HIP-4 Upgrade: Hyperliquid Opens Door to Permissionless Prediction Markets

Hyperliquid has announced that its upcoming HIP-4 network upgrade will enable permissionless deployment of prediction markets. The protocol currently restricts outcome market creation to validators, but HIP-4 opens it up to any user meeting requirements. The upgrade will launch on testnet before going live on mainnet. Under HIP-4, validators vote on standardized outcome templates that users can use to launch markets. These templates are stored and enforced on-chain and are designed to cover events with sufficient liquidity and unambiguous outcomes. Deployers are responsible for defining and settling markets according to the chosen template, and multiple deployers can launch identical markets if they wish. To become a HIP-4 deployer, users must stake 500,000 HYPE tokens for a six-month lock period. Validators can slash the stake if markets are poorly defined or settled incorrectly. Leaving a market unsettled for more than one week also triggers slashing, and deployers must settle all markets before unstaking. Initially, each deployer gets capacity for 100 outcomes or 200 outcome tokens, with more allocation planned through a future auction mechanism. Future updates will allow deployers to set fee sharing of up to 50% on their markets, but configurable fees are part of a later update. For now, only AQAv2 quote tokens are supported. Validators will still create canonical markets, but these are expected to become less common—ideally fewer than 10 per year. The team noted that all specifications are preliminary and subject to change. Despite the announcement, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token saw limited price movement, trading near $60, down about 1% in 24 hours and nearly 10% over the past week. The token is 21% below its all-time high of $76.87 but up 34% year-over-year. Hyperliquid’s move comes as prediction markets see record volumes. A recent CoinGecko report showed notional volume across prediction platforms hit $50.7 billion in June, driven by sports events such as the UEFA Champions League final, the NBA Finals, and Wimbledon. Q2 2026 volume reached $113.8 billion, a 48.7% quarter-over-quarter increase.

Source: https://cryptopotato.com/hip-4-upgrade-hyperliquid-opens-door-to-permissionless-prediction-markets/