Free · Independent · Not financial advice
Editorial policyNative Markets issues USDH, a U.S. dollar–pegged stablecoin that functions as the native quote asset for the Hyperliquid decentralized perpetuals exchange. USDH captures yield from its reserve assets within the Hyperliquid ecosystem and seeks to reduce reliance on bridged stablecoins like USDC.
Quick answer
Native Markets issues USDH, a U.S. dollar–pegged stablecoin that functions as the native quote asset for the Hyperliquid decentralized perpetuals exchange. USDH captures yield from its reserve assets within the Hyperliquid ecosystem and seeks to reduce reliance on bridged stablecoins like USDC.
Native Markets is a U.S.-based decentralized finance company that developed USDH, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. USDH operates as the native stablecoin for Hyperliquid's decentralized perpetuals exchange and was created to internalize yield from stablecoin reserves inside the Hyperliquid ecosystem while lowering dependence on externally issued, bridged stablecoins such as USDC.
Native Markets was founded to issue and manage USDH, Hyperliquid’s native stablecoin. The initiative centers on establishing an "Aligned Quote Asset" (AQA) for the exchange, a structure that contractually allocates part of the stablecoin's revenue to Hyperliquid. The design intends to form a self-reinforcing financial loop in which the stablecoin's expansion helps increase ecosystem value, chiefly by enabling buybacks of Hyperliquid's HYPE token.
Hyperliquid's community and validators selected Native Markets for its explicit "Hyperliquid-first" strategy. That approach prioritized direct issuance on Hyperliquid's Layer 1 (HyperEVM) to minimize cross-chain friction, favored on-chain, enforceable yield-sharing over trust-based arrangements, and proposed an issuer-agnostic system to improve platform sovereignty. By converting Hyperliquid's existing stablecoin deposits to USDH, the project sought to capture revenue that would otherwise accrue to outside issuers. Projections from September 2025 estimated that migrating the existing 200 million in annual revenue for the ecosystem.
The USDH Issuer Competition
In early 2025, Hyperliquid issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to choose an issuer for a native stablecoin to be designated USDH. Native Markets, a newly created entity, entered the contest alongside established digital-asset firms including Paxos, BitGo, Ethena, Frax, Agora, Sky, and Bastion.
Hyperliquid's validators steered the selection, emphasizing preferences for native issuance on Hyperliquid's network, transparent and contractually enforceable revenue-sharing, and an architecture that avoided reliance on a single institutional issuer.
Selection and Vote
The selection process unfolded over several days in September 2025. On September 9, bidders presented their proposals at a multi-hour community roundtable. Native Markets rapidly gained prominence, securing public backing from validators such as Infinite Field, CMI Trading, and the largest validator, "Nansen x HypurrCollective." Prediction markets on Polymarket reflected this momentum, assigning Native Markets better than 90% odds of prevailing by mid-September.
USDH is a centralized, fiat-backed stablecoin engineered to maintain a 1:1 peg with the U.S. dollar. It is issued by Bridge Building, Inc. ("Bridge, a Stripe company") and serves as Hyperliquid's native quote and settlement currency.
Reserve Mechanism
USDH is fully collateralized via a mixed portfolio of off-chain and on-chain assets.
The project provides transparency through blockchain oracles and planned its inaugural monthly third-party reserve attestation for November 2025.
Issuance, Redemption, and Compliance
USDH's economic design is tightly connected to the Hyperliquid exchange via mechanisms intended to share revenue and drive adoption.
Aligned Quote Asset (AQA) Protocol
Under Hyperliquid's AQA framework, Native Markets programmatically directs 50% of USDH's gross revenue to the Hyperliquid Assistance Fund (AF). The Assistance Fund then deploys those funds to repurchase Hyperliquid's native token, HYPE, on the open market, creating deflationary pressure and returning value to the ecosystem. Native Markets retains the remaining 50% of revenue to support USDH's expansion and integration.
Trader Incentives
Hyperliquid provides multiple incentives to encourage traders to use USDH as the quote currency in its markets:
Native Markets' official site characterizes the team as "alumni of Uniswap, BlackRock, Stripe, Circle, and Ramp" without listing individual names, while reporting by crypto-focused media outlets has named several principal contributors.
FAQ
The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act advanced from Senate Banking 15–9 in May but has no floor date as June ends. DeFi developers still lack statutory SEC/CFTC boundaries — here's where negotiations stand.
BitMine, SharpLink, and other corporate ETH holders are funding Ethlabs while expanding balance-sheet Ether positions — signalling institutional conviction in Ethereum as settlement infrastructure.
Lido and Rocket Pool are the two most significant decentralised ETH liquid staking protocols. Both let you stake ETH without running a validator, but they differ in decentralisation, token liquidity, yield, and risk profile. Here is the definitive 2026 comparison.