a16z stopped.

VC's faith is not diamond hands—it's position management.
a16z has been accumulating HYPE. The largest institutional investor in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. The community interpretation is unanimous: a16z going long = Hyperliquid is safe = HYPE is a blue chip.
Then it stopped for a week. Then it started moving out. Not much, just over $5 million. The signal outweighs the amount.
VC's "long-term bullish" is not the same as what you understand. What you understand by long-term bullish: buy, hold, don't sell, wait for a tenfold increase. VC's long-term bullish: build positions gradually, evaluate periodically, add or reduce as needed. It might have invested $50 million in a project, reducing $5 million—to it, that's just normal rebalancing. To you, it's "running away."
The biggest cognitive trap for retail investors is treating institutional position management as a statement of faith. Institutions buy—"safe." Institutions sell—"it's over." In reality, institutions are never there to be your anchor of faith. They just operate according to their own risk control model. Your faith—is a label you pasted on yourself.
a16z is not saying Hyperliquid is bad. It just feels that now is the time to reduce positions. Or maybe it's just rebalancing. Or just risk control. The reason doesn't matter. What matters is—it won't tell you the reason. You only see the action. You have to guess the reason yourself.