Hyperliquid vs Kraken Futures

Hyperliquid or Kraken Futures: which to use

Hyperliquid vs Kraken Futures is a decentralized exchange against a centralized one. On Hyperliquid you trade from your own wallet without ID, at 1.5 bp maker and 4.5 bp taker, with up to 40x. Kraken Futures requires full verification, holds your funds in an account, and charges 2 bp maker and 5 bp taker, with up to 100x. As of 1 October 2026 Kraken Futures lists 278 perps against 178 on Hyperliquid's own book, and Hyperliquid's stocks and commodities sit on its HIP-3 exchanges. Custody, ID and leverage are the main differences.

How each exchange is built

Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange (DEX) on its own chain, Hyperliquid L1. You trade from a self-custody wallet or an email login. It matches orders on a central limit order book.

Other teams deploy their own perp exchanges on Hyperliquid's chain under HIP-3, traded from the same account and wallet. The live ones include tradeXYZ (110 markets), Paragon (29), Entropy (8) and Markets by Kinetiq (5). Most of Hyperliquid's stock and commodity perps are on these exchanges.

Kraken Futures is a centralized exchange (CEX): you open an account with the company, and the account holds your funds. It also matches orders on a central limit order book. Both use a central limit order book, so the difference for you is custody: your own wallet on one, an account at a company on the other.

Fees and what they mean

Hyperliquid's base tier is 1.5 bp maker and 4.5 bp taker, per Hyperliquid's fee page. Kraken Futures' base tier is 2 bp maker and 5 bp taker, per Kraken's fee schedule. A basis point (bp) is 0.01% of the position.

A market order pays the taker fee to open and again to close: 9 bp per round trip on Hyperliquid, 10 bp on Kraken Futures. A limit order that rests on the book pays the maker fee instead, 1.5 bp on Hyperliquid and 2 bp on Kraken Futures.

The fee is only part of the cost. Slippage, the price you move by eating through the order book, grows with size. The cost table above adds the taker fee twice and the measured slippage at each size from $1k to $5M, and every exchange's trading cost is compared on one page.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 Kraken Futures lists 278 active perps, 19 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. Hyperliquid's own book lists 178, all crypto. Its stocks and commodities are on the HIP-3 exchanges above, from the same account.

Kraken Futures allows up to 100x and Hyperliquid up to 40x on their highest-leverage markets. Most markets on both allow less. Both pay funding every hour on every market. An hourly interval settles 24 times a day, so a position held for a day pays or receives funding 24 times. A positive rate means longs pay shorts. The list further down this page shows the markets both exchanges have and each one's funding rate.

Who can use them

Hyperliquid asks for no ID: any EVM wallet or an email login works. The app is closed to the US, Ontario and sanctioned countries.

Kraken Futures requires full verification. It is not offered in the US (a separate US product), Canada, Australia (wholesale only) or to retail UK clients.

Vaults, tokens and points

Hyperliquid runs HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider), a vault run by the exchange that makes markets and takes liquidations. Its depositors therefore carry the traders' profit and loss. It takes USDC, locks each deposit for 4 days and charges no fee.

Hyperliquid's token is $HYPE, and as of 19 September 2026 its points program was in Season 2.

Reading the numbers on this page

Hyperliquid publishes open interest as longs plus shorts, both sides of every position. Kraken Futures publishes one side of open positions. For the same positions Hyperliquid's figure reads about twice as large, so the open interest row and chart above are not a like-for-like comparison of size.

Kraken Futures has no TVL, as is usual for a centralized exchange, so the TVL row and chart show Hyperliquid alone, as DefiLlama's figure for the deposits its bridge holds.

Which one fits you

• Pick Hyperliquid if you want to keep funds in your own wallet and trade without ID.
• Pick Hyperliquid if you trade with market orders: 4.5 bp taker against 5 bp.
• Pick Hyperliquid if you want a vault to deposit in, such as HLP with its 4-day lock and no fee.
• Pick Kraken Futures if you prefer an exchange account and accept full verification.
• Pick Kraken Futures if you need more than 40x, up to 100x on its highest-leverage markets.
• Pick Kraken Futures if you want 278 perps, including 19 real-world asset markets, on a single exchange.