Hyperliquid is a layer-1 blockchain built for trading. Its best-known app is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures and spot trading that runs a fully on-chain order book, so every order, trade and liquidation is recorded on the blockchain. HYPE is the network's native token.
What is the HYPE token used for?
HYPE is staked by validators and their delegators to secure the network, pays gas fees on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid's smart contract layer, and gives holders a say in governance.
HYPE has a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens. It launched on November 29, 2024 with a large airdrop to early users and no allocation to venture capital investors. About 97% of the exchange's trading fees go to the Assistance Fund, which buys HYPE on the open market and takes it out of circulation.
How does Hyperliquid work?
Hyperliquid runs on its own consensus protocol, HyperBFT, which finalizes blocks in under a second. On top of it sit two parts that share the same state: HyperCore, the trading engine that handles order books, margin, funding and liquidations, and HyperEVM, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract layer. Because they share state, apps on HyperEVM can read and use HyperCore's markets directly.
What is HyperEVM?
HyperEVM is Hyperliquid's Ethereum-compatible smart contract environment, launched on mainnet in February 2025. Developers can deploy Solidity contracts that interact directly with HyperCore's order books and liquidity, and HYPE is used to pay gas.
What are Hyperps?
Hyperps are oracle-independent perpetual contracts that rely on an EMA of recent on-chain mark prices, enabling synthetic and pre-launch asset trading.
Is Hyperliquid decentralized?
Partly. All trading activity is recorded on-chain and anyone can verify it, but the network is run by a relatively small validator set, and validators have acted together to intervene in a market during at least one incident in 2025. It is more transparent than a centralized exchange but less decentralized than large networks such as Ethereum.
Is Hyperliquid available in the US?
No. Hyperliquid's terms of use treat US residents and US citizens as restricted persons, and its official web app blocks connections from US IP addresses. Rules on crypto derivatives differ by country, so check what applies where you live before using any perpetual futures platform.
Is Hyperliquid safe?
Hyperliquid's on-chain design lets anyone audit trades and liquidations in real time. The main risks are leverage, which can wipe out a position quickly, bridge and smart contract risk when moving funds onto the network, and the concentration of power in a small validator set. Manipulation of thinly traded markets has also caused losses for the platform's liquidity vault in the past.
Who founded Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid is developed by Hyperliquid Labs, co-founded by Jeff Yan, a Harvard graduate and former high-frequency trader at Hudson River Trading. The project is self-funded and did not raise money from venture capital firms.
Is HYPE a good investment?
Whether HYPE suits you depends on your goals and risk tolerance, and this page is not financial advice. Hyperliquid has grown into one of the largest on-chain derivatives venues and returns most of its fees to HYPE buybacks, but HYPE is volatile, the exchange's revenue depends on trading activity, and the platform faces regulatory limits such as its US restriction. Only invest what you can afford to lose, and speak to a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions.
What is Hyperliquid (HYPE)?
Hyperliquid is a Layer 1 blockchain built for trading. Its best-known application is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures and spot tokens that runs a fully on-chain order book, so every order, cancellation, trade and liquidation is recorded on the chain. HYPE is the network's native token: it is staked to secure the network, pays gas on Hyperliquid's smart contract layer and is used in governance.
Hyperliquid was built by Hyperliquid Labs, a team led by co-founder Jeff Yan, a former high-frequency trader. The project took no venture capital funding, and when HYPE launched in November 2024, 31% of the supply went straight to early users in an airdrop, with nothing allocated to private investors. That launch made HYPE one of the most widely discussed tokens of the 2024 to 2025 cycle.
Hyperliquid at a glance
Item
Detail
Type
Layer 1 blockchain with a built-in exchange
Built by
Hyperliquid Labs (co-founder Jeff Yan)
Exchange launch
2023
Native token
HYPE
HYPE launch
29 November 2024
Maximum supply
1 billion HYPE
Consensus
HyperBFT (proof of stake)
Smart contracts
HyperEVM (mainnet since 18 February 2025)
Main margin asset
USDC
How Hyperliquid works
Most decentralized exchanges run as smart contracts on a general-purpose blockchain and use automated pools instead of an order book, because a busy order book would be too slow and expensive to run on-chain. Hyperliquid took the opposite route: it built a blockchain whose main job is to run an exchange, then added general smart contracts on top.
HyperBFT consensus
Hyperliquid's validators agree on new blocks with HyperBFT, a proof-of-stake consensus protocol inspired by HotStuff. It is designed for fast confirmation and very high order throughput, which is what an exchange needs when thousands of traders place and cancel orders every second. Validators are chosen by the amount of HYPE staked with them.
HyperCore: the exchange layer
HyperCore is the part of the chain that runs the trading engine: the order books for perpetual futures and spot markets, margin accounts, funding payments and liquidations. Because it is built into the protocol rather than deployed as a contract, it can match orders at speeds closer to a centralized exchange while keeping every action visible on-chain. Traders keep control of their funds through their own wallet and sign each order themselves.
HyperEVM: the smart contract layer
HyperEVM is Hyperliquid's EVM-compatible smart contract layer, which went live on mainnet on 18 February 2025. Developers can deploy the same kind of contracts they would write for Ethereum, and those contracts can read from and interact with HyperCore's markets. HYPE is the gas token on HyperEVM, so every lending app, DEX or vault built there uses it to pay fees.
What is the HYPE token used for?
HYPE has four main jobs on the network:
Staking: HYPE holders can stake their tokens with validators to help secure HyperBFT and earn staking rewards, which come from the token's future emissions allocation.
Gas on HyperEVM: every transaction on HyperEVM is paid for in HYPE.
Governance: staked HYPE gives validators and delegators a say in network decisions, such as which stablecoin issuer received the USDH ticker in 2025.
Deploying markets: builders who want to launch their own perpetual or outcome markets must lock a large HYPE stake (500,000 HYPE for builder-deployed perpetuals), which can be slashed if they misbehave.
Staking HYPE also gives traders discounts on trading fees, and HYPE is used as collateral in many of the apps built on HyperEVM.
HYPE supply and distribution
HYPE has a fixed maximum supply of 1 billion tokens. The allocation set at launch was:
Allocation
Share
Notes
Future emissions and community rewards
38.888%
Not yet minted; funds staking rewards and future programs
Genesis distribution (airdrop)
31%
310 million HYPE, fully unlocked at launch
No HYPE was set aside for private investors, centralized exchanges or market makers. The circulating supply rises as contributor tokens vest and emissions are paid out, and the live figure is shown in the market data on this page.
Fees, buybacks and the Assistance Fund
Traders on Hyperliquid pay a small fee on each trade. Most of those fees, roughly 97%, flow to the Assistance Fund, a protocol-controlled account that uses them to buy HYPE on the open market. The tokens it buys are held by the fund rather than sold, which takes them out of circulation. The rest of the fees go to the Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) vault.
This links HYPE directly to how much the exchange is used: more trading means more fees and larger buybacks. It also means buyback volumes fall when trading slows, so the effect on supply is not fixed.
What you can trade on Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid started as a perpetual futures exchange and has added new market types through Hyperliquid Improvement Proposals (HIPs):
Perpetual futures: contracts with no expiry date on crypto assets, settled and margined mostly in USDC. Traders can use leverage, which magnifies both gains and losses.
Spot tokens (HIP-1 and HIP-2): HIP-1 lets anyone deploy a spot token on HyperCore after winning a ticker auction, and HIP-2 adds automatic starting liquidity for new tokens.
Builder-deployed perpetuals (HIP-3): since 13 October 2025, outside teams can launch their own perpetual markets by staking 500,000 HYPE, supplying their own oracle and earning up to half of the fees. These markets now cover stocks, commodities and indices as well as crypto.
Outcome markets (HIP-4): in 2026 Hyperliquid added fully collateralized contracts that settle at 0 or 1 depending on whether an event happens, similar to prediction markets.
Liquidity on the main markets comes partly from the HLP vault, which anyone can deposit USDC into. HLP acts as a market maker and takes over liquidated positions, and its depositors share its profits and losses.
In September 2025 Native Markets won a validator vote to issue USDH, a dollar stablecoin native to Hyperliquid. USDC remains the main margin asset, while USDH is used in a growing number of markets.
Key milestones
Date
Milestone
2023
Hyperliquid's perpetual futures exchange launches
Nov 2024
HYPE genesis: 31% of supply airdropped to users
Dec 2024
HYPE staking goes live
Feb 2025
HyperEVM launches on mainnet
Mar 2025
JELLY market manipulation; validators delist the market
Sep 2025
Native Markets chosen to issue USDH
Oct 2025
HIP-3 opens perpetual markets to outside builders
2026
HIP-4 outcome markets go live
Risks and controversies
Hyperliquid has grown quickly, and it has also faced real tests of how decentralized it is.
Market manipulation and validator intervention: in March 2025 a trader opened a large short on the JELLY token and pushed its price up so the position was liquidated into the HLP vault. Validators voted within minutes to delist the market and settle positions at an earlier price, and the Hyper Foundation reimbursed affected users. The move protected depositors, but critics said it showed that a small group could override market outcomes. Earlier that month a highly leveraged ETH trade cost the HLP vault about $4 million, after which Hyperliquid lowered its maximum leverage.
Validator concentration: the network runs a few dozen active validators, and validators linked to the Hyper Foundation hold a large share of the staked HYPE. That is far fewer than on networks such as Ethereum, and it concentrates control over upgrades and emergency decisions.
Auto-deleveraging: during the sharp market sell-off on 10 October 2025, Hyperliquid used auto-deleveraging, closing some profitable positions to keep the system solvent. This is part of the exchange's rules, but traders on the winning side can be closed out early.
Bridge risk: most funds enter Hyperliquid as USDC through a bridge secured by the validator set. A failure or attack on the bridge would affect deposits.
Leverage risk: perpetual futures let traders borrow heavily against small deposits. Positions can be liquidated in seconds when prices move.
Can you use Hyperliquid in the US?
Hyperliquid's terms of service bar people in the United States from using its trading interface, and the official front end blocks US IP addresses. The rules for other platforms that connect to Hyperliquid vary, so users should check the terms that apply where they live. HYPE itself is listed on a number of centralized exchanges, some of which serve US customers.
How to buy and hold HYPE
HYPE can be bought on Hyperliquid's own spot market with USDC, or on centralized exchanges that list it. On Hyperliquid, HYPE lives on HyperCore and can be moved to HyperEVM, so a wallet needs to support the Hyperliquid network to hold it there. Always check which network a withdrawal uses before sending.
Like any crypto asset, HYPE's price can move sharply. This page is not financial advice.
Hyperliquid vs. a centralized exchange
Feature
Hyperliquid
Typical centralized exchange
Custody
Traders keep their own keys
Exchange holds customer funds
Order book
Fully on-chain and public
Private, run by the company
Hyperliquid's design shows that an on-chain order book can work at the speed active traders expect. Its open questions are about control: how many validators secure it, how emergency decisions are made, and how the network behaves in extreme markets.
Core contributors
23.8%
Locked for one year, then vesting until 2027 to 2028
