While bitcoin and the broader crypto market paused after an early-week rebound, a select group of tokens continued to rally.
Bitcoin hovered near $65,800 on Tuesday as overall momentum cooled, but Hyperliquid’s HYPE, Uniswap’s UNI, and Worldcoin’s WLD extended their gains, standing out as this week’s top performers.
HYPE jumped as much as 13% to a new all-time high above $76 before easing slightly. The token is now up nearly 200% in 2026, making it one of the best-performing large-cap crypto assets this year.
Hyperliquid operates a blockchain-based exchange that allows users to trade perpetual futures via an on-chain order book. The platform is increasingly being viewed as a potential competitor to traditional exchanges, with ambitions to expand into tokenized stocks, commodities, and other real-world assets.
Investors have also pointed to Hyperliquid’s deepening relationship with Coinbase, particularly after adopting Circle’s USDC as its main trading pair. Under this model, a portion of the yield generated from U.S. Treasury reserves backing USDC is used to buy HYPE tokens.
Worldcoin’s WLD rose 12%, extending its monthly gains to around 180%.
The project, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is widely seen as a proxy for artificial intelligence exposure within crypto. Its recent rally has been fueled by renewed enthusiasm for AI investments, following the strong debut of SpaceX — which also owns AI firm xAI — and growing speculation that OpenAI could eventually go public.
Meanwhile, Uniswap’s UNI surged 18% after Standard Chartered initiated coverage with a strongly bullish long-term outlook.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital asset research, said decentralized finance (DeFi) could emerge as one of crypto’s most significant growth drivers as traditional assets like stocks and bonds migrate onchain.
The bank estimates that assets actively used in DeFi could expand by as much as 37 times by the end of the decade, positioning Uniswap — the largest decentralized exchange — as a key beneficiary.
Standard Chartered set a $100 price target for UNI by 2030, implying roughly 30x upside from current levels.
