Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Worldcoin Outperform as AI and DeFi Narratives Drive Demand

While bitcoin and the broader crypto market lost momentum following an early-week rebound, a select group of tokens continued to post strong gains.

Bitcoin hovered around $65,800 on Tuesday as the wider market cooled, but assets such as Hyperliquid’s HYPE, Uniswap’s UNI, and Worldcoin’s WLD extended their rallies, emerging as standout performers for the week.

HYPE climbed as much as 13% to a new all-time high above $76 before trimming some of its gains. The token is now up करीब 200% in 2026, ranking among the top-performing large-cap cryptocurrencies this year.

Hyperliquid runs a blockchain-based exchange that enables users to trade perpetual futures via an on-chain order book. The platform is increasingly viewed by investors as a potential rival to traditional exchanges, with plans that could extend into tokenized equities, commodities, and other asset classes.

Market participants have also pointed to Hyperliquid’s growing ties with Coinbase, particularly after adopting Circle’s USDC as its primary trading pair. Under this setup, a portion of the yield generated from U.S. Treasury reserves backing USDC is allocated toward purchasing HYPE tokens.

Meanwhile, Worldcoin’s WLD rose 12%, bringing its monthly gains to roughly 180%.

The project, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is widely seen as one of the crypto market’s clearest plays on artificial intelligence. Its recent performance has been supported by renewed enthusiasm for AI-related investments, following the strong debut of SpaceX — which also owns AI firm xAI — and increasing speculation that OpenAI could eventually go public.

Uniswap’s UNI token also jumped 18% after Standard Chartered initiated coverage with a notably bullish long-term outlook.

Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital asset research, suggested that decentralized finance (DeFi) could become one of the sector’s most significant growth drivers as traditional assets such as stocks and bonds move onchain.

In its report, the bank estimated that assets actively utilized within DeFi could expand by as much as 37 times by the end of the decade, positioning Uniswap — the leading decentralized exchange — as a major beneficiary.

Standard Chartered set a $100 price target for UNI by 2030, implying roughly 30x upside from current levels.