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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

Start here: press and analysts

Foundation

For people writing about Hyperliquid: what it is, how to measure and name it correctly, and the stories behind the numbers.

Where you are

Section titled “Where you are”
HyperBFT consensus HyperCore order books, margin, matching precompiles CoreWriter HyperEVM EVM contracts, same chain Accounts and risk margin modes, sub-accounts, multi-sig, API wallets 01 Spot currency HIP-1, HIP-2 02 Perps futures, swaps HIP-3 03 Outcomes options, insurance HIP-4 04 Lending money markets borrow, earn 05 Vaults funds HLP 06 Staking regulatory capital HYPE Builder codes fee share for apps Referrals fee share for referrers Fee tiers volume lowers fees Deployers new markets, shared fees Hyperliquid the interface layer and everything else within the stack 01 Consensus 02 Execution 03 Accounts 04 Primitives 05 Distribution 06 Interface HyperBFT consensus HyperCore matching engine read write HyperEVM EVM contracts Accounts and risk margin modes, sub-accounts, multi-sig, API wallets 01 Spot currency HIP-1, HIP-2 02 Perps futures, swaps HIP-3 03 Outcomes options, insurance HIP-4 04 Lending money markets borrow, earn 05 Vaults funds HLP 06 Staking regulatory capital HYPE Builder codes fee share for apps Referrals fee share for referrers Fee tiers volume lowers fees Deployers new markets, shared fees Hyperliquid the interface layer and everything else within the stack Consensus Execution Accounts Primitives Distribution Interface
You are looking at the whole house. Most reporting errors come from describing one floor as if it were the building.

The most common error is framing. Hyperliquid is not a blockchain with an exchange attached; it is a set of financial primitives and protocols that form one financial system. A story about perps volume is a story about one pillar of the house.

The first two groups below are enough to report accurately.

What to read, in order

Section titled “What to read, in order”

What it is

Section titled “What it is”
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.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.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.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.

Reporting it correctly

Section titled “Reporting it correctly”
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.TimelineFoundationThe dated events in Hyperliquid's history that the official docs and on-chain records support, from the 2023 points programme to permissionless HIP-4 deployment in 2026.GlossaryFoundationEvery term used on this site, from ALO to weiDecimals, defined in a sentence or two and linked to the page that explains it in full.Numbers and limitsPractitionerEvery Hyperliquid protocol parameter and limit in one place, from tick sizes and funding caps to HIP-4 deployer limits and HyperEVM gas, each with where it comes from.

The stories behind the numbers

Section titled “The stories behind the numbers”
What a HIP isFoundationA HIP (Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal) lets anyone deploy one kind of market on HyperCore, paid for by auction or backed by a slashable HYPE stake.HIP-3: builder-deployed perpetualsPractitionerHIP-3 lets anyone staking 500k HYPE run a perp dex on HyperCore and publish its oracle, the stake slashed and burned if the deployer's inputs harm the protocol.HIP-4: outcome marketsPractitionerHIP-4 lets a staked deployer list fully collateralised contracts settling between 0 and 1, built from validator-approved templates, which it then settles.Builder codesPractitionerA builder code lets an app add its own fee to the orders it routes, up to a ceiling the user signed for, capped by the protocol at 0.1% on perps and 1% on spot.Deployer economics and riskExpertA deployer earns a fee share against 500k HYPE locked at least 183 days, slashable and burned, in its own account, which a multi-sig quorum can control.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.