Unit on Hyperliquid explained (2026)

What is Unit, and how does it bring BTC to Hyperliquid?

What problem it solves

HyperCore runs an order book, not a general-purpose chain with bridges attached. For native Bitcoin to trade there, something has to hold the Bitcoin on Bitcoin and represent it on HyperCore.

That something is Unit. Its own documentation calls it the asset tokenisation layer on Hyperliquid, and the description is accurate: it moves assets between their home chains and Hyperliquid in both directions.

Without it, the only way to get Bitcoin exposure here would be the perpetual — a contract on the price, margined in USDC. Unit is what makes holding the actual asset possible.

How it works

Piece	What it does
Guardians	Independently run the protocol agent and custody the asset on its own chain
Threshold scheme	2-of-3 MPC threshold signature scheme , so no guardian acts alone
Deposit	You send on the native chain; the equivalent is credited on HyperCore
Withdrawal	The reverse, sent to an address you name on that chain

The guardian set is currently Unit, Hyperliquid and Infinite Field. Any two of the three must agree to authorise an operation, including generating an address and signing a transaction.

What 2-of-3 buys, and what it does not

It removes the single point of failure. No one party can move the pooled assets, so a compromise of one guardian is not a compromise of the funds.

It does not remove the trust assumption. Two colluding guardians could act, and the arrangement depends on three named parties continuing to operate and honour redemptions. That is a custody model, not a cryptographic guarantee, and it is a genuinely different risk from holding USDC in your own account.

Neither of those observations is a criticism. They are what you are agreeing to, and it is better to know before you deposit a large amount than after.

What it costs

Nothing, as a protocol. Unit’s documentation states that it does not collect revenue from deposits or withdrawals.

What you pay is the network cost of two ordinary chain transactions: yours going in, and the one the guardians broadcast coming out. On Bitcoin that is a Bitcoin fee; on Solana it is a Solana fee. The app shows an estimate per chain at the time you deposit.

That makes the cost comparison with the USDC route depend entirely on which chain you are coming from, rather than on any charge either side applies.

The minimums, which are unusually strict

Minimum native deposit per asset. An amount below the minimum is lost rather than returned. Verified 8 Sept 2026 against the Unit documentation.
Asset	Network	Minimum deposit
BTC	Bitcoin	0.0003 BTC
ETH	Ethereum	0.007 ETH
SOL	Solana	0.12 SOL
AVAX	Avalanche	1.5 AVAX
ZEC	Zcash	0.07 ZEC
BONK	Solana	1,800,000 BONK

Below the minimum is a loss, not a rejection

The Hyperliquid documentation states it plainly for Bitcoin: deposits below the minimum will result in a loss of funds. The system does not bounce a small deposit back.

That is the single most important operational fact about this route, and it is why “send a tiny test first” — good advice almost everywhere else — is exactly wrong here. Test with an amount above the minimum, or do not test at all.

What arrives on your account

A spot balance, not collateral.

Deposited Bitcoin shows up as a spot holding on HyperCore. It can be traded on the spot book immediately. It cannot margin a perpetual position until you sell it for USDC, because perpetuals here are margined in USDC alone.

People find this surprising, deposit BTC intending to trade perps, and conclude something is broken. Nothing is. The deposit route step by step covers the sequence, including the sale.

Where Unit fits in the stack

HyperCore and HyperEVM are the two halves of the network: the order book and the general-purpose EVM. Unit sits beside both, supplying assets that originate elsewhere.

That gives HyperCore something most order books do not have — real BTC, ETH and SOL trading on the same engine as the perpetuals, with one account and one margin system behind it.

The interesting consequence is the funding trade. Holding spot BTC through Unit and shorting the BTC perpetual gives you a delta-neutral position collecting funding, with both legs on the same venue and no transfer between them. How the rate is set.

Deciding whether to use it

Use it when you already hold the asset on its own chain and want it here without selling; when you want spot exposure rather than a perpetual; or when you need the spot leg of a funding trade.

Use USDC instead when you are only going to trade perpetuals, because the native asset would have to be sold for USDC anyway, at spot fees, in an extra step.

Think harder when the amount is large. Not because anything is wrong with the design, but because “who holds this, and under what assumption” deserves an explicit answer at size, and here the honest answer is three named guardians under a threshold scheme.

Where to go next

Depositing through this route, with the minimums and the failure modes, and the route comparison if you have not settled on one.

Frequently asked questions

Who actually holds my Bitcoin?

Guardians hold it on the Bitcoin network under a 2-of-3 threshold signature scheme, so no single guardian can move it alone. Unit, Hyperliquid and Infinite Field are the current guardians.

Does Unit charge a fee?

No protocol fee. Its documentation states that Unit does not collect revenue from deposits or withdrawals, so what you pay is the network cost of the transaction you send and the one the guardians broadcast.

Is it a bridge?

In effect, though it works differently from a bridge contract. The asset is custodied on its native chain rather than locked in a smart contract, and what you hold on Hyperliquid is the credited equivalent.

What is the risk compared with depositing USDC?

An extra party. A USDC deposit moves a token you hold into an account you control. A native deposit relies on the guardians continuing to honour the redemption, which is a custody assumption rather than a code one.

Which assets does it support?

Thirteen assets across eight networks as verified for this page, including native BTC, ETH and SOL. The deposit window in the app is the authority on what is available right now.

Can I withdraw back to the original chain?

Yes. Withdrawing sends the asset to an address you name on its native blockchain, and you pay that chain's transaction cost.

Sources

Unit documentationdocs.hyperunit.xyz
Hyperliquid docs: Deposited via Bitcoin networkhyperliquid.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.