HIP-3 is the standard that lets parties other than the protocol deploy perpetual futures markets. A deployer stakes HYPE, defines the market and its oracle, and the contract lists alongside the validator-operated perps.
What it changed
Before HIP-3, the tradeable universe was whatever the protocol listed, which meant crypto. Permissionless deployment moved that decision to anyone willing to post the stake. The result is commodity and equity index perpetuals on the same order book as BTC, around the clock, settled in USDC.
These are contracts referencing a price. Holding an equity perp gives you the price and nothing else.
How deployers are paid
A deployer sets a fee share on top of the protocol fee. Growth mode reduces protocol fees, rebates and volume contribution by 90% for qualifying markets, lowering the all-in cost of trading a newly deployed contract.
Your fee tier is calculated across everything you trade — standard perps, HIP-3 perps and spot count toward one rolling figure.
What it means for a systematic trader
More markets, more regimes, more places for an edge to exist. Also thinner books on new contracts, where execution quality matters more than signal quality.