Hyperliquid Review

How Hyperliquid scores in perpetual DEXs

This entry rates Hyperliquid's perpetual futures venue, the HyperCore order books on its own layer-one chain, in our perpetual DEX ranking. The basis is desk research of Hyperliquid's documentation, its interface terms and its public GitHub organization, checked on November 1, 2026. No account was opened and no trade was placed. The category uses five equally weighted criteria, each marked 0 to 10, as set out in our ratings methodology.

The overall score is the plain average: (9 + 10 + 2 + 6 + 8) ÷ 5 = 35 ÷ 5 = 7.0. On current marks that puts Hyperliquid sixth of nine in the category.

Licence and code openness was lowered from 3 to 2 on November 1, 2026. The earlier mark credited Apache-2.0 node software, but the hyperliquid-dex/node repository holds only setup files for a downloaded, closed binary. That leaves open SDKs around a closed core, the profile the category already marks 2 for Aevo.

Strongest criteria: funding, liquidations and fees

Funding & liquidation clarity (10)

This is the only 10 for this criterion in the category. The funding page gives the formula outright: an average premium index plus a clamp of the interest rate minus the premium, bounded at ±0.05%. The interest component is fixed at 0.01% per eight hours. The premium is sampled every 5 seconds, and funding is paid every hour at one-eighth of the eight-hour rate, capped at 4% per hour for every asset. The page states that no fee is taken on funding and works through a numerical example.

On liquidations, maintenance margin is half the initial margin at maximum leverage, which gives a band from 1.25% on 40x assets to 16.7% on 3x assets. The docs publish the exact liquidation-price formula for cross and isolated positions, and they state there is no clearance fee when a liquidation fills on the book.

Fee transparency (9)

The fee page publishes the whole perps schedule: seven volume tiers from 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker at the base rate down to 0.024% taker and 0% maker above $7 billion in 14-day weighted volume, every staking discount from 5% to 40% already applied in its own column, and maker rebates of up to -0.003%. The mark stops at 9 because the all-in price depends on where the order comes from. Apps built on Hyperliquid can charge a builder fee of up to 0.1% on perps, which the user approves in advance, and HIP-3 markets let the deployer add a fee share of up to 300%. Both rules are disclosed, but the base table alone does not give the fee a trader pays. Our guide to maker, taker and gas fees covers the general mechanics.

Risk documentation (8)

The liquidation sequence is written out step by step. Positions are first closed with market orders, 20% at a time above 100,000 USDC with a 30-second cooldown. Below two-thirds of maintenance margin a backstop liquidator vault, part of the HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider) vault, takes the position, and the trader loses the remaining maintenance margin. If an account still goes negative, ADL closes the opposite side's most profitable, most leveraged positions at the previous mark price, and the ranking index is published. The oracle page lists the eight spot venues and their weights in each validator's median, and the delisting page says a validator vote settles positions at a one-hour average oracle price. Two points keep the mark at 8. The backstop is HLP, a vault whose depositors share its losses, and the documentation gives no size or cap for what it can absorb. And ADL means a winning position can be closed without the trader acting. See our guide to crypto risk management for how margin levels translate into liquidation distance.

Weakest criteria: code and audit scope

Licence & code openness (2): a deficiency

The rubric reads the licence on the core protocol, and Hyperliquid's core is closed. The engine that runs the HyperCore order books and margin system is not published. The hyperliquid-dex GitHub organization holds the Python and Rust SDKs under MIT. The node repository carries an Apache-2.0 licence, but its contents are a README, Dockerfiles and a public key. The node itself is a binary that the README tells operators to download, so the open licence covers the setup files rather than the node's source. The contracts repository has no licence file, and its Bridge2.sol bridge contract declares SPDX-License-Identifier: UNLICENSED.

Audit disclosure (6): named, but narrow in scope

The audits page names one firm, Zellic, and attaches a first and a final report for the legacy Arbitrum bridge contract. The USDC page says that bridge now holds less than 10% of HyperCore's USDC supply, and that Circle's contracts for native USDC are audited separately. That is a named, attached record, which is why the mark is above the absent-record floor of 2. It does not cover the order book, clearinghouse or liquidation engine, which hold most of the risk a trader carries.

What the score does not cover

• Liquidity and execution. Depth, spreads, slippage and uptime were not measured.
• Validator and oracle dependence. Prices come from a stake-weighted median of validator submissions, and validators vote on delistings.
• HIP-3 markets. Builder-deployed perps set their own oracles and terms, and the interface terms say they are not reviewed by the company. This rating covers the validator-operated perps.
• Access. The interface terms exclude residents of the United States and Ontario and of sanctioned jurisdictions. Availability is not a criterion.

Hyperliquid vs dYdX and GMX

dYdX scores 8.6, 1.6 points above Hyperliquid. It is also an order book on its own chain, and the gap is code: dYdX marks 10 for licence against Hyperliquid's 2. Hyperliquid answers with 10 against 9 on funding and liquidation clarity, trails 6 against 7 on audits, and the two tie on risk documentation at 8. GMX, at 8.4, matches Hyperliquid's 9 on fees and pulls ahead on audits (9) and licence (8). Orderly Network, two places above at 7.4, has the opposite profile: 5 for licence and 9 for audits, against Hyperliquid's 9 on fees, 10 on funding and liquidation and 8 on risk documentation.

Who this rating suits

The score describes a venue whose trading terms are documented as precisely as any in the category and whose core code and audit record are thin. It is most useful to traders who want to calculate funding, fees and liquidation prices from the source before opening a position. It is less useful to anyone who needs to read or verify the exchange engine itself. The score assesses documentation and is not a recommendation to trade with leverage.