Hyperliquid Opens Door to Permissionless Prediction Markets

Despite the announcement, HYPE’s price showed little immediate reaction, suggesting traders remain focused on broader market conditions.

Hyperliquid announced on July 20 that its upcoming HIP-4 network upgrade will allow permissionless deployment of prediction markets.

The feature, which will launch on testnet before hitting the mainnet, will expand who can create outcome markets while introducing validator-approved templates and a staking system meant to keep those markets clearly defined and properly settled.

How HIP-4 Deployment Will Work

Outcome markets on Hyperliquid have so far only been deployed by validators, but the protocol is looking to change that. According to a post on Hyperliquid’s Telegram channel, validators will vote on standardized outcome templates that anyone meeting the HIP-4 requirements could then use to launch markets.

Those templates will be stored and enforced on-chain, with Hyperliquid saying that they are intended to cover events with sufficient liquidity and user interest while being unambiguous. The responsibility for defining and settling individual markets will lie with deployers according to the chosen template, and multiple deployers could even launch identical markets if they so wish.

Canonical markets created by validators will still exist, but they are expected to become less common, with Hyperliquid suggesting that ideally each year they should account for less than 10 outcome markets. Furthermore, the proposal also introduced financial incentives and penalties, including a 500,000 HYPE stake for anyone looking to become a HIP-4 deployer.

That stake will be locked for six months, and validators can slash it if markets are poorly defined or settled incorrectly under the template. Leaving a market unsettled for more than one week will also see a deployer’s stake slashed, and they are required to settle all their markets before unstaking.

Per Hyperliquid’s post, at first, each deployer will get capacity for 100 outcomes, or 200 outcome tokens, with more allocation planned through a future auction mechanism. The protocol also pointed out that eventually, deployers will be able to set fee sharing of up to 50% on their markets, although configurable fees will be included in another update in the future. Importantly, under HIP-4, only AQAv2 quote tokens will be supported.

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“All specifications described above are preliminary and subject to change based on feedback,” the team clarified, adding that users will be informed once the feature goes on the testnet and updates on the documentation are made.

HYPE Not Moved

Even with the announcement, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token stayed in the red. At the time of writing, it was trading near $60, down about 1% in 24 hours and nearly 10% in the last seven days. CoinGecko data shows it’s the same case across longer timeframes, with HYPE shaving almost 16% from its price across two weeks and nearly 13% in the past 30 days.

However, year-on-year, the asset has managed to stay in the green, being close to 34% higher than where it was 12 months ago, even though recent struggles have pulled it more than 21% below the $76.87 all-time high it hit about a month ago.

Hyperliquid’s push into permissionless outcome markets is coming on the back of a recent CoinGecko report showing that notional volume across prediction platforms hit a record $50.7 billion in June thanks to a calendar of sports events including the UEFA Champions League final, the NBA Finals, and Wimbledon. This helped push numbers for Q2 2026 to $113.8 billion, which is a 48.7% jump quarter over quarter.