Hyperliquid: perpetual dexs rating breakdown
Own L1, HLP vault
It won this category outright on the things you can measure. $63.3m of fees over thirty days is more than every other venue on this page combined, its books are the deepest on-chain by a distance, and $6.84bn of value sits in its ecosystem. Its published taker fee is among the lowest anywhere, and the order book behaves like a professional venue rather than an AMM in a trench coat.
It won this category outright on the things you can measure. $63.3m of fees over thirty days is more than every other venue on this page combined, its books are the deepest on-chain by a distance, and $6.84bn of value sits in its ecosystem.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What happens when the rules cost the house money | the validator set, by vote — demonstrated in March 2025 who can settle a market · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 30% | 5 | 7 | 7 of 8 | -0.60 |
| Depth and where the flow actually is | $63.29m 30-day protocol fees · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source$6.84bn value locked in the ecosystem · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 10 | 5 | 1 of 8 | +1.25 |
| What a position really costs | — | 22% | 8 | 6.5 | 2 of 8 | +0.33 |
| Who holds the collateral | — | 15% | 6 | 7 | 7 of 8 | -0.15 |
| Markets and access | — | 8% | 9 | 6 | 1 of 8 | +0.24 |
Measured 27 August 2026 · weights and method · decided by depth and where the flow actually is, worth +1.25 points against the median
What happens when the rules cost the house money: 5/10
Every intervention on record: forced settlements, delistings, socialised losses, auto-deleveraging events and oracle changes, with dates and amounts. Hyperliquid settled an entire manipulated market at a chosen price and delisted it by validator vote in March 2025, then reimbursed users from a foundation. That is a specific, documented answer to “who decides”, and it is worth more than any decentralisation claim on a landing page.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 7th of 8 among perpetual dexs on this criterion. At a 30% weight that is 0.60 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 8, the worst 5.
Depth and where the flow actually is: 10/10
Collateral and vault value locked at a stated timestamp, alongside thirty days of protocol fees as the closest public proxy for real flow. Depth on a perpetual venue is not a comfort — it is what decides whether your stop fills near your stop.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 5, which places it 1st of 8 among perpetual dexs on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 1.25 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 4.
What a position really costs: 8/10
Published taker and maker fees, plus the funding mechanism as documented — and then our own division: thirty days of protocol fees, annualised, per dollar of collateral held. That last number is the intensity of extraction at each venue, and no fee page shows it.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 6.5, which places it 2nd of 8 among perpetual dexs on this criterion. At a 22% weight that is 0.33 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 5.
Who holds the collateral: 6/10
Whether margin sits in a contract you can verify or on a company balance sheet, who runs the sequencer or validator set, and how upgrades and market listings are authorised. A venue where a small set of operators can pause, list or settle is a custodian with extra steps.
Scored 6 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 7th of 8 among perpetual dexs on this criterion. At a 15% weight that is 0.15 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 6.
Markets and access: 9/10
Markets listed, chains supported, and the practical route in and out — a venue that only accepts one collateral asset on one chain is narrower than its market count suggests.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 1st of 8 among perpetual dexs on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is 0.24 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 4.
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Depth and where the flow actually is | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Lighter | 6 | Behind by 4 on depth and where the flow actually is. |
| 3 | Jupiter Perps | 8 | Behind by 2 on depth and where the flow actually is. |
Incidents priced into this score
- 2025-03-26 — A trader opened roughly $4.05m of long and $4.1m of matching short exposure in the JELLY perpetual across three fresh accounts, then bought JELLY on spot venues, pushing the HLP vault to about $13.5m of unrealised loss. The validator set voted within roughly two minutes to delist the market and settle all positions at $0.0095. Users other than flagged addresses were reimbursed by the Hyper Foundation. [users made whole: confirmed] [source]
Questions about this score
What happened with Hyperliquid and JELLY?
+
On 26 March 2025 a trader opened roughly $4.05m of long and $4.1m of matching short exposure in the JELLY perpetual across three fresh accounts, then bought JELLY on spot venues until Hyperliquid's own market-making vault sat on about $13.5m of unrealised loss. The validator set convened, voted in roughly two minutes to delist the market, and settled every position at a chosen price of $0.0095. Users other than the flagged addresses were reimbursed from the Hyper Foundation. Nobody innocent lost money, and a small group rewrote live positions in minutes in the direction that suited the house.
Is Hyperliquid decentralised?
+
Its validator set is concentrated, and the JELLY episode is the practical answer to what that means: a delisting and a forced settlement executed by vote within minutes. Compare that with GMX, where no operator has a delist button and no forced settlement of user positions has occurred in four years — at one thirty-fourth of the fee flow. Depth and unchangeable rules are the trade this category has not solved.
Why do traders use Hyperliquid over a centralised exchange?
+
Margin sits in a contract rather than on a company's balance sheet, the order book is on-chain and auditable, and execution quality is genuinely competitive with the large centralised venues. What it does not remove is the possibility of intervention: liquidation, oracle pricing and market listing remain decisions someone makes, as March 2025 demonstrated.