The short answer
HIP-3 is Hyperliquid's permissionless listing of builder-deployed perpetuals: a deployer that stakes 500,000 HYPE may deploy one perp dex, define its markets and their oracles, set their leverage limits, and keep a share of the fees they generate. Those markets live on their own dex, with their own order books and their own margining, and most of them refuse cross margin.
They trade through the same interface as the main markets: only the asset identifier differs, and a market's name carries its dex as a prefix, as in xyz:GOLD.
What the deployer controls
The deployer is responsible for the market's definition, the oracle definition and the contract specification included, and for its operation: the oracle prices, the leverage limits, and settling the market if needed. Settling is one action, haltTrading, which cancels every order and settles the positions at the current mark price; it also resumes trading.
The stake is the discipline. 500,000 HYPE on mainnet, kept at least 183 days after the dex is deployed, and validators may slash it by a stake weighted vote for malicious market operation. The slashed stake is burned rather than paid to the people affected, and slashing does not distinguish a malicious deployer from an incompetent one or from one whose keys were stolen.
Its own dex, its own margin
Each perp dex has independent margining, independent order books and its own deployer settings, and any quote asset may serve as its collateral. Under the standard account abstraction, cross margin applies only within one dex; with a unified account or portfolio margin, cross positions on dexes sharing a collateral share their margin.
In practice, trading on a builder dex means putting collateral into that dex, and with lpa that move is signed by your wallet, Locker Vault on the offline phone or the one you chose, never by the agent key.
Why so many are isolated only
Enabling cross margin on a HIP-3 asset is irreversible, and mainnet validators enforce that a deployer enables it only on assets meeting eligibility standards: enough observable liquidity, a reliable external oracle, and resilience to price manipulation. An asset expected to move 50% in a day more than once a month is not eligible. HIP-3 dexes also support a no cross mode: isolated margin with margin removal, and no cross margin at all.
Measured on 4 October 2026, reading the venue's own market data: of the 330 live perpetuals, 126 refuse cross margin. On the dex called xyz, 90 of its 110 assets; on para, 26 of 29; on mkts, 2 of 5; on io, 8 of 8. No market of the main dex refuses it.
On such a market, setting the leverage in cross is refused, and the order sent after that refusal never leaves. Our own browser extension sent cross everywhere until 4 October 2026 and this site had inherited the defect; both now read the market's margin mode first and set the leverage in isolated where the market demands it.
What changes for a trader
- Isolated, often by force. The margin set aside covers that position alone, and on a strict isolated asset it cannot be taken back out, only released as the position closes.
- The leverage limit is the deployer's. So is the oracle, and so is the decision to settle the market at the current mark price.
- One fee tier, not one rate. The deployer configures an added fee share of 0% to 300% of your fee, or takes at least 90% off it under growth mode.
- Collateral lives per dex. It is not shared with the main dex unless your account abstraction says so.
- Liquidity varies. Each dex has its own books, and a thin market is a thin market whatever the ticker says.
What the agent does with HIP-3
The daily pilot trades the main dex only. Its universe screen walks the perpetuals of the main dex and names every market it sets aside with the reason, so a market on a builder dex is set aside by name. The screen also drops markets too thin for the position being built: the complete ladder must stay under 1% of the day's volume and 0.5% of the open interest.
The commands do read those markets. lpa perps markets --dex xyz, or --all-dexes, lists them with their funding, their volume and their maximum leverage, while this computer's limits name the dexes allowed, the main one by default. Widening that list stays something you sign, inside the mandate.