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Deploy Finance vs Hyperliquid HLP: why a liquidity vault is not delta-neutral

Hyperliquid HLP and Deploy Finance's Income: Funding Rates agent both earn USDC on Hyperliquid without you placing a trade. HLP is the exchange's own liquidity vault: you deposit into it and it market-makes and absorbs liquidations against every trader on the venue. Income: Funding Rates is an agent that holds a hedged position in your own wallet and collects funding.

The overlap is passive USDC income on the same exchange. The asymmetry is the exposure. HLP is paid to take the other side of traders and carries whatever inventory that leaves it with. A funding strategy is paid by traders and hedges the inventory away. The two are often sold side by side as "yield", and only one of them is designed to be delta-neutral.

Compare Hyperliquid HLP and Deploy Finance​

Hyperliquid HLPDeploy Finance
Product modelProtocol-owned liquidity vault that market-makes and runs backstop liquidationsCurated autonomous agents that trade from a self-custodial wallet
User actionDeposit USDC into the vault, hold a share of its bookFund a wallet, select an agent and allocation, approve scoped trading access
Return sourceTrading PnL of the vault's market-making and liquidation strategies, plus fees it earnsPerpetual funding spreads (Income: Funding Rates) or directional price moves (Superstar)
Directional exposureYes; the vault holds net inventory against traders and its PnL moves with priceIncome: Funding Rates hedges spot against perpetual to target zero net direction; Superstar is directional by design
Where funds sitPooled in the HLP vault address alongside every other depositorHeld individually in your own wallet; never pooled
FeesNo leader performance fee; HLP is described as community-ownedNo subscription and no fee on deposits; gas and exchange trade fees still apply
ExitWithdrawals locked for 4 days from your most recent depositNo fixed lock-up documented; revoke access, exit the strategy, withdraw to your own address
Best fitUsers who want to be the venue's liquidity provider and accept its inventory riskUsers who want a hedged funding strategy or a directional mandate, individually held

What is Hyperliquid HLP?​

HLP is the Hyperliquidity Provider, the protocol vault that supplies liquidity to Hyperliquid's order books and takes over positions that traders fail to close before liquidation. Anyone can deposit USDC. Depositors share the vault's profit and loss in proportion to their deposit, and Hyperliquid takes no separate performance fee on it.

How HLP works​

  • HLP runs market-making strategies across Hyperliquid's markets and acts as the backstop liquidator, absorbing positions that the order book cannot close.
  • Because it is the counterparty to trader flow, HLP accumulates inventory. When traders are net long and prices fall, HLP tends to gain; when traders are right, HLP tends to lose.
  • Its return is the sum of maker spread captured, liquidation PnL, and fee share, minus losses on whatever inventory it holds when the market moves against it.
  • Deposits are locked for 4 days from your most recent deposit, so a new top-up resets the lock on the whole balance.
  • The vault's positions and PnL are public onchain, and it has recorded drawdowns during fast, one-sided moves. In March 2025, a manipulated squeeze in the JELLY market left HLP holding a losing short until validators delisted the asset.

HLP is a liquidity business, and liquidity businesses carry inventory. That is the point of the product, and it is also why a deposit into HLP is a directional bet on the aggregate of everyone else's trades.

Deploy Finance: funding captured, direction hedged​

Deploy Finance runs autonomous trading agents funded and settled in USDC. Both live agents execute on Hyperliquid, the only venue currently in Deploy's whitelisted protocol set, from a wallet only you control.

Deploy Finance's live features​

  • Income: Funding Rates: a market-neutral agent that holds a delta-neutral position, long the asset and short its perpetual, and collects the funding leveraged traders pay. The agent manages the hedge so that price moves cancel between the legs and funding is what remains.
  • Superstar: a directional agent that takes long or short positions on large-cap perpetuals under its defined strategy.
  • Self-custodial agent wallet: your USDC stays in a wallet you control. The agent receives a scoped, revocable session key that can trade on whitelisted venues and cannot transfer or withdraw funds.

Income: Funding Rates and HLP are paid by the same people, leveraged traders on Hyperliquid, through different channels. HLP earns their spread and their liquidations and carries their inventory. Income: Funding Rates earns their funding payments and hedges the inventory away. When funding compresses, Income: Funding Rates earns less. When traders are right, HLP loses.

You sign in with email or Google, fund the wallet with USDC, choose an agent, and approve the trading permission. Revoking the permission does not wait on a four-day lock.

When should you choose Deploy Finance or HLP?​

Choose Deploy Finance when:

  • You want yield that does not depend on which way the market moves, and you want the hedge managed for you.
  • You want your capital individually held rather than pooled into a vault with every other depositor.
  • You want to exit or revoke without a 4-day deposit lock.
  • You want a directional mandate of your own rather than exposure to the vault's aggregate inventory.

Choose HLP when:

  • You want to be the exchange's liquidity provider and accept the inventory risk that comes with it.
  • You have reviewed HLP's public history and are comfortable sharing its drawdowns as well as its gains.
  • You want a protocol-owned vault with no leader fee and no strategy to select.
  • You accept a 4-day withdrawal lock from your most recent deposit.

Same venue, opposite exposure: HLP is paid to carry the other side of trader flow and holds the resulting inventory. Income: Funding Rates is paid by that flow and hedges the inventory. No integration between the products is implied.

Risks on each side​

HLP exposes you to inventory losses when traders are right, to adverse events in illiquid markets, to liquidation cascades that leave the vault holding positions it cannot exit, and to smart-contract and venue risk on Hyperliquid.

Deploy Finance exposes you to funding compression or reversal, hedge slippage, liquidation risk on the perpetual leg, Hyperliquid venue risk, wallet-infrastructure risk, and delegated-execution risk. A delta-neutral objective reduces directional exposure; it does not remove any of these.

Two ways to use Deploy Finance​

Income: Funding Rates

Choose this agent if HLP's income interests you but its inventory exposure does not.

Superstar

Choose this agent for a directional stance you hold alone, rather than the vault's aggregate book.

Learn more​

Start with Deploy Finance​

Create a self-custodial Deploy Finance wallet and review the live agents.