What is HIP-4?
HIP-4 is Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal #4 — the on-chain spec for outcome markets on the Hyperliquid L1. It defines a class of spot tokens (outcome shares) that pay $1.00 USDC at settlement if a defined condition resolves true, and $0 if it resolves false. Outcomes trade on Hyperliquid’s HyperCore spot order books with full L2 depth — no AMMs, no curve assumptions, no oracle disputes.
How HIP-4 outcomes settle
Price-based outcomes settle on-chain against HyperCore’s mark pricefor the underlying asset at the spec’s expiry timestamp. HyperCore’s mark price is a robust median across Hyperliquid’s own book, an oracle EMA, and major CEX perpetual mids — designed specifically to be hard to manipulate at a single instant.
Winning shares automatically redeem at $1.00 USDC; losing shares go to $0. There is no curator, no dispute window, no manual resolution. Settlement is a deterministic function of the resolution source named in the market spec — for price markets that’s HL’s mark feed, for macro markets (CPI, FOMC) it’s the named official release.
The market shapes
priceBinary
A single yes/no outcome. Example spec: class:priceBinary|underlying:BTC|expiry:20260519-0600|targetPrice:78985|period:1d. The market resolves UP(YES) if BTC’s mark price at expiry is at or above the target, DOWN (NO) otherwise. Each side trades as its own spot token; the two prices sum to ~$1.00.
priceBucket
A multi-outcome market that splits the underlying’s price into ranges. Example: “Where will BTC settle on May 19?” with three constituents: < $75.3k, $75.3k–$78.4k, > $78.4k. Whichever range contains the settlement price pays $1.00; all others pay $0. The probabilities normalize across the named bands.
Freeform questions
Markets whose resolution doesn’t reduce to a single mark price — e.g. the May CPI year-over-year question (resolved off the BLS release) or June Fed rate change (resolved off the FOMC statement). The full resolution rules are stated in prose inside the outcome or question’s description field, and Resolvium surfaces that prose in the in-app Rules dialog.
What is the settlement asset?
USDC.Each market’s settlement asset is named in the quoteToken field of Hyperliquid’s outcomeMeta response. Every live HIP-4 outcome currently reports USDC.
This is the result of Hyperliquid’s Aligned Quote Assets v2 specification, under which USDC becomes the designated aligned quote asset across HIP-1, HIP-2, HIP-3 and HIP-4 markets. The previous HIP-4 quote token (USDH) is being phased out by its issuer Native Markets, with Coinbase taking over the USDH treasury role and feeless conversions to USDC available during the transition.
Are HIP-4 markets leveraged?
No.HIP-4 outcomes are fully collateralized. Each share is backed by the USDC paid at the time of purchase. There are no liquidations, no funding rates, and the maximum loss on any position is the price the user paid for the shares. A $50 position can lose at most $50 — there’s no margin call or forced liquidation mechanic.
Where can I trade HIP-4 markets?
Hyperliquid’s own frontend exposes HIP-4 markets natively. Resolvium is a dedicated frontend purpose-built for HIP-4 trading, with real-time alerts, social trading, settled-market history, full trader profiles, and a notification inbox layered on top of the underlying protocol. See What is Resolvium? for the full feature list.
Fees
During the initial testing period, Hyperliquid charges 0% on HIP-4 outcomes. Once testing concludes, the official Hyperliquid fee schedule applies — opening positions stays free, and fees only apply when closing or at settlement (on winning shares only). Resolvium itself charges 0% today; see /fees for the authoritative breakdown.
Further reading
The canonical HIP-4 specification lives in the Hyperliquid documentation — anything in this explainer that conflicts with the spec is the spec’s fault, not the spec’s. For an overview of Resolvium’s product layer on top, see What is Resolvium?.