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LearnStart here4 pages
How these docs workFoundationHow the site is organised by what you came to do, how every page runs from first principles to engineering detail, and where every fact comes from.Hyperliquid in five minutesFoundationHyperliquid is a set of financial primitives and protocols that combine into one financial system. Build a financial system from nothing, and each Hyperliquid protocol takes its place in it.The house of finance, layer by layerFoundationHyperliquid drawn as a house: one consensus, two engines joined by two bridges, an accounts layer, six financial pillars, a distribution layer that pays others to build, and Hyperliquid itself on top.Traditional finance, pillar by pillarFoundationEvery part of Hyperliquid has a traditional finance counterpart, and each analogy breaks in a specific place that shows what is actually new.
LearnFirst principles5 pages
Why Hyperliquid runs on its own chainFoundationHyperliquid built its own chain so that order books, margin and matching run fully on chain, in one consensus order, fast enough to trade on and with no off-chain book.One chain, two execution environmentsFoundationHyperCore holds the markets as native state and the HyperEVM runs contracts; one HyperBFT consensus orders both, joined by precompiles and CoreWriter.What an on-chain order book actually meansFoundationEvery order, cancel and fill is a transaction ordered by consensus and executed by every node, so the book is public chain state, not a private database.Ordering, finality and fairnessPractitionerHyperBFT gives every honest node one ordered list of committed rounds, a committed block is final, and each block runs cancels before GTC and IOC orders.HYPE: what the token doesFoundationHYPE pays HyperEVM gas, secures consensus, discounts fees, bonds deployers, backs borrowing, and is what the Assistance Fund converts fees into and burns.
LearnConsensus and validators4 pages
HyperBFTPractitionerHyperBFT is Hyperliquid's HotStuff-derived proof-of-stake consensus: stake-weighted validators commit rounds that every honest node executes in the same order.Validators and delegationPractitionerValidators run HyperBFT, ranked by stake; delegators choose them, pay commission, earn nothing while one is jailed and face no automatic slashing yet.Staking HYPE, rewards and the unstaking queueFoundationStaked HYPE is delegated to validators for compounding rewards and fee discounts; getting it back to spot takes a 7-day queue on mainnet.Running a nodeExpertA non-validating node follows consensus and writes every committed transaction, fill, order status, book change and HyperEVM block to local disk.
LearnHyperCore8 pages
HyperCore overviewFoundationHyperCore is where Hyperliquid's order books, margin, clearing and settlement run as native protocol state, applied by every validator in one order.The clearinghouse: one margin enginePractitionerHyperCore's clearinghouse holds balances and positions and checks margin on every trade; in standard mode each perp dex has its own balance and cross margin.The order book and matchingPractitionerEach HyperCore asset has one on-chain book matched in price-time priority, with cancels and post-only orders sequenced ahead of orders that take liquidity.Oracles, mark prices and robust price indicesPractitionerValidators publish perp oracle prices every 3 seconds; the mark price used for margin and liquidation is a median that no single book or venue can move.Quote assets: USDC, USDH, aligned and permissionlessPractitionerAny token can become a HyperCore quote asset if its issuer stakes 200k HYPE against a peg and liquidity standard; aligned issuers also share reserve yield.Vaults: HLP, protocol vaults, user vaultsFoundationA vault pools depositors' USDC into one HyperCore account run by one strategy; HLP is the protocol vault that makes markets and performs liquidations.Multi-sig accountsPractitionerHyperCore can make any account a native k-of-n multi-sig with no smart contract, but CoreWriter stops working for it and its HyperEVM side keeps the old key.API servers and how state reaches youPractitionerAPI servers follow a node, keep a local copy of HyperCore state, answer reads from it, and reply to a transaction only once it executes in a committed block.
LearnResearch5 pages
What one HyperEVM transaction can and cannot doExpertOne HyperEVM transaction can read HyperCore and emit a perp order and an outcome operation, but it only enqueues them, so the legs are not atomic.Options on the borrow rateExpertA research track priced the HyperCore USDC borrow rate with HIP-4 scalar bands, listed them on somebody else's perp, and found owning the perp does not pay.Composable creditExpertA research track tokenised HyperCore lending positions as HyperEVM ERC20s, proved a contract can supply on testnet, and found the vault must be a queue, not a wrapper.Collateral underwritingExpertA research track found the protocol refuses a deployer stake posted by somebody else, and rebuilt underwriting as two-of-two co-custody of the deployer's own bond.Where the chain and the docs disagreeExpertEvery place where measured behaviour on Hyperliquid contradicts the official docs: what the docs say, what was measured, the sample and the covering page.
LearnFor the press4 pages
Start here: press and analystsFoundationFor people writing about Hyperliquid: what it is, how to measure and name it correctly, and the stories behind the numbers.Measuring Hyperliquid: volume, open interest, usersFoundationPublic Hyperliquid figures disagree mostly because each counts the same fills differently; a number means something only with its rows and units.Common misconceptionsFoundationTwelve common claims about Hyperliquid that the official docs or on-chain measurement contradict, each with what is true and where it is explained.Naming and style guideFoundationWrite HyperCore, HyperEVM, HyperBFT, CoreWriter and HIP-1 to HIP-4 exactly, never shorten HyperCore to one word, and do not cite a HIP-5, because none exists.
LearnWhat Hyperliquid is and how it works
Start here
First principles
Consensus and validators
HyperCore
Research
For the press
TradeMarkets, margin and risk
Start here
Trading fundamentals
Perpetuals
Spot
Outcome markets
Accounts and credit
Advanced trading
Incentives
BuildApps, bots and contracts
Start here
Build on HyperCore
Build on the HyperEVM
DeployLaunch and run markets
Start here
The HIPs
Deploy markets
ReferenceEvery number, action and term
Look up
Protocol tables

Staking HYPE, rewards and the unstaking queue

Foundation

Staked HYPE is delegated to validators for compounding rewards and fee discounts; getting it back to spot takes a 7-day queue on mainnet.

Staking puts your HYPE behind a validator, and HyperBFT weights blocks and safety by that stake. The unstaking queue keeps stake from leaving before a large-scale attack can be penalised, by slashing or social-layer mechanisms, as on most proof-of-stake chains.

Say you stake 100 HYPE:

  1. Move it from spot to staking: instant.
  2. Delegate it: locked to that validator for 1 day, then earning about 2.37 HYPE a year at 400M HYPE staked network-wide.
  3. Undelegate: instant, back to the staking balance.
  4. Withdraw at 08:00:00 UTC on 11 March: it reaches spot at 08:00:01 UTC on 18 March.

Getting in is instant, getting out takes 7 days

Section titled “Getting in is instant, getting out takes 7 days”
Spot balance tradable HYPE Staking balance undelegated Delegated to validators earns rewards transfer, instant delegate, 1-day lock undelegate, instant withdraw, 7-day queue
Getting out is two actions: undelegate, then a withdrawal that waits 7 days on mainnet.

HYPE on the HyperEVM must reach your HyperCore spot balance first. The Hyperliquid app and third-party sites listed in the docs submit the same actions.

Only the withdrawal starts the clock, and nothing speeds it up. Measured on mainnet: 18:27:14 UTC to 18:27:15 UTC 7 days later. If one seems to take over 7 days, the support page first checks that it was ever sent.

Rewards fall as more HYPE is staked

Section titled “Rewards fall as more HYPE is staked”

Rewards come from the future emissions reserve and, following Ethereum’s approach, fall with the square root of total stake.

reward rate is proportional to 1 / sqrt(total HYPE staked)
docs example: about 2.37% per year at 400M HYPE staked
implied: rate(S) ≈ 2.37% * sqrt(400M / S)

Rewards are paid daily and redelegated to the same validator, so they compound. Each epoch pays on your lowest staked balance in it, so stake added mid-epoch earns from the next one. Your validator’s commission comes first, and a jailed validator pays its delegators nothing.

Staking lowers your trading fees

Section titled “Staking lowers your trading fees”

Staked HYPE lowers trading fees on every market at every volume tier (tiers below). To count one address’s stake towards another’s trading fees, the trading address sends a link action and the staking address finalises it. Linking is permanent, and the staking address loses its own discount.

The numbers

Section titled “The numbers”
Parameter Value
Spot to staking transfer instant
Delegation lockup 1 day per validator
Undelegation instant, back to the staking balance
Staking to spot withdrawal 7 days on mainnet, finalising 1 s after the 7-day mark
Pending withdrawals per address at most 5
Reward rate about 2.37% a year at 400M HYPE staked; proportional to 1 / sqrt(total staked)
Reward accrual every minute; paid and compounded daily
Reward basis minimum balance in each epoch of 100,000 rounds, about 90 minutes
Validator commission increase only to 1% or less
Fee discount 5% (over 10 HYPE) to 40% (over 500,000 HYPE)
HYPE units in actions 1e8 wei per HYPE
Tier HYPE staked Fee discount
Wood more than 10 5%
Bronze more than 100 10%
Silver more than 1,000 15%
Gold more than 10,000 20%
Platinum more than 100,000 30%
Diamond more than 500,000 40%

Planning around the queue

Section titled “Planning around the queue”
  • Staked HYPE is not trading collateral: portfolio margin and borrowing use spot HYPE.
  • Order priority fees come from your undelegated staking balance: keep some HYPE there if you use them.
  • Plan exits at least 7 days ahead.

Staking from code

Section titled “Staking from code”

Three exchange actions cover the cycle, each carrying hyperliquidChain and signatureChainId like other user-signed actions:

Action Moves Key field
cDeposit spot to staking wei
tokenDelegate staking to a validator, or back with isUndelegate: true validator, isUndelegate, wei
cWithdraw staking to spot, through the 7-day queue wei

Amounts are HYPE wei at 1e8 per HYPE. The delegatorSummary info request returns one address’s state:

{
  "delegated": "12060.16529862",
  "undelegated": "0.0",
  "totalPendingWithdrawal": "0.0",
  "nPendingWithdrawals": 0
}
  • delegations, delegatorHistory and delegatorRewards give per-validator positions, event history and reward payments.
  • From a contract: CoreWriter actions 4 (staking deposit), 3 (delegate) and 5 (staking withdraw); precompiles 0x804 and 0x805 read delegations and the summary.
  • Measured on testnet, an API wallet cannot withdraw its master’s stake. An agent-signed cWithdraw was refused with “Must deposit before performing actions”, naming the agent’s address, and the master’s stake was unchanged.

Testnet queues and other traps

Section titled “Testnet queues and other traps”
  • Deployer bonds count the whole staking balance, delegated or not (measured). A staking link cannot lend a deployer stake: activation is refused with Deployer cannot have staking link.
  • HIP-3 bonds stay slashable during the 7-day queue.

For choosing a validator, see Validators and delegation; for stake as a bond, see Deployer economics and risk.