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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

Validators and delegation

Practitioner

Validators run HyperBFT, ranked by stake; delegators choose them, pay commission, earn nothing while one is jailed and face no automatic slashing yet.

HYPE holders decide who runs consensus on Hyperliquid. The network supports only delegated proof of stake (“stake” and “delegate” mean the same in the docs). Safety needs more than 2/3 of stake honest, so the docs call delegating only to trusted validators an essential responsibility of every staker.

Say you delegate 10 HYPE, locked for 1 day, to a validator charging 0.5 per cent commission. The validator can later raise commission to 1 per cent but never to 2 per cent. If it is jailed, your 10 HYPE earns nothing until it unjails.

Getting into the active set

Section titled “Getting into the active set”

Running a node is permissionless. Validating takes a 10,000 HYPE self-delegation and a place in the top 27 by stake. Active validators produce blocks in proportion to total stake.

Below 10,000 HYPE of self-delegation, a validator enters undelegate-only mode. Existing delegations stay but nobody can add to them, so its stake can only fall.

The Foundation delegation programme

Section titled “The Foundation delegation programme”

The Hyper Foundation delegates to validators it judges reliable, for security and to spread stake. Applicants need 10,000 HYPE in one address, KYC or KYB and an eligible jurisdiction. Once accepted, they run at least 2 non-validator nodes at 95 per cent uptime on static IP addresses, published and used by others as seed nodes.

Testnet performance counts where mainnet history is missing. Foundation validators weigh programme participation when deciding which peers to trust.

Commission can only rise to 1 per cent or less

Section titled “Commission can only rise to 1 per cent or less”

Rewards are proportional to total delegated stake, less the validator’s commission. The cap stops a validator attracting stake cheaply and then raising commission sharply.

What validators decide besides blocks

Section titled “What validators decide besides blocks”
Decision How it is made Detail
Spot oracle prices for validator-operated perps each validator publishes every 3 s; the clearinghouse uses the stake-weighted median oracles
Delisting validator-operated perps validator vote delisting
Slashing a HIP-3 deployer stake-weighted vote; the amount is a stake-weighted median HIP-3
HIP-4 outcome templates validators vote templates in outcome templates
Quote asset status and slashing validator vote quote assets
Aligned quote asset rate stake-weighted median of validator-reported values quote assets
Growth mode eligibility of HIP-3 perps validator vote can disable it fees
Jailing a peer quorum of jail votes this page

The numbers

Section titled “The numbers”
Parameter Value
Active set top 27 by stake
Validator self-delegation 10,000 HYPE, locked 1 year
Below self-delegation minimum undelegate-only mode
Commission increase allowed only if the new rate is 1% or less
Delegation lockup 1 day per validator
Reward accrual and payment every minute; paid and compounded daily
Epoch 100,000 rounds, about 90 minutes on mainnet
Unstaking queue 7 days on mainnet
Delegation programme 10,000 HYPE; at least 2 non-validator nodes at 95% uptime
Automatic slashing none currently implemented

Choosing and watching your validator

Section titled “Choosing and watching your validator”
  • Spread your stake across any number of validators.
  • The docs don’t say how a validator slash would be shared among delegators.

Delegating from code

Section titled “Delegating from code”

Delegating is a user-signed action carrying the network name and signing chain id. wei is HYPE in units of 1e8, so the example delegates 10 HYPE:

{
  "type": "tokenDelegate",
  "hyperliquidChain": "Mainnet",
  "signatureChainId": "0xa4b1",
  "validator": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "isUndelegate": false,
  "wei": 1000000000,
  "nonce": 1735380381353
}
  • Info requests: delegations returns validator, amount and lockedUntilTimestamp per delegation; delegatorRewards separates source values delegation and commission. delegatorSummary and delegatorHistory complete the set (staking).
  • From a contract: CoreWriter action 3 delegates or undelegates (address validator, uint64 wei, bool isUndelegate); precompile 0x804 returns delegations as (validator, amount, lockedUntilTimestamp).
  • Monitor which validator holds a stake (jailing and reward risk) with 0x804 or delegations. Read 0x805 for the total staking balance, delegated or not.

Two slashings, and stake that can leave

Section titled “Two slashings, and stake that can leave”
  • Validator slashing and deployer slashing are different. Validator slashing, for malicious consensus behaviour, is not automatic. HIP-3 deployer slashing is a separate validator vote on a deployer’s bond, and the slashed HYPE is burned.
  • Foundation stake can leave. The Foundation can stop delegating at any time, so a validator relying on it can drop out of the top 27.
  • Validator ports stay closed. The programme rules say never to open them to the public; the non-validator nodes are the public face.

For what validators run, jailing included, see HyperBFT. For the nodes they must also operate, see Running a node.