Hyperliquid’s policy center pushes the SEC on airdrops, buybacks and trading

The Hyperliquid Policy Center filed a comment letter with the SEC on Oct. 19, 2026, supporting the agency’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets but asking for five changes and clearer treatment of airdrops, token buybacks and secondary trading. HPC, led by crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky and launched in February with a donation of 1 million HYPE tokens then worth about $28 million, wants airdrops explicitly excluded from investment-contract treatment and the rule to state that connecting a wallet or passing a sanctions check is not payment. It also seeks clarity on resales and intermediaries and wants SEC buyback guidance codified. The SEC proposed the roughly 400-page rule on Aug. 18, 2026, its first crypto-specific notice-and-comment rulemaking, published Aug. 21 under docket S7-2026-27, with comments due Oct. 20.