According to Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom fund, Hyperliquid's foray into prediction markets is not just about offering cheaper trading, but also about capturing the upside. The Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal (HIP)-4 introduces event trading on the platform with a zero-fee-to-open model. Hayes notes that the real differentiator is the HYPE token, which enables users to profit directly from their platform usage, unlike Polymarket and Kalshi.
With a large user base, lower trading fees, and robust tech infrastructure, HIP-4 is poised to become a dominant prediction market. The HYPE token has a fully-diluted valuation of around $38 billion, compared to Polymarket's potential $POLY token, which has an implied valuation of roughly $14 billion.
In contrast to Polymarket and Kalshi, Hyperliquid's user base is skewed towards Asia, where crypto-native trading is already prevalent, and it faces no equivalent geographical constraints. The absence of token incentives in Kalshi's model, which is built around compliance and licensing, makes it the most direct test of Hayes' thesis. While users can trade event outcomes on Kalshi, they have no path to the upside of the platform itself, unlike Hyperliquid users who can benefit from the HYPE token.