06 · Fees & liquidation
Fees & liquidation
What the venue charges, who pays it, what happens when an account runs out of margin, and what stands behind the other side when it does.
The day-one fee schedule#
| Charge | Who pays | How much | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taker fee | The taker, on every option open and close | 3 bps of the option's notional (size × the asset's mark), never more than 12.5 % of the premium | The venue |
| Maker fee | Nobody | 0 | — |
| Funding cut | Comes out of the receiving side of each funding payment | 10 % of the payment | The venue |
| Host add-on | The taker, on opens only, when a front end names a host | Up to 5 bps of notional | The host's wallet |
| Liquidation fee | The liquidated account | 1.5 % (150 bps) of the notional closed, never more than the equity left. PROTECT accounts forfeit all remaining equity | The insurance fund; anything above the fund's target goes to the venue |
The taker fee and the host add-on share one cap: together they never exceed 12.5 % of the premium (the venue's fee first, the host the remainder). The ticket shows what you pay as one FEE row before you press anything. The venue's own front end names no host, so it adds nothing. The venue pays the gas for every act, and there is no flat per-trade fee.
Two things pass through at cost. A PROTECT perp trades on HyperCore, so HyperCore's own trading fee on that perp is charged to you as it comes. And HyperCore takes $1 on a transfer to an address that is new to it, which is deducted from a withdrawal to such an address.
If an account cannot cover a fee or a funding payment, the part it cannot pay is forgiven. It is not recorded as a debt against the account and is never taken from your wallet later.
How a liquidation runs#
One test per account, across every asset it holds. The account is liquidated when its equity falls to its maintenance requirement (section 3).
- Test. The venue's keeper pushes a fresh mark and tests the account when it is close to its limit, when the price has moved through a good part of its cushion, and on a regular heartbeat. It does not liquidate anyone while an asset's prices are frozen (section 10).
- Flag. An account at or under its requirement is flagged. A flagged account cannot open, take new risk or withdraw.
- Close. The keeper closes its positions: the perp on HyperCore, the option legs at the front, like any other close. If no maker stands at a leg, the leg goes back to the maker who wrote it, at the oracle's price and never below intrinsic. The keeper keeps going until the account is flat.
- Fee. When the flag lifts, the liquidation fee is charged on what was closed. An OPTIONS or EARN account keeps whatever equity is left after it. A PROTECT account forfeits what is left, because its perp and options were one structure.
- Hole. If the account owed more than it had, that is covered as in the next section.
The insurance fund and no recourse#
The insurance fund is an account on the ledger. Liquidation fees build it, up to a target; on testnet it is small. It exists for one case: a closing account that cannot pay what it owes. That happens when a sold option's buyer is owed more than the writer has, or when a perp loses more than its margin and deposit.
The other side is paid in full, at once. The fund pays what it can. Anything it cannot cover is counted openly on a public counter as a socialised loss. It is ruled to be shared among the makers who were paid; today it is counted, and the share-out itself is not built yet. The account's own debt is wiped: nothing stays recorded against it, so a later deposit is yours, in full, to trade with or withdraw. This is no recourse: a loss is never collected from money you add afterwards, the same approach exchanges such as Hyperliquid and dYdX take when an account goes below zero.
Withdrawals and the daily limit#
WITHDRAW releases an account's equity above what it must keep behind its positions, and is refused below that, with both numbers named. Money goes to your own HyperCore wallet; you sign the request. CLOSE ACCOUNT pays what is left straight there.
A limit never refuses you; it queues the request. Each wallet can take out $25,000 in any rolling 24 hours, and the whole venue is held to a rolling 24-hour total of $250,000, or half of the payout wallet's balance if that is smaller. Up to $10,000 pays out at once; a larger request waits 30 minutes first. When a limit is full, the request waits for the first moment there is room and says when. You can cancel a request that is still waiting. A single request larger than a limit could ever hold is refused: withdraw in parts. Withdrawals also wait while an asset's prices are frozen, and the venue can pause them in an emergency. The EARN and PORTFOLIO cards show "Withdrawal limit today: $X left" only when the limit is what is holding you, or is running low.