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Hyperliquid Mark Price vs Oracle Price, Explained
Definitions verified against Hyperliquid's official docs on 2026-09-15.
Three prices exist for every Hyperliquid perp at once: the last trade on the book, the oracle price, and the mark price. Most confusion about liquidations, funding and stop orders comes from reading the wrong one. The docs define the other two precisely, and say which system uses which.
Oracle price: what funding is computed from
"The validators are responsible for publishing spot oracle prices for each perp asset every 3 seconds." Each validator computes "the weighted median of Binance, OKX, Bybit, Kraken, Kucoin, Gate IO, MEXC, and Hyperliquid spot mid prices for each asset, with weights 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 respectively", and "the final oracle price used by the clearinghouse is the weighted median of each validator's submitted oracle prices, where the validators are weighted by their stake". Two exceptions: perps on assets whose primary spot liquidity is on Hyperliquid (the docs' example is HYPE) "do not include external sources in the oracle until sufficient liquidity is met", and perps on assets with primary liquidity elsewhere (BTC) "do not include Hyperliquid spot prices". The oracle "is robust because it does not depend on hyperliquid's market data at all" — it is the input to funding, not to liquidations.
Mark price: what margining uses
"Mark price is the median of the following prices": the oracle price plus a 150-second exponential moving average of the gap between Hyperliquid's mid and the oracle; "the median of best bid, best ask, last trade on Hyperliquid"; and the "median of Binance, OKX, Bybit, Gate IO, MEXC perp mid prices with weights 3, 2, 2, 1, 1". If only two of the three exist, a 30-second EMA of the Hyperliquid bid/ask/last median is added. The docs call it "an unbiased and robust estimate of the fair perp price", and it "is used for margining, liquidations, triggering TP/SL, and computing unrealized pnl". It updates with the oracle, "approximately once every 3 seconds".
What follows from the definitions
- Liquidations do not fire off a single print. The liquidation docs say mark price "combines external CEX prices with Hyperliquid's book state", which "makes liquidations more robust than using a single instantaneous book price" — and warn that "during times of high volatility or on highly leveraged positions, mark price may be significantly different from book price".
- A TP/SL triggers on mark and fills on the book. The support FAQ's first case is a take-profit that "executed and made a loss although it was triggered at a profitable price": "TP/SL are triggered by mark price, and then executed. Trade price and mark price are different", and market TP/SL orders carry a 10% slippage tolerance. See the TP/SL troubleshooting page.
- Unrealised PnL is mark-based. The PnL shown on screen is
side * (mark_price - entry_price) * position_size, per the PnL accounting page, so it moves with the mark, not with your own fills. - Hyperps and index perps replace the oracle input. Pre-launch hyperps use an EMA of their own mark; index contracts use a validator-published formula — the delisting, hyperps and index perps page has both.
FAQ
Why did I get liquidated when the chart never touched my liquidation price?
The chart shows trades; liquidation uses mark price, which blends external venue prices and can diverge from the book in fast markets. The docs recommend "the exact formula for precise monitoring".
How often do the prices update?
Oracle and mark "are updated approximately once every 3 seconds", when validators publish.
Can the oracle be manipulated through Hyperliquid's own book?
For assets with primary liquidity elsewhere, Hyperliquid's own spot prices are excluded from the oracle; the mark price includes book inputs but as one of three medianed components with a 150-second EMA.
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