What Is Hyperliquid?
Hyperliquid is a layer 1 blockchain and perpetual future DEX purpose-built for high-performance onchain trading. Hyperliquid runs its own consensus (HyperBFT) and achieves sub-second block times with throughput exceeding 100,000 orders per second, making it one of the fastest CLOB-based decentralised exchanges.
Architecture
Hyperliquid’s architecture is split into two interconnected layers:
HyperCore — the native high-performance trading engine that processes order book matching, perpetual future settlement, funding rate payments, liquidations, and vault operations. HyperCore runs on its own optimised consensus and is not EVM-based.
HyperEVM — an EVM-compatible execution environment (chain ID 999) that runs alongside HyperCore as part of the same layer 1. HyperEVM enables general-purpose smart contracts and DeFi applications while interacting with HyperCore through system precompiles and the HyperCore Writer contract.
The two layers share the same validator set and consensus but maintain separate state and execution models. Assets can be bridged between HyperEVM and HyperCore in seconds through the CoreDepositWallet system contract.
Key features
CLOB-based order book with on-chain matching — all orders, cancellations, and trades settle on the L1
Perpetual futures with up to 50x leverage and hourly funding rate intervals
Native vault system where users can deposit USDC into strategy vaults managed on HyperCore (see Hyperliquid Provider Vault)
Spot market trading alongside perpetuals
No gas fees for HyperCore operations — users pay through the bid-ask spread
HyperEVM for general-purpose DeFi with Solidity smart contracts
Dual-block architecture
HyperEVM uses a dual-block system: small blocks (~2-3M gas, every ~1 second) for normal transactions and large blocks (30M gas, every ~1 minute) for contract deployments and heavy computation. Addresses must opt into the large block mempool to deploy contracts exceeding the small block gas limit.
See also