The validator community of the Hyperliquid crypto exchange selected Native Markets as the developer and issuer of the USDH stablecoin.
The Native Markets team announced its victory in the competition for the right to issue the dollar-pegged USDH stablecoin from decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. According to Max Fiege, Founder of Native Markets, the first Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal (HIP) for USDH will be launched in the coming days, along with an ERC-20 version of the token on the Ethereum blockchain.
In the initial stage, the team plans to test issuance and redemption with transaction amounts capped at $800 for a limited group of users. The next step will be opening a USDH/USDC spot order book and moving to unrestricted operations.
The intense competition for the right to issue USDH, which drew the attention of the entire industry, officially concluded. The decisive turning point came after Ethena, an issuer of synthetic stablecoins, dropped out of the race. Following that, the probability of Native Markets’ victory on the Polymarket prediction platform exceeded 99%.
However, the results of the Hyperliquid validator vote sparked mixed reactions within the community. For example, Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, called the selection a “farce,” claiming that validators never seriously considered alternative candidates. On the other hand, some industry participants believe that the current “USDH ordeal” could ultimately benefit the market. According to Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius, the hype demonstrated that stablecoins are becoming a mass-market product, where the importance of a specific ticker diminishes. In his view, exchanges will eventually show users only a universal “USD,” while automatically converting between different stablecoins in the background.
The popularity of stablecoins continues to grow, making them one of the five key FinTech trends of 2025 .
