What is Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid is a blockchain built for trading: its order books, matching and settlement all run on-chain, so every order, fill and position is public. HyperBase reads that public state.
An exchange on its own chain
Hyperliquid runs its own layer-1 chain. Its trading engine, HyperCore, keeps fully on-chain order books for perpetual futures and spot, and HyperEVM runs smart contracts beside it. Trades settle on the chain itself, without a company holding your funds in between.
Because the state is public, anyone can read any account’s positions, orders and fills. That is what makes a leaderboard of real traders, live profiles of any address and copy trading possible.
Collateral and accounts
Perpetuals are margined in USDC. You deposit by bridging USDC from Arbitrum, and your Hyperliquid account is the same address as the wallet you deposit from. Withdrawals are signed by that wallet.
An account can approve API wallets (agents): separate keys that may trade for it but cannot withdraw. Copy trading uses one; see Agent wallets and security.
Markets beyond the main perpetuals
Besides Hyperliquid’s own perpetuals and spot, HIP-3 lets other deployers list perpetuals — for example on stocks and commodities — and HIP-4 adds outcome markets that settle on whether something happens. HyperBase covers Hyperliquid’s own perpetuals for statistics and copy trading.