Hyperliquid Moves to Enter Prediction Markets With Zero-Fee Structure, Challenging Polymarket and Kalshi

Hyperliquid is testing HIP-4, a prediction market product with a zero-fee-to-open structure that would let traders bet on real-world events alongside their crypto futures from a single margin account.

Hyperliquid, the decentralized crypto exchange that handled $219 billion in total trading volume in March 2026, is publicly testing a proposal to add prediction markets to its platform. The initiative, known as HIP-4, would allow traders to buy and sell binary contracts on real-world events, from elections to sports outcomes to economic data releases, from the same wallet they use for crypto perpetual futures and commodity-linked contracts. Early versions are running on testnet as of this week. No mainnet launch date has been announced.

The fee structure is the most significant competitive element. Under HIP-4, opening a position costs nothing. Fees only apply when a trade is closed or settled. Polymarket currently charges up to 2% on winning bets, a cost that compounds meaningfully for high-frequency traders. The zero-fee model, combined with Hyperliquid’s existing infrastructure and cross-margining capabilities, is designed to attract traders who currently split activity across multiple platforms. On-chain researcher Fleck found that roughly 3.3% of Polymarket users are already active on Hyperliquid, and those overlapping accounts generate about 12% of Polymarket’s total volume. BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes said the HYPE token creates an additional layer of differentiation. He argued that Hyperliquid users can benefit economically from platform activity through HYPE in a way that neither Polymarket nor Kalshi currently offers to their users.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The proposal was co-authored by John Wang, head of crypto at Kalshi, and the two companies announced a partnership in March to develop on-chain prediction markets together. That makes Polymarket the most directly exposed competitor if HIP-4 reaches mainnet at scale. The prediction market sector has grown rapidly, with combined trading volume surging more than 300% in 2025 to $63.5 billion. Both incumbents have been moving in Hyperliquid’s direction at the same time: Kalshi has announced perpetual futures contracts under the name Timeless, and Polymarket is launching 10x leveraged contracts on bitcoin, Nvidia, and gold. Yesterday, Unchained reported that Polymarket is simultaneously seeking CFTC approval to reopen its main international exchange to U.S. traders, underlining how aggressively each platform is expanding its footprint heading into this period of competition.

Critical questions remain unresolved. Hyperliquid has not disclosed how it would decide which real-world events qualify for markets, what governance process would approve new contracts, or how oracle-based dispute resolution would work at scale. The platform restricts U.S. users, limiting its head-to-head competition with Kalshi’s CFTC-regulated U.S. business. Some market participants are skeptical that Hyperliquid’s interface, built for sophisticated derivatives traders, can attract the retail volume that drives Polymarket’s activity. Syncracy Capital investor Sunny Shi said the cross-margin architecture would create edge cases for sophisticated traders but acknowledged the retail distribution challenge. Hyperliquid declined to comment.