# Hyperliquid vs dYdX: Two Chains That Keep the Book at Home

The Perp Reference maintainers · Updated: 24 September 2026 · Readings taken 20 September 2026 · Venue documents read 18 September 2026

## Abstract

Hyperliquid vs dYdX is settled by the book rather than the badge. Hyperliquid held
$8.7 billion of open interest on 22 September 2026, as CoinMarketCap published it, against
$37.3 million, and its BTC book carried $9.6 million within 10 basis points against
$845,322. dYdX prices a resting order lower.

Weights: Order-book liquidity 30 · Market coverage 20 · Trading cost 18 · Security record 14 · Custody and settlement 12 · Access 6. One formula scores every page on this site, fixed on 22 September 2026: https://thekiddushclubnft.com/scoring-method

## Hyperliquid vs dYdX, criterion by criterion

| Criterion | Hyperliquid | dYdX |
|---|---|---|
| Score of 7 | 5.0 | 3.9 |
| Where the order book lives | Inside HyperCore, the order books of its own layer-1 chain, matched in consensus | In each validator's memory, off consensus; the match is then written to dYdX Chain |
| Maker and taker at the entry tier | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker | 0.010% maker / 0.050% taker, with half the fee rebated after each trade |
| Perpetual markets on the venue's own list | 324, of which 146 come from third-party deployers | 78 active, with 218 more contracts in final settlement |
| What trades besides coins | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, the non-crypto contracts all deployed by third parties | crypto, commodities, namely oil, silver and a gold token |
| Open interest reported on 22 September 2026 | $8.7 billion | $37.3 million |
| Closed in the terms we read | Residents of the United States and of Ontario, and sanctioned jurisdictions | Residents of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and sanctioned jurisdictions |

Venue documents read 18 September 2026 in each venue's own documentation and terms; the order-book figures are measured, from the window below.

## What the grid shows

1. Depth is where the two part company: a median $9.6 million resting within 10 basis points against $845,322, 118 readings each on 20 September 2026.
2. Cost flips with the order type. Resting pays 0.010% at dYdX against 0.015%; crossing costs 0.045% against 0.050%.
3. The market lists are four to one: 324 perpetual contracts against 78, from each venue's own endpoint on 18 September 2026.
4. Reported size runs the same way, $8.7 billion of open interest against $37.3 million on 22 September 2026.

## Order-book readings taken by this site

Both BTC books were read on a ten-minute clock across the two days to 20 September 2026; the figures are medians.

| Venue | Round trip on $10,000 | Median spread | Resting within 10 bps | Impact, $100,000 | Snapshots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperliquid | $9.00 | 0.12 bps | $9.6 million | 0.06 bps | 118 |
| dYdX | $10.00 | 1.23 bps | $845,322 | 6.93 bps | 118 |

No account was opened and no order was placed.

## Hyperliquid — the book that took the size, at the rate it sets

Score 5.0 of 7 · On-chain order book · 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker maker and taker · 324 markets · BTC 40x to $150 million · Wallet signature or email code

Here the book is the chain. Orders, cancels, trades and liquidations run in HyperCore on its own
layer-1 network, with finality in one block ([Hyperliquid docs](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/about-hyperliquid.md), checked 18 September 2026). It reported
$8.7 billion of open interest and $13.4 billion of turnover on
22 September 2026, its own figures as published by CoinMarketCap. The entry tier prices a crossing at
0.045% and a resting order at 0.015%, falling with
fourteen-day volume and staked tokens
([Hyperliquid fee schedule](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/trading/fees), checked 18 September 2026). Of the
324 markets counted on 18 September 2026, 146 came from third-party
deployers the terms say the interface does not review.

- In favour: More than eleven times the resting depth of the other column, $9.6 million against $845,322; A $1 million market order would have moved the price 0.60 bps, against 11.83 bps opposite.
- Noted against: A single liquidation in March 2025 left about $4 million with the venue's own vault, by its own statement; The two audits its documentation lists cover the 2023 deposit bridge, not the chain that runs the book; A deposit into that vault is locked for four days from the latest top-up.
- Not for: a desk that rests more than it crosses, because the other column prices a resting order lower.

## dYdX — the cheapest resting order, on the thinner book

Score 3.9 of 7 · App-chain, validator-held book · 0.010% maker / 0.050% taker maker and taker · 78 markets · BTC 50x, 2% margin · Wallet signature, or Google, Apple or email

The book here never enters consensus. Validators keep it privately, and the proposer of the next
block writes only the fill to dYdX Chain, an application chain built with the Cosmos toolkit
([dYdX docs](https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/architecture/overview), checked 18 September 2026). The entry tier charges 0.010% to rest and
0.050% to cross, and half of what a trade pays comes back as a rebate
([dYdX fee schedule](https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/trading/rewards), checked 18 September 2026). Its indexer listed 78
active perpetual markets on 18 September 2026, with 218 more in final settlement, and
CoinMarketCap published $37.3 million of open interest on 22 September 2026.

- In favour: The cheaper resting order of the two at 0.010%, with half of a trade's fee rebated; Six Informal Systems reports in the venue's own audit repository, covering the chain and its vault.
- Noted against: The chain stopped in the crash of 10 October 2025, and the restart ran on stale oracle prices; Withdrawals are rate-limited, and are gated for fifty blocks after any outage of five minutes or more; A negative account is deleveraged against profitable positions picked at random.
- Not for: an order of real size, which would have paid 11.83 bps at $1 million against the book we read.

## Where each book actually sits

The two answer the same question in opposite directions. Hyperliquid puts the matching engine
inside consensus: every order, cancel, trade and liquidation executes in HyperCore on its own
layer-1 chain, and a block settles it ([Hyperliquid docs](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/about-hyperliquid.md), checked 18 September 2026). dYdX keeps the
chain and lifts the book out of it, leaving each validator to hold orders privately until a match
is written down ([dYdX docs](https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/architecture/overview), checked 18 September 2026). Neither documents a withdrawal a holder can
force without the operator, the row the custody criterion turns on;
[the settlement entry](/perp-dex-settlement-compared) carries it in full. dYdX adds a constraint of
its own: withdrawals are rate-limited, and gated for fifty blocks after any outage of five minutes
or more.

## More than ten times the depth, and a cheaper place to rest

The readings put $9.6 million within 10 basis points of the mid on the Hyperliquid
BTC book against $845,322 on dYdX — more than ten to one, on
118 readings each. The
quotes follow: a median 0.12 bps against 1.23 bps. At $100,000 the
cost of crossing ran 0.06 bps against 6.93 bps, and
at $1 million 0.60 bps against 11.83 bps. dYdX filled the
whole order and Hyperliquid 98% of one, and the thinner book charged nearly twenty times as much
to do it. Larger sizes sit on
[the entry for large orders](/perp-dex-for-large-orders).

Cost runs the other way, and only at the resting end: 0.010% against
0.015%, with half of a trade's fee rebated afterwards
([dYdX fee schedule](https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/trading/rewards), checked 18 September 2026). Crossing is dearer there, so a $10,000 round
trip comes to $10.00 against $9.00.

## Two records, read from what each has published

The security criterion counts audits, a bounty anyone can claim and a clean twenty-four months, and
treats money lost in a venue-run vault as money lost. Both columns land on the same total.
Hyperliquid's statement of 12 March 2025 puts about $4 million on its HLP vault after one
liquidation, and CoinDesk reported a further $4.9 million there in November 2025. dYdX halted its
chain in the crash of 10 October 2025 and afterwards proposed $462,097.79 of compensation. Scope
divides their audit records more than count does: two Hyperliquid reports cover the 2023 deposit
bridge and none the chain that runs the book, while dYdX publishes six on its own chain and vault.

A venue of a different shape answers a different question. EVEDEX matches on an order book
off-chain and settles on Arbitrum, and its market list reaches shares, metals and currency pairs
from one USDT margin; the [leverage entry](/perp-dex-leverage-limits) scores it on these same six
criteria.

## Getting an order onto either chain

Both open on a wallet signature, and both will make a self-custodial account from an email address
instead. Hyperliquid takes USDC on Arbitrum; dYdX takes it bridged in from six networks and puts
the fast route at ten to thirty seconds. Read the closed lists first: dYdX names the United States,
Canada and the United Kingdom, Hyperliquid the United States and Ontario. Both were read on
18 September 2026, and terms change without notice.

## Quotations

> "HyperCore includes fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books. Every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation happens transparently with one-block finality inherited from HyperBFT." — Hyperliquid documentation, About Hyperliquid, 18 September 2026. https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/about-hyperliquid
> "Validators are responsible for storing orders in an in-memory orderbook (i.e. off chain and not committed to consensus), gossipping transactions to other validators, and producing new blocks for dYdX Chain through the consensus process." — dYdX documentation, architecture overview, 18 September 2026. https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/architecture/overview
> "HLP lost ~$4M over the past 24h." — Hyperliquid, statement on X, 12 March 2025. https://x.com/HyperliquidX/status/1899768864705237211
## FAQ

### Is Hyperliquid better than dYdX?

On the six criteria used here Hyperliquid takes 5.0 of
7 against 3.9, and the distance comes almost entirely from
liquidity and market coverage. dYdX takes one row of the grid, the price of a resting order; the
cost criterion is scored on a taker round trip and goes the other way. Choose by whether your order
sits or crosses.

### Which is cheaper, Hyperliquid or dYdX?

Neither, flatly. A resting order costs 0.010% at dYdX against
0.015%, and dYdX rebates half of what a trade pays. Crossing runs the other
way, 0.050% against 0.045%, so a $10,000 round trip comes to
$10.00 there and $9.00 at Hyperliquid.

### How many markets does dYdX have?

78 active perpetual markets on 18 September 2026, counted from its own indexer
with delisted contracts excluded; 218 more sit in final settlement. Hyperliquid listed
324 on the same day. CoinMarketCap published its own counts on
22 September 2026, 88 and 444, taken a different way.

### Is dYdX fully decentralized?

Its own documentation says validators store orders in an in-memory order book, off chain and
outside consensus, and that the match is what reaches the chain. Collateral is USDC bridged in
through Noble. Read it as a chain that settles trades rather than a chain that holds the book.

### Can I use dYdX in the UK?

Not under the terms we read on 18 September 2026. The dYdX software terms bar residents of the
United Kingdom from the perpetuals software, beside the United States and Canada. Hyperliquid's
terms bar the United States and Ontario instead. Terms change, and the document is what binds.

### Has Hyperliquid ever lost user money?

Its statement of 12 March 2025 says the HLP vault lost about $4 million over a day after one large
position was liquidated, and that no exploit was involved. CoinDesk reported a further $4.9 million
vault loss in November 2025, citing on-chain analysts; no post-mortem of that one was published.

### What happened to dYdX in October 2025?

A bug in isolated-market collateral transfers tripped a failsafe, and the chain halted in the
crash of 10 October 2025. For a short while after the restart the oracle was stale, so trades
and liquidations went through at wrong prices. dYdX counted $462,097.79 of trader losses and
proposed compensation from its insurance fund.

### Does dYdX pay a bug bounty?

It runs one on Cantina, opened on 8 May 2026, paying up to $1,000,000 for a critical report and
covering the protocol, the indexer, the web client and the official client libraries. Hyperliquid
runs its own programme instead, paid in USDC, with a critical report worth under a million and
identity checks before any claim is paid.

### What leverage can I get on bitcoin at each of them?

Hyperliquid documents 40x on BTC up to $150 million of notional and 20x above that. dYdX sets a
2 per cent initial margin on its BTC contract, which is 50x, and publishes no notional step below
it. A multiple tells you nothing on its own; the size it survives is the number that matters.

### Why is reported volume so much larger than what the order book shows?

Open interest and turnover in the CoinMarketCap ranking are each venue's own figures, republished
as given: $13.4 billion against $87.8 million on 22 September 2026. Nobody audits
them. That is why the heaviest criterion here is resting depth, read off each public book every ten
minutes.

## The making of this entry

Six criteria carry every entry here, fixed on 22 September 2026 before a single venue was read and
set out at [how we rate](/scoring-method). Fee tiers, market counts, margin ladders, audit records
and closed jurisdictions were taken off each venue's own documentation, endpoints and terms on
18 September 2026. Open interest and the turnover of the day before are each venue's own
figures, as CoinMarketCap published them on 22 September 2026. The order-book readings — spread,
resting depth, price impact — are measured, from both public BTC books, read on a ten-minute clock across the two days to 20 September 2026.

One instrument, one series of readings, 118 on each side: the order-book
figures are medians of that series rather than of a month. Entry-tier rates ignore volume tiers,
staking discounts and rebates. Where a book lives, what has been audited and who is shut out rest on
documents that can be revised without notice, and reported open interest and turnover are unaudited.
Margin is the whole of what a perpetual can cost, and the multiple decides how little it takes. Nothing here is advice.

Each venue is described from its own documentation, terms and interface, read 18 September 2026. Corrections: corrections@thekiddushclubnft.com.

The Perp Reference maintainers, 24 September 2026

The maintainers are paid to publish this reference, and a venue with an entry here may be the party that paid for it.