TL;DR:
- The prediction market is preparing for a new competitor: Hyperliquid proposes adding event contracts to its decentralized platform.
- Proposal HIP-4 would generate two tokens for each possible outcome, without leverage, settling at a fixed value once the result is known.
- 3.3% of Polymarket users already trade on Hyperliquid, but that group concentrates 12% of the prediction platform’s total volume.
The prediction market, one of the fastest-growing segments within the crypto industry, may soon have a new competitor. Hyperliquid, the decentralized exchange that processed $219 billion during March 2026 according to the site Hydromancer, published a proposal known as HIP-4 to incorporate outcome contracts into its platform, directly challenging Kalshi and Polymarket.
The design of these contracts is deliberately simpler than the perpetual futures that currently dominate Hyperliquid’s offering. A market on whether U.S. inflation in July will exceed 3.5%, for example, would generate two tokens —one for each possible outcome— that traders can freely buy or sell. The winning token settles at a fixed value once the result is known. Without leverage or the risk of forced liquidations, the product targets a different user profile than the one that characterizes perpetual derivatives.
What makes Hyperliquid a credible threat is not the contractual structure, but the ecosystem backing it. The platform already offers contracts linked to oil, gold, silver, and U.S. stocks, and has the support of firms such as Paradigm and Pantera Capital. During the Iran crisis, crude-linked contracts surpassed $1 billion in volume in a single day.
Where Speculators Converge
Paradoxically, as Hyperliquid moves toward the prediction segment, Polymarket and Kalshi are exploring perpetual futures and other derivatives. The user overlap is already visible: according to on-chain researcher Fleck, 3.3% of Polymarket users also trade on Hyperliquid, yet that group generates 12% of Polymarket’s total volume.
Sunny Shi, investor at crypto fund Syncracy Capital, noted that sophisticated traders will be able to exploit portfolio margins by combining both types of segments, something that is not currently possible on platforms where the product is essentially a one-sided bet.
Regulations and Unserved Markets
Regulatory complexities are the most striking element. The sector has spent two years building institutional legitimacy —Kalshi obtained CFTC approval, Polymarket resumed its U.S. operations— while Hyperliquid operates as an offshore exchange and restricts access to U.S. users.
For its supporters, that independence is precisely its advantage: faster development and access to segments that regulated platforms cannot reach. Rajiv Patel-O’Connor, partner at Framework Ventures, anticipated that initial adoption will be concentrated outside the U.S., in markets such as India, where sports betting —cricket in particular— carries a structural demand that major regulated firms have yet to serve.
