What is HIP-1 on Hyperliquid?

HIP-1 is the standard for creating fungible tokens directly on HyperCore, Hyperliquid's exchange layer. Each HIP-1 token has a fixed maximum supply and automatically gets a spot order book quoted in USDC.

How much does it cost to list a token on Hyperliquid?

The deployer pays gas set by a 31-hour Dutch auction. The price starts at twice the last winning price (or 500 HYPE if the last auction failed) and falls linearly to a floor of 500 HYPE. The fee cannot be refunded if the deployment gets stuck.

Is a HIP-1 ticker proof that a token is legitimate?

No. Deployment is permissionless, the name field has no uniqueness constraint, and the docs note front ends may display a different name than the onchain ticker. Check the token index or contract address. Real HYPE, for example, is spot token index 150.

What happens to trading fees on a HIP-1 token?

Fees collected in the base token go to the token's deployer by default. The deployer can lower that share (never raise it again), and the part not sent to the deployer is burned.

HIP-1 Explained: Hyperliquid's Native Token Standard (2026)

A HIP is a capability, not a version. “Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal” sounds like a software release number, so people assume HIP-4 replaced HIP-3 the way iOS 18 replaced iOS 17. It doesn’t work that way. Each HIP adds a new kind of thing the protocol can do, and they all run side by side:

HIP	What it adds	Status (4 Nov 2026)
HIP-1	Native tokens with spot order books	Live
HIP-2	Automatic market-making for new spot tokens	Live
HIP-3	Perp markets deployed by outside teams	Live, 10 deployed dexes
HIP-4	Fully collateralized outcome (yes/no) markets	Live on mainnet

HIP-1 is the oldest and most basic of the four: the rules for creating a token on HyperCore.

What HIP-1 defines

A useful analogy is a company registering a ticker on a stock exchange, except that the “exchange” is the chain itself and there is no listing committee. Whoever sends the genesis transaction sets:

Name — up to 6 characters, and not required to be unique.
Decimals — weiDecimals (the smallest unit, like satoshis for BTC) and szDecimals (the smallest tradable size on the order book). The rule szDecimals + 5 ≤ weiDecimals keeps prices workable.
Max supply — fixed at creation. It can shrink over time through fee burns, but it never grows.
Genesis balances — who gets the initial tokens: a treasury multisig, a bridge, or holders of an existing “anchor” token (they must hold at least 0.0001% of that token’s supply to qualify).
Hyperliquidity settings — optional HIP-2 market-making to seed the order book.

Every HIP-1 token is born with a spot order book against USDC. On 4 November 2026 the Hyperliquid API listed 511 spot tokens and 349 spot pairs. 332 of those pairs were quoted in USDC; the rest used other quote assets (USDH 11, USDT0 5, USDE 1). See aligned quote assets for why that matters.

The ticker auction

Order-book state costs every validator memory forever, so Hyperliquid charges the deployer up front instead of charging every future trader. The charge is set by a Dutch auction (a price that starts high and falls until someone buys):

Each auction runs 31 hours.
The starting price is twice the last winning price, or 500 HYPE if the previous auction failed.
The price falls linearly to a floor of 500 HYPE.

The first step (choosing the name and decimals) is the only time-sensitive one; once gas is paid, the slot is locked in and the deployer can take as long as needed to finish. The docs are blunt that the process can get stuck (for example if Hyperliquidity and total supply don’t fit together) and that gas is not refunded, so deployers are told to rehearse on testnet first.

The same auction mechanism, with the same timing and minimum, is reused by HIP-3 for extra perp listings.

Tokens that exist elsewhere

Many HIP-1 tokens are not new projects at all. Bridged assets (BTC, ETH and SOL brought over by Unit as UBTC, UETH and USOL) and stablecoins (USDT0, USDE) use HIP-1 to get a HyperCore order book, then link it to an ERC-20 contract on the HyperEVM. Once linked, sending tokens to the token’s system address (0x20… followed by the token index) moves them between HyperCore and HyperEVM. HYPE is the exception, with its own system address 0x2222…2222. The docs list LayerZero, Axelar, Chainlink CCIP, deBridge and Wormhole as bridging options deployers use. CoreWriter and precompiles covers the HyperEVM side.

Fees and burns

All spot and perp books share one volume-based fee schedule per account. For HIP-1 tokens:

Fees collected in the base token (the token being traded) go to the deployer, 100% by default. The deployer can lower that share at any time but can never raise it again. Whatever isn’t sent to the deployer is burned.
Fees collected in a quote token other than USDC go to the Assistance Fund.
Spot fees at the entry tier are 0.070% taker and 0.040% maker, and spot volume counts double toward your fee tier.

Spot dust

Once a day at 00:00 UTC, balances worth $1 or less that are smaller than one tradable lot are swept: everyone’s dust for a token is pooled and market-sold, and the USDC is shared back by weight. If the pooled dust is less than one lot it’s burned instead. That’s why tiny leftover balances sometimes disappear from your spot wallet.

Why it matters to you

Anyone can list, so you must verify. There is no listing team vetting HIP-1 tokens. Check the token index or contract address, not just the ticker. One token can also trade in several pairs: on 4 November 2026 the single real HYPE token (index 150) traded against USDC, USDT0, USDH and USDE, each pair with its own book and price.
The ticker cost is a signal, not a guarantee. Paying hundreds of HYPE to deploy shows commitment, not quality.
Supply can only go down. A HIP-1 token’s max supply is fixed at birth, so check how much went to the deployer and insiders at genesis.
Leftovers get swept. If you hold crumbs of a token, sell or consolidate them, or they’ll be dusted at midnight UTC.

What can go wrong

Lookalike tickers. Names aren’t unique and front ends can show any label. Buy by token index or contract, ideally through a link from the project’s official site.
Thin books. New tokens often have little liquidity beyond what HIP-2 seeds. Market orders can fill far from the last price.
Bridged tokens carry bridge risk. A HIP-1 “BTC” is only as good as the bridge holding the real BTC.
The EVM link isn’t checked for you. The docs warn that a linked HyperEVM contract can contain arbitrary code and there are no automatic supply checks.

Next: see how new tokens get their first liquidity in HIP-2, or browse what trades today on markets.

HIP-1: Hyperliquid's native token standard