Portfolio Margin on Hyperliquid
How Hyperliquid unifies eligible spot balances and perpetual positions into one risk-managed portfolio.
Portfolio Margin evaluates eligible assets and cross margin perpetual positions as one connected balance sheet. Instead of assigning every position an independent collateral pool, the risk engine can recognize collateral value, borrowing, and offsetting exposures across the portfolio.
This can reduce idle capital for hedged strategies, but it also makes risk more interconnected.
Portfolio Margin treats the account as a balance sheet
Consider a trader who owns BTC spot and shorts a similar amount of BTC perpetuals. Looking at the two legs separately can overstate directional risk because gains on one side can offset losses on the other.
Portfolio Margin can evaluate the combined exposure. This is the core reason the system can be more capital efficient for market neutral, basis, carry, and hedged strategies.
The same logic means a position cannot always be understood in isolation. A change elsewhere in the portfolio can alter the margin available to every connected leg.
Eligible collateral can support borrowing
Supported collateral assets can create borrowing capacity according to their loan to value parameters and the account's broader risk state.
A trader can therefore use an eligible asset as collateral without necessarily selling it first. If a supported trade needs a borrowable asset that the account does not currently hold, the system can borrow automatically within the relevant limits.
Loan to value is only one constraint. User caps, global caps, maintenance requirements, open positions, oracle values, and the rest of the portfolio can reduce practical borrowing capacity.
Supply Caps and Borrow Caps covers those limits in more detail.
Borrowing and supply are part of the same system
Eligible idle assets can supply liquidity to the native borrowing system. Borrowers pay interest, and suppliers can earn when there is demand for their asset.
The rate responds to utilization rather than being a fixed protocol promise. How Interest Rates Work in Portfolio Margin explains how borrowing demand changes the economics.
This creates a native credit layer around trading capital. It is still different from a HyperEVM lending protocol because the borrowing and margin relationship is embedded in HyperCore account logic.
Capital efficiency comes with shared risk
If collateral falls in value, borrowing grows, interest accumulates, or a perp moves against the account, those changes can all affect the same portfolio ratio.
A trader who only watches the liquidation price of one position can miss the account level problem. Portfolio Margin requires monitoring the composition and interaction of the whole balance sheet.
This is especially important for leveraged carry trades. A spot and perp hedge can reduce price direction while still leaving funding, borrow rate, basis, liquidity, and liquidation risk.
Account mode and position mode remain separate
Portfolio Margin is an account mode. Cross and isolated margin are position level concepts.
That distinction helps avoid a common misunderstanding. Portfolio Margin does not mean every possible position is automatically blended into one unlimited collateral pool. Eligibility and position type still determine how the risk engine treats each component.
Standard, Unified, and Portfolio Margin Accounts explains the wider account architecture.
Continue reading
Read Lending, Borrowing, and Carry Trades on HyperCore for the strategy mechanics and Portfolio Margin Risk and Liquidations for the account level failure path.