Hyperliquid's HIP-4 outcome-market framework entered its next phase in late August, when a network upgrade opened prediction-market deployment to outside builders, according to Datawallet's September 2026 statistics report. The framework had debuted on mainnet on May 2, 2026, adding fully collateralized binary outcome contracts to a venue best known for perpetual futures, BSCN reported. The upgrade brought on-chain prediction markets directly into the same account where traders already run perpetual futures and spot positions, according to the same report.
Each market poses a yes-or-no question, and traders take YES or NO positions using USDH as collateral, with the winning side settling at 1 USDH per unit and the losing side at zero, BSCN reported. The price of a YES token at any moment represents the market's implied probability of the event occurring, the report added. Positions are fully collateralized, carry no liquidation risk and no funding rate, and opening a position costs zero fees, according to BSCN.
Hyperliquid reported around $100 million in outcome volume during the framework's first full month, Datawallet reported, while researcher defioasis.eth counted 6.05 million contracts traded in the first 24 hours, as reported by BSCN. The venue has since moved beyond crypto into macro events: its first US macro market let traders take positions on the May 2026 CPI year-over-year print, settling June 10 off official Bureau of Labor Statistics data, BSCN reported. Planned categories for expansion include politics, sports, macro data releases, crypto events, and entertainment, according to the same report.
The important change is who can build. Cointelegraph reported on July 20 that Hyperliquid plans to require outside deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE, worth about $30.4 million at the time, to launch permissionless prediction markets under HIP-4. The stake stays locked for six months and can be slashed by a validator vote if markets are poorly defined, incorrectly settled, or left unsettled for more than a week, Cointelegraph reported. Each deployer is initially limited to 100 outcomes, and deployers can set fees of up to 50% on their own markets, according to Datawallet.
Within days of the August 29 upgrade, two builders, Outcome and Skew, had posted the required stake and started deploying markets from seven validator-approved templates, Datawallet reported. Volume roughly tripled after permissionless deployment began, but about 85% of it flowed through Outcome during its $1 million rebate campaign in the weeks after the August 29 upgrade, which paid traders around one cent per dollar traded, Datawallet reported. Whether the activity persists once rebates end is the first real test of HIP-4 demand, Datawallet noted.
Hyperliquid has made the competitive intent explicit: BSCN reported that HIP-4's zero-fee structure directly targets Polymarket and Kalshi for on-chain prediction market volume. The upgrade integrates with Hyperliquid's existing portfolio margin system, letting traders manage spot, perpetuals, and outcome contracts from a single unified margin account, BSCN reported. Validators oversee deployment and settlement decisions through automated newsfeed infrastructure, according to the same report.
Gaps remain. Sports templates used in testing have yet to reach mainnet, and US access remains blocked, Datawallet reported. Validators themselves expect to launch fewer than ten canonical markets each year, according to the same report, which puts most of HIP-4's future market supply in the hands of the outside builders now staking HYPE.
The precedent is Hyperliquid's earlier HIP-3 framework for builder-deployed perpetuals, where third-party markets supply roughly 30% of all Hyperliquid trading, according to Datawallet's 2026 statistics. For the prediction-market industry, the permissionless opening turns one of crypto's largest derivatives venues into a platform where third parties run outcome markets on its rails rather than a single-house product.