Hyperliquid Perpetual Contract Specifications
Hyperliquid perpetuals are linear derivative markets with market-specific asset metadata, leverage, size precision, oracle inputs, and risk parameters that should be read before trading or integrating a symbol.
A perpetual ticker is not enough to describe the contract. Hyperliquid perpetuals have specifications covering the asset index, size decimals, price precision, leverage or margin tier, oracle/reference system, and other market parameters. Strategies should load those specifications programmatically because assumptions that work for one market can fail on another.
Linear payoff
Hyperliquid's standard crypto perpetuals use linear exposure: position PnL changes approximately with position size multiplied by the change in underlying price. Margin and settlement use the market's quote/collateral system rather than an inverse coin-margined formula.
That makes notional intuitive, but leverage still changes the relationship between PnL and account equity.
Precision is contract state
szDecimals, tick/price formatting rules, minimum order value, and quantity rounding determine whether an otherwise sensible order is valid. A client should derive these from metadata instead of storing hand-maintained constants.
Leverage is size-sensitive
Headline maximum leverage can be reduced by margin tiers as notional grows. Large positions therefore need to inspect both the market specification and the applicable tier.
Oracle and mark behavior
The market's reference pricing affects funding and liquidation. HIP-3 or specialized markets can have different oracle operation from core markets. A contract specification should therefore link to the relevant oracle methodology rather than treating “perp” as one homogeneous risk class.
Builder checklist
Load metadata at startup, cache it with a refresh strategy, validate symbol-to-index mapping, round sizes and prices deterministically, and reject an order locally if it violates known precision or risk rules. Then still handle exchange-side validation because protocol parameters can change.