Hyperliquid HIP-4 Upgrade: Empowering Deployers and Refining Network Economics
Hyperliquid has successfully implemented its HIP-4 proposal, introducing a suite of significant updates designed to enhance platform functionality and economic sustainability. The upgrade focuses on granting deployers greater flexibility and control while optimizing the network's fee structure, setting the stage for future mainnet scaling.
Major Enhancements for Deployers
HIP-4 introduces several practical new features for creators (deployers) of prediction markets. A key improvement is that deployers can now add new named outcomes to a market even after its initial creation. This addresses previous rigidity, allowing markets to adapt more dynamically.
Economically, a new deployerFeeScale parameter is now required during template instantiation. This multiplier, configurable between 0 and 10, allows deployers to capture a portion of fees generated by their markets, creating a direct incentive model for participation.
Technical Optimizations and Data Management
Beyond core features, the update includes important technical refinements. The new shortString type hint improves name handling on the template side, enabling front-end interfaces to parse relevant fields more clearly and accurately.
To improve network efficiency, settlement details have been pruned from the L1 state. Applications relying on this data must now fetch it via node APIs or build their own indexing solutions.
The testnet environment has been enriched with multiple new template groups for development. Note that templates are identified by sequential suffixes, and all but the highest-numbered template in each group are considered deprecated.
Upcoming Fee Mechanism for Prediction Markets
Following the next network upgrade, a fee mechanism will be activated for prediction markets deployed by validators. A central pricing rule states that the average transaction fee for these markets will be set at half the fee rate for non-prediction spot trades. This aims to balance network revenue with user participation costs, encouraging diverse trading activity.
A Conservative, Phased Mainnet Launch Strategy
Prioritizing system stability and security, the mainnet rollout of HIP-4 features will follow a phased approach with conservative limits.
- Initial Phase: Each deployer will be limited to 100 concurrent active outcomes and a maximum of 500 new outcome deployments per day.
- Scaling Phase: Once core system stability is confirmed, these limits are expected to increase rapidly to 1,000 concurrent outcomes and 5,000 daily deployments.
This "start-tight, scale-up" strategy allows the team to monitor system performance within controlled bounds and gather real-world data. Future limit increases will be designed based on community feedback and network capacity, ensuring growth is healthy and sustainable.