Hyperliquid is one of the most important decentralized crypto exchanges in 2026, offering more than 100 perps and spot assets, TradFi assets, a maximum leverage of 40x-50x, and a CEX-like order book experience.
The exchange operates on its own L1 blockchain, envisioning a fully onchain open financial system.
Due to its high complexity, Hyperliquid is best suited for pro traders, active perps traders, on-chain-native users, and API/bot users.
Beginners and anyone who needs fiat ramps, or is uncomfortable with smart contracts and protocol risk, should avoid the platform.
This in-depth Hyperliquid review provides key takeaways about the Hyperliquid blockchain and the trading platform, how the Hyperliquid DEX works, details about spot and perps trading, order types, execution, funding rates, liquidations, risk controls, and fees.
You’ll also learn all about the Hyperliquid wallet, onboarding, account setup, exchange volume, TVL, market position, security, and key details about the HYPE token.
What is Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid is a high-performance perps DEX, built on its own custom L1 blockchain, designed for ultra-low latency, high throughput, and fully onchain order book trading.
After launching its initial protocol in 2022, the Hyperliquid DEX was fully launched in 2023. The team behind Hyperliquid originally started in 2020 as Chameleon Trading, a prop crypto market-making firm founded and led by Jeff Yan.
Key features of Hyperliquid DEX
The key features of Hyperliquid DEX include:
- Decentralization, lack of KYC requirements for users
- MEV-free trading for a safe ecosystem
- HIP-2 automated liquidity system
- HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider), a native vault for market-making and liquidation
- Multi-wallet support (including native and external wallets)
- Multiple high protection techniques and security measures to protect users
- Low fees for whales and high-volume traders
- Discounts for staked HYPE and rebates based on user tiers
- Fully onchain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB)
- Maximum leverage of up to 40x-50x
- Spot, perps, and TradFi assets trading
- HYPE native token
A DEX with CEX-like order book experience
Hyperliquid offers a CEX-like trading experience while being fully decentralized.
Most DEXs like Uniswap or PancakeSwap use AMMs and liquidity pools instead of real buyers and sellers, which leads to:
- Higher slippage
- Worse execution for large orders
- Less precise entries and exits
Hyperliquid uses a fully onchain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB), like Binance or Bybit, instead of AMMs, for DEX perps trading:
- Bid and ask order books
- Limit orders, market orders, stop loss, and take profit
- Depth charts
- Tight spreads
The benefits of a CLOB approach by Hyperliquid include the following:
- Precise execution
- Low slippage
- Advanced trading strategies
- Professional trading experience
- Superior price discovery
- High-transaction speeds, ideal for high-frequency trading
This is a hard achievement for DEXs because traditional blockchains are too slow, expensive, and high-latency, which means that they cannot support high-frequency matching, rapid order updates, and deep onchain order books.
Hyperliquid achieves its CEX-like performance due to:
- Its own L1 blockchain
- Optimizations for high throughput, low latency, and fast finality
- Matching engine running fully onchain
Hyperliquid blockchain
Hyperliquid is a performant L1 chain:
- Written and optimized from first principles
- Built with the vision of “a fully onchain open financial system”
Official Hyperliquid docs reveal that the target is a unified platform that aims to house all finance by combining liquidity, user apps and trading activity.
Hyperliquid state execution is split into the following 2 components:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| HyperCore (trading) |
|
| HyperEVM (smart contracts) |
|
How the Hyperliquid trading platform works
On Hyperliquid, you can perform spot and perps trading, using over 100 assets. You can trade crypto, including AI, DeFi, gaming, L1, L2 tokens, and memecoins.
You can also trade TradFi assets, including stocks, indices, commodities, FX, and Pre-IPO.
Spot trading
You can trade multiple assets on Spot against USDC, USDH, and USDT.
Perps trading
You can trade perpetual futures against USDC, USDH, and USDE with a maximum leverage of up to 40x for BTC/USDC and up to 50x for USDJPY/USDC.
TradFi trading
Hyperliquid allows you to trade TradFi assets, including:
- Stocks (TSLA, COIN, GOOGL, AMZN, and others) using leverage
- Indices (DEFENSE, ROBOT, ENERGY, NUCLEAR, BIOTECH and others) using leverage
- Commodities (SILVER, GOLD, OIL and more) using leverage
- FX (USDJPY and EUR) with 50x leverage
- Pre-IPO assets (OPENAI, SPACEX, ANTHROPIC) with 3x leverage
How collateral works
Collateral works as follows:
- For spot trading – You have to deposit USDC or other supported assets as collateral, which is used to settle spot trades; purchased assets are credited to your account and remain self-custodied.
- For perps trading – All positions are margin-based and collateralized using USDC or other assets; collateral dynamically adjusts based on unrealized PnL, margin requirements, and funding payments.
Basic trading flow
The basic trading flow works as follows for spot and perps:
| Spot Trading | Perpetuals Trading |
|---|---|
| Deposit USDC in your account | Deposit USDC as margin collateral |
| Place a market or limit order | Select trading pair and leverage |
| Orders are matched instantly via onchain order book | Open long or short position |
| Assets are credited directly to your account | Positions are continuously marked-to-market |
| Trades settle onchain with near-instant finality |
Order types and execution
Hyperliquid features the following order types:
| Order Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Market | Executes immediately at the current market price. |
| Limit | Executes at the selected limit price or better. |
| Stop Market | Market order triggered when the price reaches the selected trigger price. |
| Stop Limit | Limit order triggered when the price reaches the selected trigger price. |
| Take Market | Market order triggered when the price reaches the selected trigger price. |
| Take Limit | Limit order triggered when the price reaches the selected trigger price. |
| Scale | Multiple limit orders placed across a set price range. |
| TWAP | Large order split into smaller suborders, executed every 30 seconds with max 3% slippage. |
Hyperliquid funding rates explained
The funding rate on Hyperliquid is capped at 4%/hour, a less aggressive capping than CEXs.
Funding rates for crypto perpetual contracts are a P2P mechanism used to ensure the price of the contract stays close to the underlying asset’s price.
A funding rate is a periodic fee paid by one side of the contract (long/short) to the other side. The rate is calculated based on the difference between the contract’s price and the spot price of the underlying asset.
Interest rate component is 0.01% every 8 hours, or 11.6% APR paid to short, representing the difference in cost to borrow USD vs spot crypto.
The premium component fluctuates based on the difference between the perpetual contract’s price and the underlying spot oracle price:
- If the contract’s price is higher than the oracle price, the premium and funding rate will be positive, and the long position pays the short.
- If the contract’s price is lower than the spot price, the funding rate will be negative, and the short pays the long position.
The funding rate is paid every hour, and it’s added/subtracted from the balance of contract holders at the funding interval.
Liquidations and risk controls
A liquidation event occurs on Hyperliquid when a trader’s position moves against them to the point where the account equity falls below the maintenance margin.
The maintenance margin is between:
- 1.25% for 40x max leverage assets
- 16.7% for 3x max leverage assets
Positions are closed via market orders; if this fails and equity drops below 2/3 of the maintenance margin, a backstop liquidator takes over. To avoid this, use stop-loss orders or reduce leverage.
There is no clearance fee on liquidations, and the system prioritizes retaining as much capital aspossible for the liquidated user.
Hyperliquid liquidation map
CoinGlass provides a Hyperliquid liquidation map that you can use for risk awareness, not as a prediction tool.
For instance, for BTC, the map shows BTC’s current price, the red section shows BTC longs, cumulative long liquidation leverage, and the green section shows shorts and cumulative shorts liquidation leverage.
Hyperliquid fees review
On Hyperliquid, fees are based on the users’ 14-day volume and are assessed at the end of each day in UTC. Sub-account volume counts toward the master account, and all sub-accounts share the same fee tier.
How fee tiers are calculated
There are separate fee schedules for perps vs spot. To determine your fee tier, perps and spot volume are counted together, and spot volume will count as double your fee tier.
Hyperliquid spot and perps trading fees are based on tiers from 0 to 6 and are set according to a Base rate, diamond, platinum, gold, silver, bronze, and wood.
Spot trading fees
Spot trading fees for the Base tier are the following:
| Tier | 14-Day Weighted Volume ($) | Base Taker Fee | Base Maker Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $0 | 0.070% | 0.040% |
| 1 | > $5M | 0.060% | 0.030% |
| 2 | > $25M | 0.050% | 0.020% |
| 3 | > $100M | 0.040% | 0.010% |
| 4 | > $500M | 0.035% | 0.000% |
| 5 | > $2B | 0.030% | 0.000% |
| 6 | > $7B | 0.025% | 0.000% |
Perps trading fees
Perps trading fees for the Base tier are the following:
| Tier | 14-Day Weighted Volume ($) | Base Taker Fee | Base Maker Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $0 | 0.045% | 0.015% |
| 1 | > $5M | 0.040% | 0.012% |
| 2 | > $25M | 0.035% | 0.008% |
| 3 | > $100M | 0.030% | 0.004% |
| 4 | > $500M | 0.028% | 0.000% |
| 5 | > $2B | 0.026% | 0.000% |
| 6 | > $7B | 0.024% | 0.000% |
Fee discounts and staking tiers
When using a Hyperliquid referral code, new users on Hyperliquid benefit from a 4% discount in Hyperliquid fees for their first $25 million in trading volume.
Referees get a 10% discount on the referred users’ fees, except for any fee discounts they receive. The referral rewards apply to a user’s first $1 billion in trading volume.
Staking tiers
Staking tiers vary by HYPE staked, with trading fee discounts between 5% and 40%:
| Tier | HYPE Staked | Trading Fee Discount |
|---|---|---|
| Wood | > 10 | 5% |
| Bronze | > 100 | 10% |
| Silver | > 1,000 | 15% |
| Gold | > 10,000 | 20% |
| Platinum | > 100,000 | 30% |
| Diamond | > 500,000 | 40% |
Maker rebates
Maker rebates vary by 14-day weighted maker volume, according to three tiers:
| Tier | 14d Weighted Maker Volume | Maker Fee (Rebate) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | > 0.5% | -0.001% |
| 2 | > 1.5% | -0.002% |
| 3 | > 3.0% | -0.003% |
Other costs
Hyperlquid applies fees for initial activation of your account, to create a vault, withdrawals, and there are also bridging and gas fees.
| Cost Type | Fee / Condition | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard deposits | Free | No fee for depositing funds |
| Initial account activation | 1 USDC (one-time) | Charged on the first transaction of a new account |
| L1 withdrawals (external wallet) | 1 USDC (flat fee) | Covers Arbitrum validator gas costs |
| HLP vault deposits | Free | Subject to lock-up period |
| HLP vault withdrawals | 4-day lock-up | Funds cannot be withdrawn immediately |
| Vault creation | 100 USDC | Gas fee for creating a new vault |
| Bridging | Variable | Standard bridge + network fees apply |
| HyperEVM gas fees | Variable | Required for smart contract interactions |
Hyperliquid onboarding
To start using Hyperliquid, you have to follow these steps:
1. Use referral code NUMERIS
To get fee discounts, you can use the referral code NUMERIS during the onboarding process.
2. Connect to Hyperliquid
You can connect to the Hyperliquid DEX via email or wallets (Default Wallet, WalletConnect, OKX Wallet or Coinbase Wallet).
3. Deposit funds
You can deposit funds on Hyperliquid from Arbitrum or HyperEVM.
Common onboarding mistakes
The main Hyperliquid onboarding mistakes include the following:
- Not using a referral code for fee discounts
- Wrong network deposits
- Misunderstanding cross vr isolated
- Using high leverage from day one
Hyperliquid wallet tracker
You can check your portfolio on Hyperliquid to see your PnL, volume, max drawdown, total equity, spot and perps account equity, and balance for a period of time (24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or all time).
Hyperliquid’s portfolio section also shows you fees, your positions, open orders, TWAP, trade history, funding history, order history, interest, deposits, and withdrawals. You can filter your search based on all positions, active positions, longs, and shorts.
Hyperliquid volume, TVL, market position
You can check the Hyperliquid DEX volume, HYPE volume and liquidity, TVL, Perp volume, and other metrics on DeFi Llama, based on daily, weekly, monthly, and cumulative data.
DeFi Llama’s methodology explains key terms:
- TVL is the total value of coins held in the smart contracts of the protocol.
- DEX volume is the volume of all spot token swaps on the DEX.
- Perp volume is the notional volume of all trades, including leverage on the perp exchange.
You can also find out relevant data about fees (for Hyperliquid HLP, perps, spot orderbook), revenue for Hyperliquid perps and spot orderbook, holders’ revenue, incentives, and earnings.
You can check out a single metric on DeFi Llama’s chart or add more. Each metric will be shown on the chart with a different color scheme for visual distinction.
You can also see the cumulative value of various metrics from 2023 until the present day.
Hyperliquid leaderboard
Hyperliquid’s leaderboard allows you to track a specific wallet address to see its rank, trader, account value, PnL, ROI, and volume.
The exchange’s leaderboard excludes accounts with less than 100,000 USDC in value and less than 10 million USDC in trading volume.
Hyperliquid security review
The Hyperliquid exchange reveals official security audits in the Docs section. According to official data, the Hyperliquid bridge contract has been audited by Zellic in August and November 2023.
Protection techniques
Hyperliquid uses multiple protection techniques, including:
- Oracle prices used for funding computation, margining, and liquidations
- Robust price indices based on order book and external data to minimize the risk of market manipulation
- TWAPs, clamps, and others
Bug bounty programs
Hyperliquid had a bug bounty program to find bugs on both the mainnet and the testnet. The platform pays USDC rewards for responsible disclosure or bugs based on severity.
MEV-protection
Primev is piloting MEV-commit support for Hyperliquid, enabling experimental MEV infrastructure integration, according to developer documentation.
Hyperliquid developers section
Hyperliquid also has a developers section, including:
- API (notation, asset IDs, tick and size, API wallets, error responses, rate and user limits, activation gas fees, and more)
- HyperEVM (dual-block architecture, raw HyperEVM block data, HyperCore data, and more)
- Nodes (L1 data schemas, foundation non-validating node)
HYPE token
HYPE token was launched via airdrop in November 2024 and has the following use cases:
- Ecosystem governance and development
- Network security
- Staking
- Trading fees discounts
- Paying gas on HyperEVM
Tokenomics
HYPE has a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens. HYPE features a mechanism to create deflationary pressure via protocol revenue-driven buybacks and token burns.
Tokenomist data shows the HYPE token allocation as follows:
| Allocation Category | % of Total | Amount (HYPE) |
|---|---|---|
| Future Emissions & Community Rewards | 38.9% | 388,880,000 |
| Genesis Distribution | 31.0% | 310,000,000 |
| Core Contributors | 23.8% | 238,000,000 |
| Hyper Foundation Budget | 6.0% | 60,000,000 |
| Community Grants | 0.3% | 3,000,000 |
| HIP-2: Hyperliquidity | 0.0% | 120,000 |
The supply is released via a cliff-vesting schedule extending into 2028.
HYPE price today
You can check out the HYPE price and market cap today by visiting CoinGecko.
The website shows the average HYPE price for 24 hours, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, and maximum, and you can also check out TradingView data provided on CoinGecko for more accurate spot prices.
HYPE staking
HYPE staking on Hyperliquid happens with HyperCore. HYPE can be transferred between spot and staking accounts.
Key HYPE staking details include:
- HYPE can be staked to any number of validators.
- Each validator has a self-delegation requirement of 10,000 HYPE to become active.
- Self-delegation is locked for 1 year.
- When self-delegation for a validator drops below 10,000 HYPE, the validator enters undelegate-only mode.
- Transfers from a spot account to a staking account are instant, but vice versa require a 7-day unstaking queue.
Alternatives to Hyperliquid
An alternative to Hyperliquid is the Aster DEX, another perps exchange that offers up to 1001x leverage. It operates on the BNB Chain, Solana, Ethereum, and Arbitrum. While Aster offers significantly bigger leverage compared to Hyperliquid, this comes with higher liquidation risks.
You can also use a CEX like Bitget, Bybit, Binance, and others if you want fiat ramps, support, compliance, and simpler risk control.
Final verdict
Hyperliquid is a good choice, especially for professional traders who want to trade perps and use leverage up to 40x-50x in a safe environment. The exchange is best for traders who want to use a DEX, but also benefit from a CEX-like trading experience via CLOB.
With no KYC required during the onboarding process, Hyperliquid maintains the core idea of decentralization and mixes it with a CEX-like trading.
FAQ on Hyperliquid review
What is Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange that provides over 100 assets for spot and perps trading, TradFi assets, and up to 40x-50x leverage. It operates on its own native blockchain. Unlike other DEXs that use AMMs, Hyperliquid uses a fully onchain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) similar to CEXs.
Is Hyperliquid safe?
Hyperliquid is considered safe to use, and it was audited by Zellic in 2023. The exchange uses oracle prices, robust price indices, TWAPs (splitting orders into smaller trades executed over time to reduce market impact), clamps (price limits preventing extreme fluctuations and market manipulation), and others.
Does Hyperliquid require KYC?
Hyperliquid does not require KYC during the onboarding process.
What are Hyperliquid trading fees (maker/taker)?
Hyperliquid spot and perps trading fees are based on tiers from 0 to 6 and are set according to a Base rate, diamond, platinum, gold, silver, bronze, and wood.
Spot trading fees for the Base tier for a 14-day weighted volume below $5 million are 0.070% (taker) and 0.040% (maker), and perps trading for the same tier and volume are 0.045 (taker) and %0.015% (maker).
How do Hyperliquid funding rates work?
Funding rates for crypto perpetual contracts are a P2P mechanism used to ensure the price of the contract stays close to the underlying asset’s price. The funding rate on Hyperliquid is capped at 4%/hour, a less aggressive capping than CEXs.
Where can I see the Hyperliquid liquidation map?
You can see the Hyperliquid liquidation map on CoinGlass.
How does Hyperliquid staking work, and what is the unstaking period?
HYPE staking on Hyperliquid happens with HyperCore. HYPE can be transferred between spot and staking accounts. Transfers from a spot account to a staking account are instant, and transfers from a staking account to spot require a 7-day unstaking queue.
