FBYT publishes this comparison, so we have a stake in the outcome. Hyperliquid facts come from its documentation, its terms and news coverage, linked where we use them. Figures we counted ourselves from Hyperliquid's public data are labelled, with the method. FBYT facts come from the FBYT smart contract and its production settings. Last checked: 26 October 2026. Fees, lock-ups and vault rules change, so confirm current terms before you deposit. This is not financial advice, and capital is always at risk.
Short Answer: FBYT vs Hyperliquid Vaults
Hyperliquid vaults and FBYT vaults both let you hand capital to a trader and follow the results on-chain, but they do different jobs.
- Choose a Hyperliquid vault if you want a leader trading leveraged perpetual futures on Hyperliquid's own exchange, a fixed 10% profit share, and USDC withdrawals after a one-day lock-up.
- Choose FBYT if you want a manager trading spot tokens on Solana through Jupiter, with no leverage inside the vault. Your deposit stays in token accounts owned by the vault's program.
If you are looking for a Hyperliquid vault alternative for spot exposure on Solana, FBYT is one option. If you want leveraged perps, it is not a substitute. The rest of this guide compares custody, what the trader can do, fees, withdrawals and risk.
Hyperliquid Vaults Explained, and How FBYT Vaults Differ
What Is a Hyperliquid Vault?
Hyperliquid is a layer-one blockchain with its own perpetual futures exchange (about Hyperliquid). A vault on it is an account that a leader trades and other users deposit USDC into. Depositors own a share of the vault and share its profit or loss. Vault leaders receive 10% of the profits (vaults overview).
There are two kinds:
- User vaults: anyone can create one. The leader trades it from the normal Hyperliquid trading screen, and every trade applies to the vault (for vault leaders).
- HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider): a protocol vault that makes markets, performs liquidations and earns a share of trading fees. It is community-owned and charges no fees or profit share (protocol vaults).
In this guide, "Hyperliquid vaults" means these two. Hyperliquid's documentation now labels them "legacy" HyperCore vaults. It describes a newer model in which developers build tokenized vaults on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid's smart-contract layer (vaults). We cover the HyperCore vaults because that is where the existing user vaults and HLP live today.
What Is an FBYT Vault?
FBYT is a non-custodial on-chain asset management platform on Solana, where money managers run trading vaults and investors deposit into them. Deposits sit in token accounts owned by the vault's program-derived address (PDA), an address only the program can sign for. The manager, or a trading delegate the manager names, trades those assets through Jupiter swaps. The contract gives the manager no instruction to withdraw investor principal. A bad trade can still lose value: the vault's slippage limit caps the execution price, not the quality of the decision. All you need to deposit is a Solana wallet.
Hyperliquid Vaults in Numbers
On 26 October 2026:
- HLP had a total value locked of about $174 million, down from a peak of about $609 million on 31 August 2025 (DefiLlama).
- User vaults: about 9,470 have been created since 2023. 3,067 were still open, holding about $88 million between them. Of the open vaults, only 490 held $1,000 or more, 17 held more than $1 million, and the largest held about $13 million.
Method: we counted the user vaults from Hyperliquid's public vault list (stats-data.hyperliquid.xyz/Mainnet/vaults) on 26 October 2026. "Open" means not marked closed; 2,735 of the open vaults held any balance at all. HLP and its sub-vaults are excluded.
Most user vaults are small. As on any vault platform, a long track record and a meaningful size are rarer than the vault count suggests.
How Each Platform Holds Your Money
Custody on Hyperliquid
Your USDC sits on Hyperliquid's own chain, HyperCore, inside the vault's account. USDC is now minted natively on Hyperliquid. Its documentation says the older Arbitrum bridge holds less than 10% of the USDC on HyperCore (USDC on Hyperliquid).
The leader documentation says a leader must keep at least 5% of the vault and cannot withdraw below that share (for vault leaders). It describes two leader actions on funds: withdrawing their own share, and closing the vault, which pays every depositor out. On 26 October 2026 that page described no way for a leader to withdraw depositors' funds.
The chain itself is part of the trust model. Hyperliquid's active validator set is the top 27 validators by stake (validators). On 26 October 2026, the five validators run by the Hyper Foundation held about 47% of active stake.
Method: we added up the stake of the five validators named "Hyper Foundation" and divided it by the stake of all 27 active validators. The data comes from Hyperliquid's public info API (api.hyperliquid.xyz/info, request type validatorSummaries) on 26 October 2026.
In March 2025, the validators voted to delist the JELLY market. Positions were settled at $0.0095 per token (Decrypt). The validators changed how open positions were settled, which shows that the validator set can intervene in markets.
Custody on FBYT
Your deposit stays in token accounts owned by the vault's PDA on Solana. Only your wallet signature can withdraw your shares, and the contract has no instruction that lets FBYT move investor funds.
A manager can name a trading delegate, such as a trading bot. The delegate can only trade, into approved tokens and under the same slippage cap. It can never withdraw. The manager can revoke it at any time.
The remaining risk is the one every on-chain program carries: a bug in the program itself, so check its audit status (see the security section below). For more on this model, see what a non-custodial vault is.
What the Trader Can Do With Your Deposit
Trading in Hyperliquid Vaults
HyperCore vaults can trade the perpetual futures markets run by Hyperliquid's validators. They cannot trade spot tokens or HIP-3 perps, the markets that third parties deploy (for vault leaders).
Perps mean leverage, shorting and funding payments, the periodic payments between long and short traders. The vault can profit in a falling market, but a leveraged position can also be liquidated. The 5% rule gives the leader skin in the game.
Trading in FBYT Vaults
The manager, or a trading delegate the manager names, trades spot tokens through Jupiter, Solana's swap aggregator. The vault program does not open leveraged or perpetual positions, so there is no liquidation inside the vault.
The trade-off is scope. A manager can't short or run funding-rate strategies inside an FBYT vault. Returns depend on picking and timing spot tokens.
Fees Compared
Hyperliquid Vault Fees
Vault leaders receive a 10% profit share, taken when you withdraw. The documentation's example: you put in 100 USDC, your share grows to 200 USDC, and on that 100 USDC profit the leader keeps 10 USDC (for vault depositors).
- Management fee: none. The vault depositor page lists only the leader's profit share, as checked on 26 October 2026.
- High-water mark: the docs don't say whether the profit share uses one, so we could not verify it.
- HLP: charges no fees or profit share.
- Trading fees: the vault pays normal exchange fees on every trade. For perps, the base tier is 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker (fees).
- Cost to launch: creating a vault costs the leader a 10,000 USDC fee, plus a minimum deposit of 100 USDC (for vault leaders).
FBYT Vault Fees
There is no entry or exit fee. Each manager sets the vault's fees at launch, within protocol caps, and cannot change them afterwards. On 26 October 2026, the production program capped management fees at 15% a year and performance fees at 20%. We read these from its settings account on Solana Explorer.
- Performance fee: charged only if the vault has traded, and only when you withdraw. It is measured against your own deposit value in USD.
- Management fee: builds up as owed shares while the vault is active. It is paid in the vault's tokens when the manager collects it on the fee schedule, or when an investor withdraws.
- Protocol share: FBYT takes 20% of the manager's management fee and 20% of the performance fee (two settings, both 20% on 26 October 2026). It comes out of the manager's fee, not on top of it, so investors pay the same either way.
- Cost to launch: the program charges a 0.002 SOL creation fee, plus Solana account rent.
For a worked example of these fees, see DeFi vault fees explained.
Withdrawals Compared
Withdrawing From a Hyperliquid Vault
User vaults have a one-day lock-up after your deposit, and HLP has four days (for vault depositors). For HLP, the clock restarts with each deposit (protocol vaults). After that you can withdraw, and you receive USDC.
If the vault lacks free margin to pay you, open orders are cancelled first. Then 20% of positions are closed automatically, and this repeats until there is enough margin. Expect some slippage as positions close (for vault leaders).
Withdrawing From an FBYT Vault
You can withdraw once the vault's raise period has ended and any withdrawal cooldown the manager set has passed. A closed vault has no cooldown. On 26 October 2026, the production program allowed raise periods of up to 30 days and cooldowns of up to 45 days, so check each vault's terms before depositing.
You sign the withdrawal from your own wallet, and it settles in one transaction. You receive your pro-rata share of each token the vault holds, not a single stablecoin. A performance fee may apply if the vault has traded.
Risk and Security Record
Hyperliquid's Record
HLP has taken losses from liquidations and a price attack:
- March 2025: an ETH whale's exit cost HLP over $4 million. Hyperliquid said there was "no protocol exploit or hack" and that "HLP is not a risk-free strategy" (DL News).
- November 2025: after a POPCAT price attack, HLP showed a loss of about $4.9 million (Cointelegraph).
- April 2026: PeckShield estimated that a FARTCOIN liquidation left HLP down roughly $1.5 million over 24 hours. Hyperliquid had not confirmed the figure at the time (Cointelegraph).
User vaults carry the leader's own trading risk on top: leverage, liquidation and slippage when positions close.
FBYT's Record
FBYT's vault program has been through an internal security audit. An external audit is in progress, and no independent audit report has been published yet. Weigh that when you compare, and check for a published report before you deposit. Because vaults trade spot without leverage, there is no liquidation inside the vault, but token prices can still fall sharply.
A Worked Example: $1,000 in Each Vault
The figures below are illustrative, not a forecast. Assume you deposit $1,000, the vault makes 10% after trading costs over a year, and you then withdraw. For FBYT, the management fee is charged on the average balance, and the performance fee is charged on the profit left after the management fee.
- Hyperliquid user vault: the leader takes 10% of the $100 profit, which is $10, leaving about $1,090. You can withdraw any time after the one-day lock-up, and you receive USDC. If the vault had to close positions to pay you, slippage could cost a little more.
- FBYT vault with 2% management and 20% performance: the management fee is about $21 (2% of an average balance of about $1,050). The performance fee is about $16 (20% of the remaining $79 profit). That leaves about $1,063, paid as your share of each token the vault holds. Swapping that mix back to USD can cost swap fees and some price movement.
- FBYT vault with 0% management and 10% performance: the result matches the Hyperliquid vault, about $1,090.
On fees, the comparison turns on what each FBYT manager charges, because Hyperliquid's 10% profit share is fixed. The bigger difference is risk: the Hyperliquid vault's 10% could come from leveraged perps, and the FBYT vault's 10% from spot tokens.
FBYT vs Hyperliquid Vaults at a Glance
| Criterion | FBYT | Hyperliquid vaults |
|---|---|---|
| Chain | Solana | Hyperliquid L1 (HyperCore) |
| What the trader trades | Spot tokens through Jupiter, by the manager or a named delegate that can't withdraw; no leverage | Perps run by Hyperliquid's validators, with leverage; no spot |
| Where your deposit sits | Token accounts owned by the vault PDA | The vault's account on HyperCore |
| Who can launch a vault | Any manager; 0.002 SOL creation fee plus rent | Anyone; 10,000 USDC creation fee and a 100 USDC minimum deposit |
| Leader's own stake | Not required by the program | At least 5% of the vault at all times |
| Management fee | Set by each manager at launch, up to 15% a year | None |
| Performance fee | Up to 20%, at withdrawal, against your USD deposit value | 10% profit share to the leader, at withdrawal; HLP charges none |
| When you can withdraw | After the raise ends and any cooldown (up to 45 days); none for closed vaults | After a 1-day lock-up for user vaults, 4 days for HLP |
| What you receive | Pro-rata share of each token the vault holds | USDC |
| Security notes | Internal audit done; external audit in progress, no public report yet | HLP took losses from liquidations and a price attack in 2025 and 2026; validators delisted a market in March 2025 |
| Wallet and access | A Solana wallet | A non-custodial wallet (terms); not offered to people in the US or Ontario |
Hyperliquid's terms of use (last updated 15 June 2026) say the interface is not available to people in "the United States of America or Ontario, Canada", including citizens of those places wherever they are. They also require a non-custodial wallet (terms).
Who Should Use FBYT and Who Should Use Hyperliquid Vaults
- Choose a Hyperliquid vault if you want a perps trader who can go short, use leverage and earn funding, and you are comfortable with liquidation risk. It also suits you if you value withdrawing in USDC after one day.
- Choose HLP if you want market-making exposure with no profit share, and you accept its four-day lock-up and its record of losses.
- Choose FBYT if you want spot exposure on Solana without leverage inside the vault, with your deposit held in program-controlled token accounts. It also suits a manager who wants to launch a vault without a 10,000 USDC fee.
- Use both if you want to split between a leveraged perps strategy and a spot one. Size each position as you would any other risk, and read each platform's terms first.
For how vault models differ in general, see types of DeFi vaults compared and how to read a Solana vault on-chain.
