HIP-2: Hyperliquidity
How brand-new tokens get a working order book on day one, without a market-making firm.
HIP-2, called Hyperliquidity, is an automated market-making strategy written into Hyperliquid's block logic: it places a ladder of orders spaced 0.3% apart and refreshes them at most every 3 seconds, so a new HIP-1 token has two-sided liquidity from launch. There is no operator; validators run it as part of consensus, and it currently works only on spot pairs against USDC.
Every new token has a chicken-and-egg problem. Nobody wants to trade on an empty order book, and professional market makers won’t quote a token nobody trades. On centralized exchanges the project usually pays a market-making firm. HIP-2 was Hyperliquid’s answer: make the protocol itself the first market maker.
Like every HIP, it’s a capability that sits alongside the others, not a newer version of HIP-1. HIP-1 creates the token and its book; HIP-2 is an optional setting that fills that book.
How Hyperliquidity works
Picture a ladder of price levels, each 0.3% above the one below. The deployer chooses:
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
startPx | The lowest price on the ladder |
nOrders | How many rungs (price levels) |
orderSz | The size of a full order on each rung |
nSeededLevels | How many of the bottom rungs start as buy orders (the deployer funds these with USDC) |
The prices are defined recursively: each rung is the previous one times 1.003, rounded. At launch most rungs are sell orders holding the token’s supply. As buyers lift those offers, the strategy flips filled rungs into buy orders at the same level, so there is always liquidity on both sides of the current price.
The strategy updates on any block that comes at least 3 seconds after its last update. The docs summarize the result as a guaranteed 0.3% spread every 3 seconds. It posts with post-only (ALO) logic, meaning its orders rest on the book rather than taking liquidity.
How it differs from an AMM
An automated market maker (AMM) such as Uniswap holds tokens in a pool contract and prices trades with a formula. Hyperliquidity borrows the “set it and forget it” idea, but its liquidity lives as ordinary orders on HyperCore’s order book. That has one big advantage: anyone else can place orders inside its 0.3% spread. As a token gets popular, active market makers can tighten the market, while Hyperliquidity remains a floor of liquidity underneath.
It also differs from HLP. HLP is a vault that quotes the big perp markets using outside price data. Hyperliquidity is for spot tokens in early price discovery, where there is no outside price to follow.
Limits worth knowing
- USDC pairs only. Hyperliquidity currently works only on spot pairs quoted in USDC.
- Optional. Deployers of bridged assets (BTC, ETH, stablecoins) usually switch it off with
noHyperliquidity. - Configured once. The parameters are set at token genesis. Seeding more bid levels costs the deployer USDC and reduces the genesis supply.
- Usage has fallen. Kinetiq’s August 2026 Elysium announcement cited third-party data showing HIP-2 activity at its lowest since Q4 2024. That is one team’s reading of outside dashboards, not an official figure.
Why it matters to you
- A token with Hyperliquidity always has a quote, but a 0.3%-wide ladder is not deep liquidity. A large market order walks up many rungs, and each rung is 0.3% worse.
- It tells you nothing about quality. Hyperliquidity guarantees a market, not a fair value. Prices on a fresh HIP-1 token are pure price discovery.
- You can compete with it. If you trade a small token actively, a limit order inside the ladder gets filled before Hyperliquidity’s.
What can go wrong
- Slippage. Check the order book depth before sending a market order on any small token.
- One-way moves. If everyone sells, the strategy keeps buying down the ladder with the USDC it holds, but it can only absorb what it was seeded with. The price can still fall a long way.
- Lookalikes. HIP-2 liquidity makes a token look tradable, not legitimate. Verify the token index or contract before buying.
Related: HIP-1 token standard, HIP-3 builder-deployed perps, and the live list of markets.
Questions people ask
What is HIP-2 on Hyperliquid?
HIP-2 is Hyperliquidity, a market-making strategy built into the Hyperliquid protocol. A token deployer configures it once at launch, and from then on it keeps a ladder of buy and sell orders on the token's USDC spot book, spaced 0.3% apart, with no human operator.
Who runs Hyperliquidity?
Nobody, in the sense of a company or bot. The strategy is part of Hyperliquid's block transition logic, so the same validators that run the order book run it. It needs no user transactions to keep working.
Is HIP-2 like a Uniswap pool?
It is inspired by Uniswap: liquidity spread across a price range that needs no maintenance. The difference is that Hyperliquidity's orders sit on a normal order book, so other traders and market makers can quote alongside it and tighten the market.
Does every new token use HIP-2?
No. It's optional. The HIP-1 docs note that deployers of bridged assets usually turn it off with the noHyperliquidity setting, because those assets already have external liquidity.