Morning Minute: Hyperliquid Opens Prediction Markets to Anyone in HIP-4 Upgrade

By Tyler Warner

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors slightly green as oil falls; BTC at $64.6k
• PUMP leads alt movers on the week, up 26% as its wave of unlocks begins
• Hyperliquid to roll out permissionless prediction markets requiring 500k staked HYPE
• Michael Saylor calls BIP-110 a “bad idea”
• Pudgy Penguins launch Plushie toys at Target stores across the US

🎲 Hyperliquid Opens Prediction Markets to Anyone in HIP-4 Upgrade

Hyperliquid is taking prediction markets permissionless.

The exchange said an upcoming enhancement to its recent HIP-4 upgrade, which introduced “outcome trading” in May, will let anyone deploy a prediction market on the platform. Right now those markets are controlled entirely by validators, and Hyperliquid says that going forward there will “ideally” be fewer than 10 validator-run markets a year, with the rest opened up to the crowd. It rolls out on testnet first, then mainnet.

Anyone who wants to launch a market has to stake 500,000 HYPE (~$30M), a serious deposit that can be slashed if validators rule the market was poorly defined or settled incorrectly. In exchange, the deployer earns up to 50% of that market’s trading fees. It’s the same economic design behind its permissionless perps: put real skin in the game, get paid for good markets, lose your stake for bad ones. That’s a very different model from Polymarket and Kalshi, where the platform defines every market from the top down.

It’s a timely move, as prediction markets just had their biggest summer yet. The World Cup helped the sector reach $50B in wagers for the month of June, and July is on pace to go even higher ($37B so far). Of that $50B, Kalshi is the clear market leader with $33B (66% market share). Hyperliquid did just $176M—so they’ve got their work cut out for them to make a meaningful dent in the sector.

The Hyperliquid answer is to make the category open-source, turning prediction markets into another permissionless primitive rather than a curated product. But they are not a platform to be doubted, with Hyperliquid already flipping DEX-volume records, drawing JPMorgan warnings about its threat to Circle, and lobbying both the SEC and CFTC. If the permissionless model works, it could help them make a real splash. We will find out soon enough.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors closed the week green up 2-5%; BTC +3% at $64.6k; ETH +6% at $1,885; SOL +1% at $76.60; HYPE -7% at $60.80
• PUMP (+28%), PI (+22%) and INJ (+10%) led top movers on the week
• Oil -4% at $80 after progress on Iran talks; Gold +1% at $4,024
• Stock futures are green as oil sells off; DOW +0.2%, Nasdaq +0.7%
• Michael Saylor called Bitcoin's BIP-110 proposal "a bad idea," arguing the anti-spam plan would set a censorship precedent and that "the proposed cure is more dangerous than the condition”
• Galaxy Digital signed a 15-year naming-rights deal to rename Texas Tech’s football stadium “Galaxy Stadium,” extending crypto’s march into college sports
• Project Eleven unveiled a technique to let users prove wallet ownership even after quantum computers can derive private keys
• The GENIUS Act hit its one-year anniversary with regulators having missed their rule-writing deadlines, though the framework takes full effect by July 2028

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $132M in net inflows on Friday and ended with $75M in net inflows for the week; the ETH ETFs saw $37M in inflows on Friday and ended with $105M

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly flat or green over the past week; DOGE even, SHIB -1%, PEPE +5%, PENGU +4%, TRUMP +1%, BONK -23%
• Robinhood chain was led by Stonkbroker (+180%), REAL (+200x) and FOX (+70%); Cashcat +22% to $72M
• Solana leaders included AVA (+30%) and Cubeman (+85%); ANSEM +5% to $198M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Pump.fun’s PUMP token is leading alt movers, up 26% on the week as its wave of unlocks begins
• Cross-chain protocol Allbridge halted after a $1.65 million flash-loan exploit that manipulated its Solana pool ratios, the latest in a wave of DeFi attacks

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were slightly red; Punks even at 32 ETH, BAYC -2% at 8.65 ETH, Pudgy -5% at 4.06 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 188 HYPE
• Stonkbrokers (+125%) and Funkari (+30%) led top movers
• Pudgy Penguins officially launched their plushie toys in Target stores across the US

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