Sonnet BioTherapeutics Pivots Into Crypto With $888M Hyperliquid Treasury Strategy

On Monday, Sonnet announced it had entered into a business combination with Rorschach, a company it recently created, to spearhead its new crypto-focused strategy. This move will see Sonnet transform into Hyperliquid Strategies Inc. (HSI), positioning it as the largest publicly traded U.S. company to hold HYPE tokens on its balance sheet.

HSI intends to acquire 12.6 million HYPE tokens, worth approximately $583 million at the time of the agreement. Alongside this, it will hold $305 million in cash reserves, bringing the total value of the entity to $888 million. The company also hinted that part of its cash reserves will be used to purchase additional HYPE tokens going forward.

Hyperliquid, the token at the centre of this pivot, powers a high-throughput layer-1 blockchain designed for onchain trading of perpetual futures and other advanced financial instruments. According to CoinGecko, Hyperliquid currently ranks as the 12th-largest token globally, boasting a market capitalization of $16.2 billion.

By creating HSI, Sonnet offers traditional equity investors indirect exposure to HYPE, bridging the gap between conventional finance and emerging blockchain technologies. This strategy mirrors the approach of Strategy, the business intelligence firm that famously pivoted into Bitcoin investments, giving stock market investors exposure to crypto without direct token purchases.

The initiative is backed by heavyweight institutional investors including Atlas Merchant Capital, Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, D1 Capital, Republic Digital, and 683 Capital. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang described Hyperliquid as a crypto project with robust fundamentals, noting growing institutional appetite for HYPE exposure despite its limited accessibility in the U.S.

Similarly, Eyenovia, Inc., a Nasdaq-listed ophthalmic technology company, announced a significant $50 million investment in Hyperliquid’s native cryptocurrency, HYPE. 

While Sonnet undergoes this significant transformation, it will continue operating its clinical oncology portfolio under HSI’s corporate umbrella.