---
type: source
title: "Hyperliquid HIP-4 Days 1-2: Mainnet Live, BTC Binary Market, $59.5K Day-1 Volume — Categories Expansion Planned"
author: "Bitcoin.com News / CryptoTimes / Bitget News / CoinGecko"
url: https://news.bitcoin.com/hyperliquid-launches-hip-4-and-targets-polymarket-with-zero-fee-outcome-markets/
date: 2026-05-02
domain: internet-finance
secondary_domains: []
format: article
status: processed
processed_by: rio
processed_date: 2026-05-03
priority: medium
tags: [Hyperliquid, HIP-4, prediction-markets, HYPE, outcome-markets, zero-fee, DeFi]
intake_tier: research-task
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

**Status as of May 3, 2026 (Day 2):**
- First market: "BTC above 78213 on May 3 at 8:00 AM?" — recurring daily BTC price threshold binary
- Day 1 volume (May 2): ~$59,500 in 24h
- Open interest: ~$84,600
- "Yes" probability: ~63%
- No new market categories launched as of Day 2

**Structure and features:**
- Zero fees to open/mint positions
- Fully collateralized in USDH (Hyperliquid's native stablecoin)
- No liquidation risk (binary contract, bounded payout)
- Unified portfolio margin with Hyperliquid perps and spot
- Runs on HyperCore (same matching engine, ~200K orders/sec throughput)
- Full on-chain transparency
- US users blocked (same as Hyperliquid main exchange)

**Planned categories for expansion (future phases):**
- Politics (elections, government decisions)
- Sports
- Macro data releases (CPI, NFP, Fed decisions)
- Crypto events
- Entertainment
- Permissionless deployment (any event with a reliable oracle)

**Phase structure:**
- Phase 1 (current): Curated validator-deployed markets focused on crypto price contracts
- Phase 2+: Broader permissionless deployment with oracle infrastructure expansion

**Key competitive positioning vs. Polymarket/Kalshi:**
- Zero open fees vs. Polymarket's ~2% fee structure
- Unified margin (trade outcome markets alongside perps with same collateral)
- On-chain settlement vs. Polymarket's centralized resolution
- No US access restriction beyond what Hyperliquid already applies

**Kalshi co-authorship note:** HIP-4 was co-authored with John Wang (head of crypto, Kalshi), confirming the strategic hedge thesis from Session 34. Kalshi is simultaneously fighting 5 state AGs for its US regulated prediction market position AND co-developing offshore prediction market infrastructure on Hyperliquid.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** Day 2 data insufficient for calibration analysis but confirms the structural thesis: zero-fee unified-margin on-chain prediction markets are now live. The expansion to politics/sports categories (planned) is where the ownership alignment → selection pressure → better calibration test will become evaluable. That test requires ~30 days of diverse event resolution data.

**What surprised me:** The restriction to crypto price threshold markets in Phase 1. This is the opposite of what makes prediction markets valuable for calibration testing — binary BTC price thresholds are highly correlated with informed trader populations (crypto traders know what BTC is doing). The real test is when politics/sports markets launch and we can see if Hyperliquid's ownership-aligned user base outperforms Polymarket's larger but less ownership-aligned user base.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Any Day 2 volume update beyond the Day 1 data. All sources are reporting the same Day 1 numbers ($59,500 volume). No new market listings announced for Day 2. This suggests HIP-4 is deliberately in soft-launch mode.

**KB connections:**
- [[Community ownership accelerates growth through aligned evangelism not passive holding]] — the zero-fee structure and HYPE token incentive is the mechanism: HYPE holders are incentivized to use HIP-4, generating volume that flows back to HYPE buybacks
- [[permissionless leverage on metaDAO ecosystem tokens catalyzes trading volume and price discovery]] — parallel mechanism thesis: zero fees + unified margin achieves similar volume-catalysis for Hyperliquid

**Extraction hints:**
1. Not ready for calibration claim extraction — need 30+ days of diverse event markets with resolution data
2. Could extract structural claim: "HIP-4's unified portfolio margin enables prediction market positions to serve as hedges against correlated perp positions, creating compound use cases absent from standalone prediction market platforms" — confidence: experimental

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[Community ownership accelerates growth through aligned evangelism not passive holding]] — HIP-4 is the live test
WHY ARCHIVED: Day 1-2 data establishes baseline for longitudinal tracking; structural features document the zero-fee unified-margin model; Kalshi co-authorship confirms strategic hedge thesis
EXTRACTION HINT: Archive now, extract in 30 days when calibration data available. The extractor should flag this as a longitudinal tracking source and check back in early June 2026 for calibration comparison.
