Valantis, a decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol, has acquired Staked Hype (stHYPE), the second-largest liquid staking token (LST) on Hyperliquid. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. stHYPE, which launched as the first LST on HyperEVM, currently holds about $180 million in total value locked (TVL), according to the stHYPE website. Following the deal, stHYPE’s operations, development, and scaling will be managed by Valantis Labs. Addison Spiegel, founder of Thunderhead, the team behind stHYPE, will serve as an advisor to Valantis. Liquid staking has become a central pillar within Hyperliquid’s ecosystem. According to DeFiLlama, liquid staking accounts for more than half of Hyperliquid L1’s $2.26 billion in DeFi TVL The acquisition builds on Valantis’ earlier launch of LST-specific DEX pools for both stHYPE and hHYPE, which together have attracted nearly $70 million in TVL and processed more than $500 million in trading volume. Valantis said in a press release it plans to expand stHYPE’s integrations with its DEX and HyperCore, with the goal of establishing a broader liquidity network for Hyperliquid. HyperEVM, which went live in February, has grown to more than $2 billion in TVL across nearly 100 protocols. Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.