find that this competition isn't entirely positive. For example, BlackRock might launch new tokenized funds on both Solana and Ethereum simultaneously. Ultimately, they begin to become substitutes for each other in terms of end-users, consumers, and who can provide liquidity . That's what everyone is truly fighting for.

Host Laura Shin: Ethereum is a bit like IBM; choosing to deploy projects on Ethereum almost eliminates concerns about accountability. However, it also faces numerous technical challenges, such as fundamental issues like block time and the overall development status of L2 solutions. All of this makes one wonder: where will Ethereum's future lead?

Solana may have some technical advantages, but it doesn't have Ethereum's long track record. Ethereum's 100% uptime is a metric that's virtually unbeatable. Ultimately, it's difficult to predict who will truly win.

Mike Dudas:

Finally, I'd like to add a point about Ethereum. Many things touted as Ethereum's advantages, such as TVL, are actually largely legacy advantages. These are assets accumulated from early profits made on Ethereum.

Of course, many people on Hyperliquid have made money today through airdrops, adding to positions, and providing liquidity. But if you look at the net increase rate over the past three or four years, Solana's rate of change is undoubtedly faster than Ethereum's.

Why is programmatic buyback superior to discretionary buyback?

Host Laura Shin: We're currently in a phase where blockchain technology is becoming increasingly widely used in practice, and many tokens are being phased out. I know you generally favor tokens with value capture mechanisms. Among these tokens, there are different value capture models. Which mechanisms do you prefer? Or which tokens do you think have successfully built and are operating this value capture structure?

Mike Dudas:

I think there are two most important points.

First, crypto assets are often viewed as protocols, so it's crucial that the value capture mechanism be programmatic. For example, Hyperliquid's value capture mechanism uses 97% of its fees to buy back tokens, and theoretically, it will also burn tokens in the long term. Programmatic execution is essential.

Second, communication must be consistent. This isn't just about the token mechanism; it's also about how you tell your story to the public. You must consistently and professionally explain your product roadmap, telling those who invest in your ecosystem, stakers, and those building around you: you value them; this isn't just about the team, but about a larger mission—we're doing this together.

Therefore , I like tokens whose leadership can tell a consistent story. These are the two things I value most.

Many will disagree with me, arguing that token buybacks should be at the discretion of the project team. But this confuses the market. We've seen projects initiate buybacks at their discretion, then stop or change their plans. I don't want to name specific projects.

This is an industry that inherently distrusts its builders. Historically, the crypto industry has seen a higher rate of fraud, abuse, arbitrage, and opaque practices than traditional business markets. Therefore, mechanisms with discretionary power will be valued lower by the market, while those without will be valued higher.

Regarding value capture, I'd like to add one last point: there must be a balance. If you're doing 100% buybacks, you also need to convince everyone that you're genuinely investing in the business's future growth.

So they later modified the buyback mechanism, changing it from discretionary to programmatic buybacks within the next year, and setting the buyback ratio at half of the protocol's revenue. This sends a credible signal: they are both buying back the protocol and continuing to invest in new products like the protocol and Pump Go, which were launched today.

What you want to see is that the protocol will continue to reinvest in the future. Because if it relies solely on the protocol and the foundation's discretion to sell tokens, things get very complicated. A similar situation has occurred on Ethereum: to raise funds for operations, the foundation continuously sold tokens at a discount on the secondary market. You might start asking, where does the funding actually come from?

I think Cardano has a similar problem. Charles is very wealthy, and many people in this ecosystem have accumulated wealth, but it seems like there's insufficient investment today. So I find it hard to accept tokens whose sole source of funding is pre-mining and distributing them to the protocol's operation. This leads to strange incentive problems and also to insufficient funding.

Host Laura Shin: Let's talk about the real-world perpetual contracts sector again. It's been very interesting this year. It started with oil perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid trading over the weekend based on events related to the Iran war. More recently, we've seen pre-IPO stocks being used for price discovery on Hyperliquid.

In my opinion, these are all bright spots in a larger trend. Where do you think this is headed?

Mike Dudas:

One of the major things we clearly need to do is bring interesting assets to the crypto market. By putting these assets on-chain, we can enable them to be traded 24/7, 365 days a year, while significantly reducing transaction costs. Of course, supporting KYC-free (no identity verification) is also an important aspect. It's crucial that people can trade in a decentralized manner without relying on centralized counterparties, regardless of their reasons for doing so.

Ultimately, the more high-quality assets we bring to the blockchain, the more the entire industry benefits. We now have ample evidence that people are willing to trade these assets around the clock and are willing to do so through self-custodied wallets.

Every ecosystem is paying attention to this. I know the Solana Foundation is very concerned, Hyperliquid is also concerned, and teams like TradeXYZ are working hard to promote the issuance of new assets, along with more robust oracles and pricing mechanisms, so that more people can trust these markets.

Even though we've seen trading volume and turnover in these markets today, they haven't yet become mainstream institutional trading platforms. If one day these markets truly become the primary choice for institutional investors, the size and influence of the entire industry will be enormous.

AI-powered transaction processing has a future, but payment agents will have to contend with Visa and Mastercard.

Host Laura Shin: We can see that crypto and AI will become a huge topic. In my opinion, proxies will ultimately conduct more transactions than humans. But where do you think the value from these activities will accumulate? At the protocol layer, the platform layer, or elsewhere?

Mike Dudas:

That's a good question. The trend suggests that exchanges will benefit. If L1 exchanges like Solana can generate more activity, and users are less price-sensitive and more willing to pay fees during that activity, then L1 exchanges will benefit. More trading volume leads to more fees. Hyperliquid's value capture model is very straightforward, and Solana will also benefit from fees.

If these agents' trading volume, frequency, and number of strategies all exceed those of humans, then that's certainly good for transaction fees. I believe that in the future, these L1 contracts will primarily be valued in this way.

Moving up another layer to the application layer, it's still unclear whether exchanges can create a differentiated value capture strategy. Past DEXs and similar products haven't necessarily captured a large proportion of value, so we're still observing whether significant value can be generated there.

However, it's already quite clear that the front end can capture value . If you can present the data well, in the Meme era, the front end could sometimes charge as much as 1% or even higher per transaction, which is a direction worth exploring.

The future form of front-ends will also change. In the trading field, I envision products resembling AI research labs, specifically designed to serve the financial markets and help individuals and institutions build highly complex, performance-based trades. These could help humans execute strategies that only top algorithmic traders can currently execute. If you can achieve this, it's essentially a UI layer built on top of a model, and you can charge me for helping it outperform the market.

Therefore, we focus on who truly reaches end users, institutions, or consumers, and whether it provides value beyond just a trading venue. Can it help me generate ideas? Can it help me obtain better liquidity or narrower spreads? That's the key.

My focus on agency and transaction services stems from my uncertainty about whether agency payments will be a particularly lucrative business. We frequently hear about agency finance, especially agency payments, but established giants like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are entering the field very rapidly and aggressively. New entrants will find it difficult to surpass their established customer base, trust, anti-fraud capabilities, compliance, and risk control algorithms. Therefore, the challenges on the payments and non-transactional, non-speculative side will be immense.

Host Laura Shin: At this moment when crypto is starting to become real and adopted by ordinary people, how has it changed crypto VCs? And how has it changed your own investment thinking?

Mike Dudas:

Several changes have recently occurred in the crypto VC field, and in fact, similar changes are happening throughout the entire VC industry.

First, the cost of starting a project has decreased. You can now create an MVP with fewer people because you can access the capabilities of developers worldwide through tools like Claude, Codex, or others. Even people with limited technical knowledge can quickly bring ideas to life.

This could lead to two possibilities: either the pre-seed stage shrinks, or the number of pre-seed projects increases significantly. In other words, there will be more early-stage projects, but it will be more difficult for VCs to filter out the noise and the good.

So as an early-stage investor, you'll be looking for traction and proof earlier: Can this person create something with users? Is there any naturally occurring economic activity at play?

At the same time, the ability to scale to massive scale has also increased. Crypto has always exhibited this idempotent characteristic. Pump.fun grew extremely fast, and OpenSea also grew extremely fast in the last cycle. The biggest struggle with crypto is whether these things can sustain themselves in the long term.

The application layer has gone through several cycles, and I think we're now in the third application layer cycle. But very few companies have truly survived multiple cycles and maintained a long-term presence; most are in DeFi, namely the DeFi leaders.

So for crypto VCs, you're essentially looking for sustainable behaviors, and you'll find these behaviors that look very similar to things that already exist in the real world, just made better by the blockchain platform. Examples include 24/7 trading, cheaper liquidity creation, and funding from anywhere. Of course, no KYC and universal accessibility are also important attributes for many projects.

We are currently in a period of tremendous change. The majority of global venture capital and private equity funding is flowing into AI-native companies. This isn't just true for crypto; any field that isn't purely AI is, to some extent, lacking both capital and talent.

You'll see many of the brightest minds moving into AI. Interestingly, many of the brightest crypto professionals are also venturing into other areas, and doing it very well. They entered crypto early, were very successful, have strong foresight, accumulated wealth, and created excellent products; now they're moving into related industries.

The same applies to venture capital (VCs). Many of Paradigm's recent publicly disclosed deals appear to be in areas outside of crypto, but adjacent to it. Many VCs are moving into sectors like electricity, energy, and computing power.

You'll see many people expanding their horizons while retaining their crypto roots and strengths. This trend will continue because the opportunities are enormous. Crypto VCs and builders have been at the forefront for the past 15 years, watching new market structures emerge and helping to create one of the fastest-growing new asset classes. These people are innovators themselves, and now they're taking that capability to a wider scale.

Huang Licheng lost $80 million in one year trading perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid.

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