Hyperps and index perpetuals

Hyperps and index perps let you trade a price no exchange spot market provides. Funding needs an index outside the perp, normally the oracle price. Two kinds of market lack one:

• An asset with no spot market yet. Hyperps use a smoothed history of the perp’s own price; the docs call usual pre-launch futures more susceptible to manipulation.
• An underlying that is a formula, such as a basket of NFT floor prices. Index perps have the validators compute and publish it.

Hyperps fund against their own average

A hyperp (Hyperliquid-only perp) trades like any perp, except that its oracle price is an 8-hour exponentially weighted moving average of the last day’s minute-by-minute mark prices, capped at 4 times the initial mark price:

oracle_price(t) = min[ sum_{i=0}^{1439} [ p_i * exp(-i/480) ] * (1 - exp(-1/480)) / (1 - exp(-3)),
                       initial_mark_price * 4 ]

p_i = initial_mark_price            if (t - i minutes) < t_list
      mark_price(t - i minutes)     otherwise

Each of the 1,440 one-minute samples (one day) is weighted by exp(-i/480), an 8-hour time constant; (1 - exp(-1/480)) / (1 - exp(-3)) makes the weights sum to exactly 1 (1,440 / 480 = 3). Minutes before the listing time t_list are padded with the initial mark price.

So 66.5 per cent of the oracle, (1 - e^-1) / (1 - e^-3), comes from the last 8 hours. Say a hyperp has traded at 1.00 since listing, then its mark jumps to 2.00 and stays: the oracle reads about 1.665 after 8 hours and 2.00 after 24.

• Mark price includes the weighted median of other exchanges’ pre-launch perp prices, for stability, though those contracts often differ in specification (caps in the table).
• Funding scales each premium sample to 1 per cent (funding).
• Conversion: shortly after the USDT pair lists for spot on Binance, OKX or Bybit, the hyperp becomes a normal perp on the usual oracle.

The docs credit the moving average with stability and manipulation resistance: moving the oracle means holding the mark away for hours, paying funding throughout.

Index perps track a published formula

An index perp works like a normal perp, except that validators periodically publish the formula’s value and their median replaces the spot oracle in funding. The docs define two:

Index perp	Underlying	Construction
NFTI-USD	blue-chip NFT collections	3-minute moving average of the aggregate floor price (below); floors from OpenSea and Blur, converted to USDT at the ETH-USDT spot oracle price
FRIEND-USD	friend.tech key prices; the first index perp listed	converted to USDT at the robust exchange median ETH/USDT mid price; basket redefined several times, each with a scale factor keeping the index continuous (0.00431 and 0.002469 are two documented factors)

Index = 3 minute ema of [ (BAYC floor / 10) + MAYC floor + Azuki floor + DeGods floor
                          + Pudgy Penguins floor + Milady Maker floor ] / 10000

A mainnet meta read on 28 September 2026 showed both with isDelisted: true, marginMode: "strictIsolated" and maximum leverage 3.

Index-style underlyings on HIP-3

On a HIP-3 dex the deployer publishes the oracle, so anyone can list an index. The docs warn most price indices are unsuitable as perp oracles, and a deployer is slashable for every market on its dex. A mainnet read in one research track found these live with open interest, all with cross margin off:

Market	Underlying
para:10Y	US 10-year Treasury yield, quoted as the yield in per cent
mkts:BVIV, xyz:VIX, xyz:VOL	volatility indices
para:BTCD	a dominance ratio

The numbers

Parameter	Value
Hyperp oracle	8-hour EMA of the last 1,440 one-minute mark prices
Decay	exp(-i/480), i in minutes
Oracle cap, formula	4 x initial mark price
Oracle cap, prose	4 x one-month average mark price
Mark cap	3 x the 8-hour mark price EMA
Mark cap with external pre-launch perps	1.5 x median external perp price
Funding premium sample	1% of the usual clamped interest and premium formula
Sampling	first block after each Unix minute, stamped on the minute
Conversion trigger	spot listing of the USDT pair on Binance, OKX or Bybit
Index perp oracle	median of validators’ published index values
NFTI-USD	3-minute EMA of aggregate floor / 10,000; BAYC floor divided by 10

Trading a hyperp or index perp

• Funding is the main hyperp risk. The oracle lags, so after strong momentum the docs warn funding will heavily reward the opposite direction for the next 8 hours.
• The reference changes at conversion, from the perp’s own average to external spot prices, and funding with it.
• The caps bound a squeeze: margin, liquidation and PnL all run on the capped mark (liquidation).
• Read an index perp’s formula first, including rebalances and scale factors.

Reproducing the oracle from code

• No documented meta field marks a hyperp or index perp; oraclePx is the moving average or the published index value.
• To reproduce a hyperp oracle, record markPx once a minute from listing. No documented info request returns historical mark prices, and trade candles are not mark prices.
• On HIP-3 the deployer publishes oracle and mark inputs with setOracle, within the timing and clamp limits in operating a perp dex.

Where the docs contradict themselves

• Two 4x caps: the formula uses 4 x the initial mark price, the prose 4 x the one-month average mark price. The docs do not say whether both apply or how they combine.
• Padding: the formula pads every pre-listing minute with the initial mark price; the prose pads when there are fewer than 480 samples. They agree for the first 8 hours after listing and differ from 8 to 24.
• Typo: the docs’ formula spells the cap term intial_mark_price, the same quantity as initial_mark_price in the padding rule.
• Delisted examples: both documented index perps are delisted (read above); the docs still describe the mechanism best.

For the funding formula, see Funding; for another perp without an exchange spot price, see AMM-priced perpetuals.