Earn on Hyperliquid: HLP, vaults, staking and yield
Verified against Hyperliquid docs: Vaults and Hyperliquid docs: Fees · by Hyperliquid Academy
Why there is no APR on this page
Every competing page on this topic prints a number. That number is a snapshot of a strategy’s recent performance, it moves constantly, and once it is typed into an article it stays there for years.
HLP and every user vault publish their realised performance on-chain, continuously, where anyone can read it. That is a better source than any figure we could copy into this page, and it is the only one that will still be true when you read this.
So this page tells you what each route does, what it risks, and where the live number is. What it will not do is give you a yield figure to remember.
The four routes
| Route | What you are actually doing | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| HLP | Funding the protocol’s market maker and liquidation backstop | Drawdown when the book moves against it |
| User vault | Handing capital to a trader you chose | That trader’s judgement |
| HYPE staking | Securing the chain and holding a volatile token | The token price, which dwarfs the reward |
| Maker rebate | Providing liquidity while you trade anyway | Unfilled orders, not capital loss |
None of these is a deposit account
Three of the four put capital at risk in a way that can lose money over any period you care about. The fourth pays you for doing something you were going to do anyway. That difference matters more than any difference in headline yield.
HLP, briefly
HLP is the liquidity vault owned by the protocol. It runs market-making strategies and absorbs liquidations the order book cannot clear, and it passes its profits and losses straight through to depositors: the profit share is 0% .
That last point is unusual and worth understanding. Nobody is skimming the returns, which also means nobody is cushioning the losses. When the vault has a bad week you have a bad week. The full explanation is here, including where its performance history lives.
User vaults, briefly
Anyone can run a vault and take deposits. The leader keeps 10% of the profits, and depositors take the losses in full.
The asymmetry is the thing to weigh: a leader is paid for upside and does not pay for downside beyond their own stake in the vault. That is not a scandal, it is how the product works, and it is why picking a vault is a judgement about a person rather than a product. How to read a vault before depositing.
Staking HYPE, briefly
Staking secures the chain, earns a reward, and cuts your trading fees when the stake is linked to your trading account.
| Staking tier | HYPE staked | Fee discount | Taker rate | With referral | Total saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | — | — | 0.045% | 0.0432% | 4% |
| Wood | Over 10 | 5% | 0.04275% | 0.04104% | 8.8% |
| Bronze | Over 100 | 10% | 0.0405% | 0.03888% | 13.6% |
| Silver | Over 1K | 15% | 0.03825% | 0.03672% | 18.4% |
| Gold | Over 10K | 20% | 0.036% | 0.03456% | 23.2% |
| Platinum | Over 100K | 30% | 0.0315% | 0.03024% | 32.8% |
| Diamond | Over 500K | 40% | 0.027% | 0.02592% | 42.4% |
The fee discount is real and it is on this page’s list because it is money. The reward is real too. Both are small relative to the price movement of the token you have to hold to get them, which is the honest framing most staking pages avoid. The mechanics and the arithmetic.
The maker rebate, which nobody calls earning
| Tier | 14-day volume | Taker | Maker | Taker with referral |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Under $5M | 0.045% | 0.015% | 0.0432% |
| 1 | Over $5M | 0.04% | 0.012% | 0.0384% |
| 2 | Over $25M | 0.035% | 0.008% | 0.0336% |
| 3 | Over $100M | 0.03% | 0.004% | 0.0288% |
| 4 | Over $500M | 0.028% | 0% | 0.0269% |
| 5 | Over $2B | 0.026% | 0% | 0.025% |
| 6 | Over $7B | 0.024% | 0% | 0.023% |
At higher volume the maker fee reaches zero, and above a share threshold it becomes a rebate: the exchange pays you to provide liquidity.
This is the only route on the page that is not a return on capital at risk. If you already trade, moving from market orders to resting limit orders changes your cost line before it changes anything else, and at scale it inverts it. The fee levers, ranked.
The lock-up applies to both vaults
Money in HLP or a user vault unlocks 4 days after your most recent deposit into that vault, and a new deposit resets the clock for the entire balance.
That catches people who add to a position regularly: each top-up re-locks everything, not just the new money. Plan around it if you might need the funds.
How to decide
Ask what you are being paid for. The maker rebate pays you for work. Staking pays you for locking a token and accepting its price risk. HLP pays you for standing behind the order book. A user vault pays you for trusting someone’s trading.
Those are four different questions, and the yield figure is the least useful way to compare them.
Before any of it, read how liquidation works, because it is the mechanism HLP earns from and the one that will cost you most if you are trading rather than depositing.
Frequently asked questions
Which option has the best return?
Nobody can answer that honestly in advance, and a page that does is guessing. HLP and user vaults report their realised performance on-chain, so the comparison you want is between those published records, read on the day you are deciding.
Is any of this passive income?
No. Every route here can lose money. HLP takes the other side of liquidations and can draw down, vault leaders can trade badly, and a staking reward paid in HYPE is worth whatever HYPE is worth when you sell it.
What is the safest way to earn here?
The maker rebate, because it is payment for work rather than a return on capital at risk. It requires you to be trading anyway and to place resting orders instead of crossing the spread.
Can I withdraw whenever I want?
Not from a vault. Both HLP and user vaults unlock a deposit four days after you made it, and a new deposit resets that clock for your whole balance.
Sources
- Hyperliquid docs: Vaultshyperliquid.gitbook.io
- Hyperliquid docs: Feeshyperliquid.gitbook.io
We link the primary source for every number on this page. If a figure here disagrees with the Hyperliquid documentation, the documentation is right and we want to know.