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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

Traditional finance, pillar by pillar

Foundation

Every part of Hyperliquid has a traditional finance counterpart, and each analogy breaks in a specific place that shows what is actually new.

If you know markets but not crypto, you already know most of Hyperliquid under other names. Four crypto terms are all you need before the map.

Four ideas to hold first

Section titled “Four ideas to hold first”
  • Wallet: an account with a public address. Its private key, or the recovery phrase behind it, signs every instruction, and whoever holds it controls the funds.
  • Blockchain: a shared ledger. Hyperliquid’s validators order every transaction with HyperBFT, and a committed block is final.
  • USDC: a dollar stablecoin minted natively on Hyperliquid through Circle’s CCTP; the main collateral and quote currency.
  • Gas: a fee for using the chain. Trading on HyperCore pays none; contracts on the HyperEVM, the general-purpose layer, pay it in HYPE.

Hyperliquid, mapped to traditional finance

Section titled “Hyperliquid, mapped to traditional finance”
Hyperliquid What it does Nearest traditional equivalent
HyperCore Matches orders, holds margin, settles trades Exchange, clearing house and settlement system in one
Spot (HIP-1, HIP-2) Tokens traded against quote assets such as USDC Currency and listed cash markets
Perps (validator-operated and HIP-3) Leveraged contracts on a price, with no expiry Futures and swaps
Outcome markets (HIP-4) Fully collateralised contracts paying between 0 and 1 on an event Options and insurance
Lending Supply stablecoins to earn; borrow against HYPE or BTC Money markets
Vaults (HLP, user vaults) Pooled capital trading as one account Funds
Staking (HYPE) Stake that secures validators and bonds market deployers Regulatory capital
Builder codes and referrals Fees paid to apps and referrers on each fill Distribution: broker commissions and introducer fees
HyperEVM General-purpose contracts on the same ledger as the exchange No direct equivalent

Where each mapping breaks

Section titled “Where each mapping breaks”
  • HyperCore: no clearing members or mutualised default fund. Liquidation escalates from market orders on the public book (below maintenance margin) to a liquidator vault inside HLP (below two thirds of it) to auto-deleveraging of the most profitable opposing positions at the previous mark price. A user with no open positions never shares a loss.
  • Spot: no listing committee. The gas auction winner creates a token and its USDC book, which HIP-2 can quote with no operator. The standard fixes only name, decimals, supply and genesis balances; what a token represents rests on its deployer.
  • Perps: no expiry, roll or delivery. Hourly funding, which pulls the price towards the oracle, passes directly between longs and shorts with no fee taken, and under HIP-3 a staked builder may run the market.
  • Outcome markets: binaries pay 1 or 0; scalars pay by where a price lands between two bounds. 1 USDC splits into 1 Yes and 1 No, and settlement pays Yes the settled fraction and No the rest: no writer, leverage, margin call, liquidation, underwriter or claim. The deployer, or the protocol for its own recurring markets, settles; holders are paid automatically.
  • Lending: every loan floats on a utilisation formula, not a negotiated or policy rate: 5 per cent a year until 80 per cent of supply is borrowed, 52.5 per cent at 90, and 100 per cent at full utilisation. HyperCore lending is not tokenised: a lender holds a balance it cannot sell or pledge.
  • Vaults: HLP makes markets, liquidates, supplies USDC to lending and takes a share of trading fees, charging no fee or profit share. With no administrator, custodian or valuation agent, a vault’s positions are public, and a withdrawal can force it to close positions, 20 per cent at a time, when margin runs short.
  • Staking: no regulator sets or audits it, the balance is public, and stakers earn a protocol reward. Slashed HIP-3 stake (by stake-weighted validator vote) is burned, not paid to users harmed; on testnet, an outcome deployer using another account’s linked stake was refused with Deployer cannot have staking link.
  • Builder codes: the protocol enforces a per-order builder fee up to a maximum the user approves in advance and can revoke at any time. It applies only to fees in the quote or collateral asset, never the buying side of a spot trade.
  • HyperEVM: no direct equivalent. A contract can read prices straight from HyperCore books and liquidate a borrower by sending orders to them, though not atomically (one transaction).

The numbers

Section titled “The numbers”
Parameter Value
HIP-1 token deployment 31-hour Dutch auction for gas, floor 500 HYPE
Perp funding paid every hour; interest component 0.01% every 8 hours, paid to shorts
Perp maximum leverage, validator-operated 3x to 40x, by asset
Outcome price grid 0.00001 to 0.99999 in steps of 0.00001
Stablecoin borrow rate 0.05 + 4.75 * max(0, u - 0.8) per year, u = utilisation
Share of interest kept by the protocol 10%, as a liquidation buffer
Borrow limit (loan to value) HYPE 0.65, BTC 0.5
HLP deposit lock-up 4 days
User vault leader takes 10% of profits, must keep at least 5% of the vault; 1-day lock-up
Validator self-delegation 10,000 HYPE, locked 1 year
HIP-3 and HIP-4 deployer stake 500,000 HYPE, at least 183 days
Unstaking queue 7 days
Staking reward about 2.37% a year at 400M HYPE staked; falls as more is staked
Builder fee cap 0.1% on perps, 1% on spot
Referral referrer earns 10% of fees for a user’s first $1B of volume; user gets 4% off for the first $25M

For the whole system on one page, see Hyperliquid in five minutes. For how these parts sit on one another, see The house of finance, layer by layer, and for any term, the Glossary.