HIP-4 Development Update: What's New in 2026

Where HIP-4 stands right now

HIP-4 — Hyperliquid’s prediction market protocol — has been live on testnet for a while now, and things are moving fast. If you’ve been watching from the sidelines, here’s a no-fluff update on what’s working, what markets exist, and what’s coming next.

For the basics on HIP-4, check out our HIP-4 explainer. This post assumes you have a rough idea of what it is and focuses on the current state of development.

Live testnet markets

The testnet has several active markets that anyone can trade right now. Here are the highlights:

BTC > $95k (recurring daily)

The flagship market. This is a binary yes/no that resolves every day at midnight UTC based on BTC’s closing price. After resolution, a new market with an updated strike price automatically opens for the next day.

YES shares have been trading in the $0.60–$0.75 range, reflecting the market’s real-time assessment of Bitcoin’s price trajectory. The order book is active, and fills happen in under a second.

This market demonstrates HIP-4’s recurring market feature — the same question, automatically refreshed on a schedule. No manual market creation, no gaps in coverage.

What will Hypurr eat?

A multi-outcome community market with options including Akami, Otoro, Canned Tuna, Wagyu, and Ramen. It’s lighthearted, but it’s technically significant — multi-outcome markets are harder to implement than binary ones, and this one runs smoothly on the same matching engine as Hyperliquid’s billion-dollar perp markets.

Akami has been the market favorite, trading around $0.42. The outcome prices sum to roughly $1.00, with arbitrageurs keeping things tight.

HL 100 meter dash

A fun market pitting Hypurr (Hyperliquid’s mascot) against Usain Bolt in a hypothetical footrace. Hypurr is heavily favored at around $0.77, which tells you something about this community’s priorities.

These testnet markets prove the core engine works: binary markets, multi-outcome markets, recurring markets, instant settlement, shared margin. The infrastructure is solid.

What’s new technically

A few developments worth noting:

Permissionless market creation

This is the big one. HIP-4 is moving toward allowing anyone to create a prediction market without needing approval from the Hyperliquid team. You think of a question, define the parameters (outcomes, resolution criteria, expiry), and deploy it.

Permissionless creation is what made Polymarket explode during the 2024 election cycle — anyone could create a market on any political topic. HIP-4 aims to bring that same openness but on better infrastructure: on-chain orderbooks, sub-second settlement, and shared margin across asset classes.

The challenge is resolution — who decides the outcome? Polymarket uses UMA’s optimistic oracle, which is slow but decentralized. HIP-4’s approach is still being finalized, but it’ll likely involve designated resolvers for different market categories, with dispute mechanisms as a backstop.

Tick size precision

A subtle but important detail: HIP-4 markets use 5 significant figures for price precision. The tick size is calculated as 10^(floor(log10(price)) - 4). This means prices are granular enough for tight markets but don’t create noise with meaningless decimal places.

If a share is trading at $0.68, the tick size is $0.00001. At $0.05, it’s $0.000001. This level of precision matters for market makers providing liquidity.

Spot pair indexing

Under the hood, prediction market assets use a specific indexing scheme: asset = 10000 + pairIndex. This is how the matching engine distinguishes prediction market tokens from regular spot and perp assets. You don’t need to know this as a trader, but it’s a sign that prediction markets are first-class citizens in Hyperliquid’s architecture, not an afterthought.

What’s coming next

Mainnet launch timeline

The mainnet timeline hasn’t been officially announced, but based on testnet progress, a 2026 launch seems likely. The core trading infrastructure works. What’s still being built out:

Resolution oracle infrastructure for permissionless markets
Market creation UI and tooling
Liquidity incentive programs
Integration with existing Hyperliquid features (vaults, sub-accounts)

Purrdict is building a frontend on top of HIP-4, and we’ll be ready for mainnet when it launches.

More market types

Beyond price prediction and community events, expect to see:

Political markets — elections, policy decisions, legislation
Sports markets — match outcomes, player performance
Crypto-native markets — protocol upgrades, token launches, TVL milestones
Economic indicators — rate decisions, inflation data, employment numbers

The infrastructure supports all of these. The bottleneck is resolution infrastructure, not the matching engine.

Deeper liquidity through shared margin

As HIP-4 goes to mainnet, prediction market positions will share margin with perps and spot on the same account. This means market makers who are already providing liquidity on Hyperliquid perps can simultaneously make markets on prediction outcomes — without allocating separate capital. This should bring significantly more liquidity to prediction markets than any standalone platform can attract.

Read more about why this matters in our shared margin explainer.

How to get involved now

The best way to get ahead of the mainnet launch:

Trade on testnet — Purrdict is live and free. Get familiar with the interface and market mechanics.
Learn the fundamentals — understand what prediction markets are and how to trade them.
Set up your wallet — get a wallet ready so you can move fast when mainnet launches.

HIP-4 is one of the most ambitious additions to any L1 this cycle. It’s not just adding a feature — it’s adding an entire asset class to what’s already the most liquid on-chain exchange in crypto.

Stay ahead of the curve. Join the Purrdict waitlist for early mainnet access.