Hyperliquid vs GMX for perpetual futures

The short answer

GMX and Hyperliquid are both self-custodial perpetual venues that verify nobody, and there the resemblance stops. GMX is a pool: liquidity providers deposit assets, an oracle sets the price, and you trade against the pool with a fee that depends on which way you push its balance. Hyperliquid is an order book: you trade against other traders at prices they posted. The fee models are not directly comparable, so this page compares what each actually costs.

Fees

GMX charges one position fee per trade, with no maker or taker side. It is 0.04% of position size when your trade reduces the pool’s long/short imbalance and 0.06% when it increases it. On top come a price impact charge that grows with your size relative to the pool, applied when you close, and borrowing fees for as long as the position is open, alongside funding.

Hyperliquid’s tier 0 is 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker. Its taker rate sits between GMX’s two figures: a trade that happens to balance the pool pays slightly less on GMX, a trade that adds to the imbalance pays more, and GMX has no maker side at all to set against Hyperliquid’s. A referral code takes the taker rate to 0.0432% .

The comparison that matters is not fee against fee but fee against fee plus impact. On GMX, price impact is the mechanism that protects the pool, so a large order in a lopsided market pays for it. On Hyperliquid the equivalent cost is slippage through the book, which is visible before you trade. Both venues charge funding, and on anything held overnight funding and borrowing dominate; the funding calculator covers Hyperliquid’s side.

Custody and what breaks

Both are self-custodial: you trade from your own wallet and nobody can freeze your balance. The risks are the ones that come with that on both sides, your own key management and the bridges you use, and our risk page applies to both.

The structural difference is who your counterparty is. On GMX it is the pool, so liquidity providers bear trader profits and collect trader losses, and the depth available to you is whatever the pool holds on that network. On Hyperliquid it is other traders, with a vault that absorbs liquidations. Pool depth is transparent on GMX; order-book depth is transparent on Hyperliquid. Neither is hidden, but they fail differently in a fast market.

GMX runs on several networks, including Arbitrum and Avalanche, and each order is two on-chain transactions whose network fee also pays the keeper that executes it. Hyperliquid runs on its own chain and charges no gas on orders.

Access

Neither venue asks for documents. Hyperliquid excludes residents of the United States and Ontario, Canada, along with sanctioned jurisdictions, under its Terms of Use. GMX’s site describes access as unrestricted and we found no published US restriction in its documentation; its Terms and your local law are the reference, and we will not read more into that than GMX has said. Our country pages cover Hyperliquid’s side.

Where GMX is genuinely better

• Slightly cheaper than Hyperliquid’s taker rate when your trade balances the pool, before impact.
• No order book to read. You get the oracle price, plus a stated impact, which some traders find simpler.
• Predictable fills in quiet markets, since there is no spread to cross.
• A long record as one of the earliest on-chain perpetual venues.
• Multi-network access, if your funds already sit on Arbitrum or Avalanche.
• Passive yield for liquidity providers, if you want to be the pool rather than the trader.

Where Hyperliquid is genuinely better

• Cheaper for makers on every trade, and cheaper than GMX’s higher rate for takers.
• No gas on orders, and hourly funding.
• Far more markets, including spot and builder-deployed equities, commodities and FX.
• Visible depth, so the cost of size is known before you trade rather than charged as impact.
• Maker fees fall to zero at higher tiers and then pay a rebate.
• Limit, stop, scale and TWAP orders that a pool cannot offer in the same way.

Who should pick which

Pick GMX if you want to trade or provide liquidity without dealing with an order book, your funds already live on one of its networks, and your size is small relative to the pool.

Pick Hyperliquid if cost matters, you rest orders, you want breadth of markets, or you want to see the depth you are trading into rather than pay an impact charge after the fact.

If you have only ever used a pool-based venue, read how order types work before your first trade on an order book. The mechanics are different enough that the fee comparison is the smaller adjustment.