HIP-4 mở triển khai không cần cấp phép, liệu Hyperliquid có thể 'hạ gục' Polymarket không?

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Golem (@web3_golem)

Right after the World Cup ended, Hyperliquid dropped a "nuclear bomb" on the prediction market track.

On July 20, Hyperliquid announced that HIP-4 will support permissionless deployment in the future, similar to HIP-3. The staking requirement for HIP-4 deployers is also 500,000 HYPE, which will be locked for 6 months. HIP-4 deployers can set a fee split of up to 50% in deployed markets. This feature will first launch on the testnet before going live on the mainnet.

Hyperliquid announces permissionless deployment for HIP-4

Although Hyperliquid's announcement is just a preliminary notice with no specific timeline for the permissionless deployment of HIP-4, the market has already reacted with excitement following the news.

Hyperliquid's rise to become the world's largest platform for equity tokens and on-chain commodity perpetual contracts, even beating traditional financial markets to price corporate IPOs, is largely attributed to the launch of HIP-3 in October 2025, which enabled third parties to permissionlessly create perpetual contract markets.

Therefore, investors believe Hyperliquid can once again leverage the power of "decentralization" to surpass all leaders in the prediction market track.

Who Will Be the Next Trade.xyz?

Hyperliquid launched the HIP-4 market on May 2, 2026, marking its official entry into the prediction market. Before the launch, the market was optimistic that HIP-4 would become Hyperliquid's next core narrative. However, nearly three months since its actual debut, its performance can only be described as poor.

According to Hyperliquid's official data, the HIP-4 market accumulated a total trading volume of only $216 million in the past three months, with an average daily volume of just $10 million. Its peak daily active users reached only 7,000, and total fee revenue was a mere $442.38. In contrast, according to DeFiLlama data, Polymarket recorded a trading volume of $4.587 billion in the past month alone, with fees reaching $50 million.

HIP-4 average daily volume and total volume

Not only are users and trading volume low, but the number of events with tradable outcomes on HIP-4 is also quite limited. Currently, the entire HIP-4 market has only 6 prediction markets, which is a drop in the ocean compared to Polymarket in terms of both quantity and variety.

Currently tradable events on HIP-4

Faced with such a vast disparity in scale, Hyperliquid chose path dependency, following the successful experience of HIP-3. Since it couldn't build it up itself, it decided to hand the stage over to the community, aiming to create another Trade.xyz within HIP-4.

Hyperliquid opening permissionless deployment for the HIP-4 market is equivalent to Polymarket allowing users to independently create prediction market events. Hyperliquid founder Jeff also stated that permissionless deployment is particularly crucial for the growth of the outcome market (HIP-4), because the range of tradable outcomes is extremely broad, and the number of independent events suitable for outcome trading far exceeds the number of underlying assets used for derivatives and real-world asset tokenization.

Furthermore, deploying prediction market events by the community or third parties offers greater flexibility. Currently, the creation of prediction market contracts is mainly done by the team or reviewed by the community. This process lacks decentralization, and team members cannot possibly cover every area of interest. Especially for hot topics in the real world, this model slows down the response time from market trends to final execution and launch.

In the HIP-4 market, as long as enough HYPE tokens are staked, third parties can launch prediction market events according to their own standards without needing review from the Hyperliquid team. Hyperliquid also stipulates that it will not restrict multiple deployers from launching identical events simultaneously. This will also incentivize healthy competition in the HIP-4 market, where only those providing users with more comprehensive events and deeper liquidity can succeed in the competition.

Hyperliquid consistently adheres to a win-win strategy in its product philosophy. The HIP-3 market has already nurtured the behemoth Trade.xyz, which holds over 90% of the market share in HIP-3. The trading volume for the first ten perpetual contract assets listed all exceeded $10 billion.

Perhaps many teams are already gearing up. On the day Hyperliquid's mainnet opens permissionless deployment for HIP-4, we might witness a lively "clash of the titans."

Can Hyperliquid Disrupt the Prediction Market Landscape?

But can Hyperliquid really "succeed with one trick every time"?

First, Hyperliquid is not what it used to be. With HYPE's price stable above $60, the requirement for HIP-4 market deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE (approximately $30 million) has effectively shut out small startup teams. A crypto project today might not even raise $30 million in a single funding round. Prediction market projects capable of raising that much might be more inclined to develop their own prediction market platform.

Therefore, the high staking threshold for HIP-4 deployers may significantly reduce the number of third-party competitors, ultimately leaving only "well-capitalized" prediction market projects to act as guest traffic drivers. The number of tradable independent events will also be limited, severely hindering the innovation momentum of the entire HIP-4 market.

Secondly, Hyperliquid's timing for launching permissionless HIP-4 missed the boat entirely. A key reason 2026 became a year of opportunity for the prediction market track is the dense schedule of sports events in recent years, especially the once-every-four-years World Cup. Various prediction markets have been focusing on World Cup matches. For instance, the total trading volume for the Argentina vs. Spain match on Polymarket on July 20 alone reached $83.75 million.

But Hyperliquid completely missed this critical World Cup window, which is undoubtedly a major strategic oversight. Even the success of the HIP-3 market was a confluence of favorable timing, location, and people. The volatility in international crude oil prices triggered by the US-Iran conflict in February this year served as a significant catalyst for the HIP-3 market's development. The first day of the conflict fell on a weekend. With traditional markets closed, traders urgently needing to adjust positions or hedge had to find new tradable markets, and Hyperliquid's HIP-3 market became the top choice.

When Hyperliquid launched HIP-3, it didn't emphasize that it was built for equity tokens and commodity tokenization. Yet, it ultimately led to the creation of Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid's current leading position in the tokenized trading market. If Hyperliquid hadn't capitalized on the opportunity presented by the US-Iran conflict, perhaps there would be no place for Hyperliquid in today's tokenized trading market.

Similarly, having missed the World Cup timing, how confident can Hyperliquid be in disrupting the prediction market giants now?