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Hyperliquid Gasless Trading – Deep Comparison, Fees, and 20 Optimized Strategies

· 6 min read
Vadim Nicolai
Vadim Nicolai
Senior Software Engineer at Vitrifi

TL;DR Hyperliquid runs its own Layer-1 with two execution domains:

  • HyperCore — native on-chain central limit order book (CLOB), margin, funding, liquidations.
  • HyperEVM — standard EVM runtime (gas metered, paid in HYPE).

Trading on HyperCore is gasless: orders, cancels, TP/SL, TWAP, Scale ladders, etc. are signed actions included in consensus, not EVM transactions.

  • You don’t need HYPE to place/cancel orders.
  • You pay maker/taker fees and funding, not gas.
  • Spam is mitigated with address budgets, rate limits, open-order caps.
  • If you need more throughput: buy request weight at $0.0005 per action.

The design enables CEX-style strategies (dense ladders, queue dancing, rebates, hourly hedging) without the friction of gas.

Official GitHub repos:

1. How “gasless” works​

Order lifecycle​

Wallet signs payload  →  Exchange endpoint → Node → Validators (HyperBFT)
                        ↘ deterministic inclusion into HyperCore state

  • Signatures, not transactions. Your wallet signs payloads (EIP-712 style). These are posted to the Exchange endpoint, gossiped to validators, ordered in consensus, and applied to HyperCore. → No gas, just signature.

  • Onboarding. Enable trading = sign once. Withdrawals = flat $1 fee, not a gas auction. Docs → Onboarding

  • Spam protection.

    • Address budgets: 10k starter buffer, then 1 action per 1 USDC lifetime fills.
    • Open-order cap: base 1,000 → scales to 5,000.
    • Congestion fairness: max 2× maker-share per block.
    • ReserveRequestWeight: buy capacity at $0.0005/action. Docs → Rate limits

  • Safety rails.

    • scheduleCancel (dead-man’s switch)
    • expiresAfter (time-box an action)
    • noop (nonce invalidation)

  • Order types. Market, Limit, ALO (post-only), IOC, GTC, TWAP, Scale, TP/SL (market or limit), OCO. Docs → Order types

  • Self-trade prevention. Expire-maker: cancels resting maker side instead of self-fill. Docs → STP

2. Fees: Hyperliquid vs DEXes & CEXes​

Perps (base tiers)​

VenueMakerTakerNotes
Hyperliquid0.015%0.045%Gasless actions; staking discounts up to 40%; rebates up to –0.003%
dYdX v40.01%0.05%Gasless submits/cancels; fills only
GMX v2 (perps)0.04–0.06%0.04–0.06%Round-trip 0.08–0.12% + funding/borrow + L2 gas
Binance Futures~0.018%~0.045%VIP/BNB discounts; USDC-M can hit 0% maker
Bybit Perps0.020%0.055%Tiered; VIP reductions
OKX Futures0.020%0.050%VIP can reach –0.005% / 0.015%
Kraken Futures0.020%0.050%Down to 0% / 0.01% at scale

Spot​

VenueMakerTakerGas
Hyperliquid0.040%0.070%Gasless actions; $1 withdraw
Uniswap v30.01–1%0.01–1%User pays gas; or solver embeds in price
Bybit Spot0.15%0.10–0.20%CEX; no gas
OKX Spot0.08%0.10%VIP/OKB discounts

3. Funding models​

  • Hyperliquid: 8h rate paid hourly (1/8 each hour). Hyperps use EMA mark (oracle-light).
  • dYdX v4: hourly funding; standard premium/interest.
  • GMX v2: continuous borrow vs pool imbalance.

4. What gasless enables (tactically)​

  • Dense ladders + queue dancing: cheap to modify/cancel 1000s of levels.
  • Granular hedging: rebalance perps/spot hedges hourly without friction.
  • CEX-style STP + ALO: protect queue priority.
  • Deterministic inclusion: HyperBFT ensures one global order sequence.
  • Predictable scaling: buy request weight explicitly instead of gas auction.

5. Ten core strategies​

  1. Passive Maker Ladder (ALO + STP) Build dense post-only ladders, earn spread + rebates, cancel/repost gas-free.

  2. Rebate Farming (maker-share) Hit ≥0.5%, 1.5%, 3% maker volume shares to unlock –0.001%/–0.002%/–0.003%.

  3. Funding-Arb / Cash-and-Carry Long spot vs short perp; rebalance hourly gas-free.

  4. TWAP Execution Use native 30s slice TWAP with slippage caps; gasless param tweaks.

  5. Scale Order Grids Deploy wide grids with up to 5k resting orders; adjust spacing by ATR.

  6. Latency-Aware MM Run node, use noop for stale nonces.

  7. OCO Risk-Boxing (TP/SL) Parent-linked stops/targets; frequent adjustment gasless.

  8. Hyperps Momentum/Fade Trade EMA-based hyperps; funding skew stabilizes. Turnkey repo

  9. Dead-Man’s Switch Hygiene Always use scheduleCancel; pair with expiresAfter.

  10. Throughput Budgeting Add logic to purchase reserveRequestWeight at spikes.

6. Ten advanced strategies​

  1. Maker-Skewed Basis Harvest Hedge legs passively, collect rebates + funding.

  2. Adaptive Spread Ladder Contract/expand quotes with realized vol; keep order count fixed.

  3. Queue-Position Arbitrage Gasless modify to overtake by 1 tick; requires local queue estimation.

  4. Stale-Quote Punisher Flip passive→taker when off-chain anchors are stale.

  5. Rebate-Neutral Market Impact Hedger Pre-compute edge ≈ (S/2 − A − f_m); trade only when ≥0.

  6. Funding Skew Swing-Trader Switch between mean-revert & trend based on funding drift.

  7. Dead-Man Sessioner Each session starts with scheduleCancel(t) to avoid zombie orders.

  8. Liquidity Layer Splitter Spread ladders across accounts; use STP to avoid self-trades.

  9. Cross-Venue Micro-Arb HL vs CEX/DEX; taker on mispriced side, maker on the other.

  10. Event-Mode Capacity Burst Pre-buy request weight pre-CPI/FOMC; change ladder parameters.

7. Cost sanity check ($100k notional)​

  • Hyperliquid: 0.015% maker ($15) + 0.045% taker ($45) = $60 (+ funding).
  • dYdX v4: 0.01% + 0.05% = $60.
  • GMX v2: 0.04–0.06% open + 0.04–0.06% close = $80–120 (+ borrow + gas).
  • Binance Futures: 0.018% + 0.045% ≈ $63 (base VIP).

8. Implementation gotchas​

  • Budgets & caps: track in code; cancels have higher allowance; throttling needed.
  • Min sizes: perps $10 notional; spot 10 quote units.
  • ExpiresAfter: avoid triggering (5× budget cost).
  • Node ops: run Linux, open ports 4001/4002, colocate in Tokyo.
  • Nonces: prefer modify; use noop if stuck.

9. Comparison snapshot​

  • Hyperliquid & dYdX v4 — gasless trading actions, on-chain CLOB, deterministic finality.
  • UniswapX / CoW — user-gasless via solver; solver pays gas, embeds in your price.
  • Uniswap v3/v4, GMX — user pays gas + pool fee; MEV & slippage dominate costs.
  • CEXes — no gas, lowest fees at VIP, fiat rails; but centralized custody.

10. GitHub Index​

Bottom Line

Hyperliquid takes gas out of the trading loop, letting traders focus on fees, funding, latency, and inventory control. The result: a CEX-like experience with on-chain transparency.

Best use cases:

  • High-frequency maker strategies (queue-dancing, rebates).
  • Funding arbitrage with fine-grained rebalancing.
  • Event-driven hedging.
  • Developers who want to build bots in Python/Rust/TS/Go without juggling gas balances.