Hyperliquid Affiliate Program: Referral and Builder Codes Explained

People search for a “Hyperliquid affiliate program” expecting a partner portal, an account manager and a tier table. None of that exists. Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetuals exchange, and its partner economics run entirely on-chain through two mechanisms: referral codes for people who bring traders, and builder codes for apps that route orders.

Both are permissionless. Nobody approves you, nobody checks your website, and every payment is verifiable on-chain. The trade-off is a smaller share than centralized exchanges pay, and a few rules that can quietly redirect your earnings. Here’s how it all fits together.

Two ways to earn: referral codes vs builder codes

A third, larger path exists for teams that stake 500k HYPE: under HIP-3, they can deploy their own perpetual markets and set a deployer fee share of 0 to 300% on those markets. That’s protocol-level business, not affiliate marketing, so we won’t go deeper here.

How the Hyperliquid referral program works

The official referral docs set out a short list of rules.

Eligibility: $10,000 of your own volume. You can create a referral codeReferral code A short code a new user enters at sign-up that permanently links their account to you, even if they never click your link. More only after your wallet has traded $10,000. There’s no KYC, no form and no review.

The referrer’s share: 10% of fees, less the user’s discount. In Hyperliquid’s words, you receive 10% of referred users’ fees “less any fee discount they receive”. Referred users get a 4% discount on their fees for their first $25M of volume. Read literally, that means your net share is closer to 6% of the user’s original fees while the discount applies, and the full 10% once the user passes $25M.

Duration: the first $1B of each user’s volume. Rewards apply to a referred user’s first $1B in cumulative volume. For almost every retail trader, that’s effectively the lifetime of the account.

Binding: on-chain, not a cookie. There’s no cookieCookie life How long after a click the program still credits you if the visitor signs up or buys. A 30-day cookie gives the user 30 days to convert. More to expire. Once a user joins through app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/YOURCODE or enters your code on the Referrals page, the link to your code is recorded on-chain for their wallet.

Exceptions: vaults and sub-accounts. Referral discounts don’t apply to vaults or sub-accounts, because the clearinghouse treats them as independent accounts.

How Hyperliquid builder codes work

Builder codes are the more interesting tool for anyone with a product. If you run a trading interface, a Telegram trading bot, a wallet or a copy-trading app that sends orders to Hyperliquid, you can attach your own fee to each order.

The mechanics:

• The user approves you first. The user signs an ApproveBuilderFee action from their main wallet, setting the maximum fee your builder address may charge.
• You set the fee per order. Each order carries your builder address and a fee in tenths of a basis point. A value of 10 means 1 basis point (0.01%).
• Caps: 0.1% on perps, 1% on spot. Within those limits, you choose the price.
• You keep 100%. The entire builder fee goes to you, not shared with the protocol.
• Only the quote or collateral side counts. Builder fees apply to fees collected in the quote or collateral asset: both sides of perp trades, but not the buying side of spot trades.
• Ten approvals per user. A user can have at most 10 active builder-code approvals at once.
• Minimum balance. Your builder address needs at least 100 USDC in perps account value.

To size it: a $10,000 perp fill at the 0.1% cap earns you $10; at 1 basis point, it earns $1. Builder income scales with order flow, not with sign-ups, which makes it closer to running a brokerage than to classic revenue shareRevShare You earn a percentage of the revenue a platform makes from your referred users — on exchanges, usually a share of their trading fees. More.

How to start: referral track and builder track

For creators and communities (referral code):

1. Connect a wallet and trade $10,000. Use app.hyperliquid.xyz. Volume is counted on your wallet, so this is a one-off requirement.
2. Create your code on the Referrals page. Pick something short and memorable; it becomes part of your join link.
3. Share app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/YOURCODE. Mention the 4% fee discount, which is the only user-facing incentive.
4. Claim rewards above $1. Rewards accrue continuously. Claim them from the Referrals page and they appear in your spot balance.

For apps and bots (builder code):

1. Fund the builder address. Keep at least 100 USDC in perps account value.
2. Ask users to approve your fee. Each user signs ApproveBuilderFee from their main wallet with the maximum fee you'll charge.
3. Attach the builder field to orders. Include your builder address and fee (in tenths of a basis point) on each order you send.
4. Reconcile and claim. Hyperliquid publishes daily builder fills as files per builder address, and the info endpoint returns referral state and maximum approved fees. Claim through the same flow as referral rewards.

Getting paid and tracking results

Payout frequencyPayout frequency How often the program pays you: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or on request. More is whatever you want it to be. Rewards accrue in the quote assets of the trades (USDC is the main perps collateral) and you can claim them any time they exceed $1. There’s no monthly cycle, no invoice and no bank transfer.

Tracking is fully transparent, but it’s raw data, not a dashboard with charts. There are no Sub-IDsSubID An extra label you add to your affiliate link to record where a click came from — a page, banner, ad or Telegram post. More or postbacksPostback A server-to-server message the program sends to your tracker when a conversion happens, so you see sign-ups and deposits as they occur. More in the usual affiliate sense. If you want to know which video or channel brought which wallet, give each campaign its own code or build your own attribution layer. Our tracking and postback guide covers practical setups.

There is no sub-affiliateSub-affiliate An affiliate you recruit into a program. You earn an extra commission on what they bring in, on top of your own direct referrals. More layer: you can’t earn on people who create their own codes after joining through yours.

Traffic rules, geo restrictions and compliance

Because the system is permissionless, Hyperliquid doesn’t publish a list of banned traffic sources. Two constraints still matter.

Restricted regions. The interface terms treat people in the United States, Ontario and sanctioned territories (and their citizens) as Restricted Persons. Don’t target those audiences, don’t run ads into them and don’t tell readers to use a VPN.

You’re promoting leveraged derivatives. Hyperliquid is mainly a perpetual futuresFutures Contracts that let traders bet on a coin's price, often with leverage, without owning the coin. They create high volume and high risk. More venue. Many regulators treat promotion of leveraged crypto products to retail users strictly. Add clear risk warnings, avoid profit claims and disclose that you earn from referrals. The crypto affiliate compliance guide has a checklist.

The staking referral proposal: not live

You may see claims that Hyperliquid referrers can keep up to 40% of referred fees. That comes from a staking referral proposal in which referrers would keep up to 40% depending on staked HYPE and could share up to 50% back with users. It isn’t on mainnet, and the docs say it’s being re-evaluated. Plan on 10%.

Who Hyperliquid suits

Good fit:

• DeFi traders and analysts whose audience already trades perps on-chain;
• developers of trading interfaces, bots and wallets, for whom builder codes are a real business model;
• creators who can’t or won’t pass affiliate KYC at a centralized exchange.

Poor fit:

• US-focused sites and channels;
• beginners’ content, where leveraged perps are the wrong first product;
• anyone who wants a CPA payment, a manager to negotiate with or a 40 to 50% share.

Conversion tips for Hyperliquid referrals

1. Teach the wallet setup. The biggest drop-off happens before the first trade: wallet connection and bridging USDC. A clear walkthrough converts better than any banner.
2. Lead with the 4% discount and on-chain transparency. Your audience can verify the discount and your rewards on-chain; say so.
3. Use one code per channel. Codes are free to create once you qualify, and they’re the only attribution signal you get.
4. Mind the builder-code leak. If your community recommends a third-party bot, its builder code will take precedence on those orders. Either recommend the native interface or build your own tool with a builder code.

Alternatives for perpetuals traffic

If you need higher shares, managers and published tiers, centralized derivatives exchanges pay more:

• MEXC: up to 70% lifetime commission on spot and futures, plus 10% on sub-affiliates.
• WEEX: up to 70% on direct traders’ fees plus up to 10% on sub-affiliates.
• BloFin: up to 50% lifetime, with levels assessed every three months.
• Bitunix: up to 50% of trading fees plus an extra 10% from sub-affiliates.

Compare them on our crypto exchange affiliate programs page, and see the crypto referral programs collection for other code-based schemes.

Verdict

The Hyperliquid referral program is simple, permissionless and honest about its numbers: 10% of referred users’ fees (less their 4% discount) on their first $1B of volume, claimable any time above $1. For creators that’s a modest share compared with centralized exchanges, and builder codes can override it.

Builder codes are where Hyperliquid stands out. If you control the interface your users trade through, you can keep up to 0.1% per perp fill and 1% per spot fill, 100% yours. If you have an audience, use a referral code. If you have a product, build on builder codes.