# A Case for Dated Futures on Hyperliquid: What, Why, and How

## What — background, participants, scale

On CEX, dated futures sit next to perps and follow clear scripts

- Binance publishes a quarterly delivery time and settles with a short averaging window
- Bybit settles at a 30‑minute index TWAP
- OKX averages the index over one hour near expiry.

Traders know when convergence happens and how the final price is computed. Predictability is the feature.

If perps dominate mindshare, the next question is whether expiry markets still matter. Empirically, yes.

Kaiko’s data has derivatives as most of crypto activity and perps at ~68% of BTC volume in 2025, which implies there is a non‑trivial “dated rail” left over. It persists year after year because it serves different jobs (fixing a date, trading the roll).

Scale alone does not tell you who shows up. A better signal is the regulated venue that only lists dated contracts: CME.

In Q3‑2025 it reported ~$900B combined futures+options volume and record ADOI ~$31.3B, and it publishes a Pace of the Roll dashboard because rolling between expiries is a liquid trade worth instrumenting.

So who actually trades dated crypto futures? Broadly, they are

- Hedgers (miners, treasuries, structured desks) that want a date and no funding bleed.
- Basis / term‑structure desks that care about delivery−spot and the roll from front to next.
- Arbitrageurs who keep delivery prices aligned across venues—the unglamorous but essential janitors of price.

## Why — a term‑structure venue on HL

The pitch couldn't be simpler: if Hyperliquid behaves like a dated venue where it actually matters—pricing, hedging, settlement—then the same users and flows can migrate to Hyperliquid. That is what a term‑structure venue on HL means: prices along time (front, next, the roll) are visible, tradable, and hedgeable on HL.

HIP‑3 makes this practical without inventing a new engine. A HIP-3 deployer can

- point a market’s oracle at a quarterly delivery index (the curve traders already watch),
- set off funding so the contract behaves like an expiry future, and
- halt at a published time to cash‑settle positions to HL’s mark, then recycle the symbol for the next quarter. See HIP-3 deployer API.

The deeper reason to do it is breadth:

- Hedgers regularly sell the delivery anchored contract to lock forward revenue
- basis traders quote both sides and trade the gap between delivery‑anchored and spot‑anchored rails
- atbitraguers connect HL’s delivery price to major‑exchange quarterlies.

Those three motives are not the same, and that’s the point: when they meet in one place, you get two‑way flow, tighter markets, and a curve that is worth looking at.

That’s a term‑structure venue on HL.

## How — design choices, trade‑offs, and implications

If the goal is a term‑structure venue on HL, the “how” is choosing the right HIP‑3 levers and being explicit about what you pay for with each choice. We’ll lay out the palette, compare three builds, and then explain the microstructure in plain English.

### The palette - what HIP‑3 lets you set

- Price source. The contract can track a spot‑style index or a quarterly delivery index (e.g., a median of major‑exchange quarterlies). This decision is critical: perp‑that-stops vs time‑anchored future. (HIP‑3 `setOracle` allows frequent, bounded update ).
- Funding. You can set funding to zero on a per‑market basis so the “dated” leg does not run perp‑style transfers. (Funding multipliers.)
- Settlement. You publish a time and halt trading. Then, HIP‑3 settles to the mark at that instant. Thereafter, deployer can reopen the same symbol for the next cycle. ( `haltTrading`)
- Mark quality. HL’s mark is not a last tick. It blends the oracle path, HL’s own book, and large‑exchange perp midpoints. Deployers can also feed those external perps to keep the mark steady into the event. (Robust indices + externalPerpPxs).
- Risk + economics. OI caps, margin tiers, lot size shape the book; a fixed deployer fee‑share can be routed to a rebate wallet to pay for depth while habits form. (fee recipient)

### Build options and their trade‑offs

Here, we’ll use a few yardsticks: tracking (spot vs delivery), inside spread & depth, hedge cost for shorts, carry realized by users, settlement quality, operational load.

#### Option A — Minimalist

You make a market that follows the live price (think ordinary perp/spot level), you turn off funding (so no hourly payments between longs/shorts), you announce a time, and at that moment you stop trading and settle everyone to a fair value called the mark (a smoothed price the exchange uses for PnL/margin, not the last tick). Then you reopen the same market for the next cycle.

If a lot of traders buy this contract and sell the regular perp to run “carry,” the sellers of your contract usually hedge by buying the perp and paying funding on that hedge. Rationally, they bake that expected funding cost into the price they sell you—so your contract trades a bit above spot most of the time and slides down into the stop.

If that upfront premium quietly equals “the funding the short expects to pay,” your edge shrinks to fees and slippage.

**Pros:**

- Easiest to deploy and explain
- Clean “stop” moment gives finality

**Cons:**

- Often wider spreads. Shorts’ perp-hedge cost shows up in your entry price.
- Thinner into the stop. With fewer natural two-way flows, books can get nervous right before settlement.

#### Option B — Quarterly-anchored market

Instead of tracking live spot, you make the market follow the quarterly forward level (the price that converges to spot on a known date on major exchanges). You still turn off funding, still announce the stop, and still settle to the mark at that time.

Quarterly forward level? Think of it as today’s best guess of the price on the expiry date. It often sits a bit above spot in contango markets (storage/financing effects, risk premia, etc.).

Why this feels like a real dated future.

Now your market trades around the same delivery level the pros watch elsewhere. The people who short your market can hedge in real quarterlies (no perp-funding bleed), so they don’t need to surcharge your price to cover funding. The spread between your quarterly-anchored market and the regular perp on HL becomes the actual carry (delivery − spot) that basis traders want.

**Pros:**

- Tighter quotes (shorts hedge cleanly in quarterlies).
- Honest curve. The gap to the perp is the real delivery − spot basis.
- More natural two-way flow from hedgers and curve desks.

**Cons:**

- You do need a good price feed for the quarterly level (resilient, frequent, smooth).
- Slightly more operational care (keep the feed clean; publish the stop early).

#### Option C — Quarterly-anchored + tiny training wheels

Exactly like Option B, but in the last couple of days before the stop, if the book is one-sided and spreads start to float, you turn on a very small, temporary funding, just enough to "nudge" prices back toward fair. Then you turn it off after settlement.

**Pros:**

- Stabilizes top-of-book when things get lopsided.
- Helps the first few cycles while habits form.

**Cons:**

- Slightly muddies the “no-funding” story for a brief window, so use sparingly.
- Another toggle to operate (only near the stop).

## Closing Thoughts

At @MobiusExchange, we strives to create the best margin engine on Hyperliquid to expand yield opportunities for users across the risk spectrum. I wish every user could "20x cross-margin perp<>dated carry trades" like I used to on FTX with ease. That's why a dated market is very much needed. This piece marks the first step toward that goal, and an open invitation to anyone who wants to brainstorm, experiment, and collaborate on what comes next. Cheers!