Aligned quote assets on Hyperliquid are stablecoins whose issuers share reserve yield with the protocol in exchange for a designated HyperCore quote role. Under AQAv2, a treasury deployer and a technical deployer each stake 500k HYPE, and the treasury side remits the full cost-adjusted AQA rate on Hyperliquid supply (source: Hyperliquid Docs, aligned quote assets).
USDC can show up in three places with three jobs. Alignment is the designation plus those two 500k stakes and the yield share. A HIP-3 market can still take USDC as collateral when a builder picks any quote. BloFin HYPEUSDT is a USDT-margined perpetual, listed December 19, 2024 at 11:30 UTC. Sharing yield with the protocol and quoting a market in a dollar token are two products.
What aligned quote assets are
An aligned quote asset is a HyperCore dollar that carries a named designation: the issuer shares reserve yield, and two deployer roles post 500k HYPE each. The live designation on the May 2026 product page is USDC, with Coinbase as treasury deployer and Circle as technical deployer (source: Hyperliquid, Aligned Quote Assets v2).
That designation sits on top of ordinary quote-asset listing. Quote status lets a token price spot pairs and collateralize builder perps. Alignment is a later overlay that pays the protocol. A holder can meet USDC as everyday margin, meet USDC as the aligned quote, and meet USDT on BloFin. Only the middle role is AQAv2.
| Surface | Dollar | What the issuer or venue does |
|---|---|---|
| AQAv2 aligned quote | USDC | Two 500k HYPE stakes and cost-adjusted yield share |
| HIP-3 collateral | USDC or another quote | Builder picks the margin asset for that dex |
| BloFin HYPEUSDT | USDT | CEX perpetual at 75x, listed December 19, 2024 |
Generic 1:1 design still lives with what a stablecoin is. Ethereum's issuer map lives with Ethereum stablecoins. The HyperCore overlay is narrower: a designated quote role plus a payment path into the Assistance Fund. Later burn math belongs with how the assistance fund burns HYPE.
The Hyperliquid ecosystem treats this cut as a collateral designation, not a dapp tile. The job on this page is to keep those three dollars apart.
Quote-asset listing on HyperCore
A HyperCore quote asset is a permissionless listing with its own stake, book tests, and slash path. A new quote posts 200k HYPE for three years. After that window the stake can be unstaked. USDC and USDT skip that stake as a scale exemption, a track-record carve-out, with alignment handled later (source: Hyperliquid Docs, permissionless spot quote assets).
The quality test is sampled. QUOTE/USDC needs size on both sides inside tight bands around 1. HYPE/QUOTE needs size inside a 0.5 percent spread. If a three-day stretch fails for a majority of uniformly spaced 1 second samples, the quote is slashable, and validators vote how much of the 200k to take. Enabling the flag is one-way and has no gas cost. New accounts can pay transfer fees in 1 unit of a spot quote asset.
Those tests are peg and book quality. The 200k is a quote-token bond. It is a separate bond from an AQAv2 treasury stake and from a HIP-3 listing lock.
Spot pairs where both sides are quote assets get a separate fee cut: 80 percent lower taker fees, maker rebates, and user volume contribution. The same fees page still lists an aligned-quote knobs line: 20 percent lower taker fees, 50 percent better maker rebates, and 20 percent more volume contribution toward fee tiers (source: Hyperliquid Docs, fees). The AQA spec later splits that line by version, because AQAv2 drops those knobs.
Quote status is a listing privilege with a 200k, three-year bond unless the token is USDC or USDT. Alignment is a later designation that shares yield. Mixing those two is how a USDT-margined CEX pair gets talked about as if it were a HyperCore quote.
AQAv1 fee knobs and exclusivity
AQAv1 is the exclusive-stablecoin version of alignment. The deployer posted extra HYPE on top of the quote-token stake. Half of the AQA rate went to the protocol. Traders saw cheaper takers, fatter maker rebates, and more volume toward fee tiers when that dollar quoted spot or collateralized HIP-3 (source: Hyperliquid Docs, aligned quote assets).
Offchain tests asked for 1:1 cash-and-treasury backing, par redemption, HyperEVM as the mint source, and a team dedicated to Hyperliquid. Those tests are why AQAv1 could not simply stamp USDC as aligned without a later spec. The 20/50/20 knobs are the trader-facing remainder of that version, still sitting on the fees page as a present-tense line about aligned quote assets.
AQAv1 on the spec page posts 800k additional staked HYPE by the deployer, meaning a total of 1M staked HYPE including the 200k for the quote-token deployment. Fifty percent of the AQA rate flows to the protocol. Picture a club dollar: exclusivity plus extra stake bought cheaper takers, which is why a ranking line can still say aligned means cheaper fees while reading AQAv1.
Offchain AQAv1 conditions are validator-voted, because a self-contained chain has no view of a redemption window. That is the project's own account of how a 1:1 test enters consensus. It is a vote-enforced, self-reported bar, and it is separate from a BloFin attestation. A dedicated-team clause is the same class.
AQAv1 bought alignment with exclusivity and fee knobs. AQAv2 buys it with yield share on a dollar that is allowed to live elsewhere.
AQAv2 yield share and the two 500k stakes
AQAv2 extends aligned quote status to stables that also live off Hyperliquid. Two deployer roles each post 500k HYPE. The treasury role remits the full cost-adjusted AQA rate. Under AQAv2, stablecoin deployers share approximately 90 percent of cost-adjusted reserve yield revenue on their Hyperliquid supply with the protocol. Other quote assets stay supported for spot and HIP-3 perps. The treasury cut is twice the revenue-share rate of the existing AQA spec. The treasury 500k is slashable if that address lacks balance for onchain revenue. The technical deployer stakes 500k HYPE and runs mint, redemption, and cross-chain transfer infrastructure. Both roles require 6 months minimum notice before ceasing operation. Reserve yield is sent to the Assistance Fund 8 days after each interval completes, and a short treasury is slashed at 2 percent per day (source: Hyperliquid Docs, aligned quote assets).
The spec is blunt on trader fees: "There is no trading fee or volume contribution benefit to AQAv2" (source: Hyperliquid Docs, aligned quote assets). The fees page still advertises 20/50/20 for aligned quotes. Read those two pages as versioned remainder: AQAv1 kept the knobs, and AQAv2 kept the designation and moved the payment into Assistance Fund intervals.
Minted HyperCore tokens are matched by HyperEVM balances held nine parts in the treasury address and one part in the technical deployer's linked contract. CoreWriter reflects that mint on HyperCore. Thirty-day intervals start on the activation date, accrue on UTC-date balances times the published AQA rate, and hit the Assistance Fund eight days after the interval closes. If the system interest address falls short, the treasury 500k is slashable at 2 percent per day. That slash hits the treasury bond. The open perp keeps its own mark.
Activation is a validator vote after both deployers have staked and sent authorization from the staking accounts. That vote is a third bond beside HIP-3 deployer slashing and quote-status quality votes. Three bonds, three failure modes. Docs also date a future fence: AQAv2 will be a requirement for quote assets listed against HIP-4 and validator-operated perp markets on a later network upgrade.
AQAv2 is yield share plus two 500k roles. The trader-facing fee gift belongs to AQAv1.
USDC as the live AQAv2 designation vs BloFin HYPEUSDT
USDC is the live AQAv2 designation on the project's product page. Coinbase is treasury deployer. Circle is technical deployer. Both roles posted 500k HYPE to activate AQAv2. The same page's claim that USDC will become the most aligned stablecoin on Hyperliquid is the project's own ranking language (source: Hyperliquid, Aligned Quote Assets v2).
Coinbase's May 14, 2026 post is the issuer-side account of the same handoff. Coinbase describes becoming the official treasury deployer of USDC on Hyperliquid. On the predecessor dollar it writes that "USDH markets are fully functional but will sunset over time", with feeless redemptions to USDC or fiat during that window via Native Markets (source: Coinbase, Aligning Markets on Hyperliquid to USDC). That sunset line is Coinbase's, dated May 2026. Treat it as a wind-down still in motion. A later explainer's settlement-complete sentence still sits behind a primary that says over time.
USDC is natively minted on the Hyperliquid L1. The legacy Arbitrum bridge holds less than 10 percent of the USDC supply on HyperCore (source: Hyperliquid Docs, USDC). Native mint is the HyperCore fact. The legacy bridge is an older path. It is a separate path from the AQAv2 9:1 treasury split. A HyperEVM wallet after a Fast Transfer is a user balance. The 9:1 split is issuer-side: nine parts in the treasury address and one part in the technical deployer's linked contract, sized to match minted HyperCore tokens. Your own wallet after a hop sits outside that issuer bucket, so the AQA rate stays on the issuer side. Circle's CCTP howto is the technical-deployer surface: Fast Transfers from Arbitrum to HyperEVM have no fees, and there is a flat forwarding fee for Arbitrum transfers to HyperCore (source: Circle Docs, Transfer USDC from Arbitrum to HyperCore). A forwarding fee is a bridge cost. A CCTP hop is a mint-and-forward path. Neither one is AQA yield, and neither one is a BloFin deposit.
BloFin lists HYPEUSDT at 75x from December 19, 2024 11:30 UTC, and HYPE/USDT spot from May 30, 2025 13:30 UTC. The OpenAPI instrument ID for the perpetual row is HYPE-USDT. Those listings are USDT-margined CEX rows. Those rows stay off the AQA treasury. They sit beside HYPERUSDT, which is still Hyperlane. HYPE perpetual futures is the USDT-margined walk. AQA yield leaves that row untouched.
You can hold USDC on HyperCore as ordinary margin, hold USDC as the aligned quote, and hold USDT on BloFin. Only the middle role is AQAv2. The next mix-up is a builder perp that happens to use USDC as collateral without that designation doing extra work for the trader.
HIP-3 quote choice and USDC collateral
A HIP-3 deployer can still collateralize a dex with any quote asset, including a dollar that is off AQAv2. Quote choice on that product is a fee and product decision. Alignment is a later overlay (source: HIP-3: Builder-deployed perpetuals).
Suppose you post 10,000 USDC as isolated margin on a builder-deployed silver perp, see USDC in the UI, and read the AQA yield share as your rebate if silver marks against you. The 10,000 is inventory and margin on that independent dex. The Assistance Fund interval is a protocol payment eight days after a 30-day window. A later AQA treasury slash at 2 percent per day still leaves the silver mark untouched. If validators later strip that dollar of quote status, HIP-3's documented follow-on is a disable of dexs that used it as collateral. That disable is separate from a make-whole from the deployer's listing lock.
HIP-3 builder-deployed perps covers quote choice as a fee-and-product issue. Assets that fail the permissionless quote-asset requirements lose quote-asset status on an onchain validator vote, and such a vote also disables perp dexs that use this asset as collateral. A deployer-initiated disabling of quote asset leaves the corresponding perp dexs running. In summary, quote-asset choice matters for trading fees and product design. HIP-3 frames listing survival as a separate vote from that choice. The fee overlay is still in motion: aligned stablecoin collateral will automatically receive reduced fees once the alignment condition, which is being updated based on user and deployer feedback, is implemented (source: HIP-3: Builder-deployed perpetuals).
That last sentence is why AQAv2 should be sold as a HIP-3 taker cut only after that condition is live. The alignment condition is documented as being updated. The HIP-3 listing lock, the 183-day maintain, and the burn-not-payout vote sit in HIP-3 deployer slashing risk. Quote-status loss is a different vote from that median.
| Vote | What it hits | What happens to 10,000 USDC on silver |
|---|---|---|
| Quote-status | Quote-token stake; can disable dexs | The book stops quoting that dollar |
| AQA treasury, 2% per day | Treasury 500k HYPE | Protocol yield path; silver mark unchanged |
| HIP-3 deployer slash | Listing lock on that dex | Burn path on the lock, covered in the slashing guide |
A deployer who turns off quote status on purpose leaves the HIP-3 books up. A validator quote-status vote can take those books down. The 183-day maintain is a listing-lock rule on the HIP-3 deployer. Quote-status is a dollar-level vote. AQA treasury slash is an issuer-bond rule. Read the three rows as three timers on three bonds. A BloFin USDT pair sits outside all three.
If you needed the silver book to keep quoting, a quote-status disable already ended that quote. If you needed a rebate, you were reading the wrong spec.
HIP-4 and validator perps: a later AQAv2 rule
AQAv2 is written as a future requirement for quote assets listed against HIP-4 and against validator-operated perp markets. Other quotes remain supported for spot and HIP-3. A live binary on the 06:00 UTC BTC window is evidence that some outcome books exist. It is weak evidence that permissionless HIP-4 deploy is mainnet, and weaker evidence that every quote on that book has already been forced through AQAv2.
HIP-4 outcome markets is the bounded, fully posted primitive. How HIP-3 differs from HIP-4 is the compare. Validator-operated perps and HIP-4 are the books the spec says will later require AQAv2 quotes. HIP-3 keeps the any-quote door.
HIP-4 deployer actions remain a staged rollout, with permissionless deploy still labeled testnet-only in that product walk. A future-requirement sentence is a calendar note. Until a later official page marks that upgrade as live, HIP-4 quotes are documented as a coming gate, not as an already-forced AQAv2 filter.
What Hyperliquid is is the L1 hub if you arrived from a ticker search. Aligned quotes are a HyperCore collateral designation. They are a named role on the book environment, and they leave HyperCore and HyperEVM as two execution halves.
HIP-4 plus validator books are the future AQAv2 gate. HIP-3 is the any-quote door today.
What to weigh when you see a dollar token
Quote-asset status is a permissionless listing bar of 200k HYPE for three years unless the token is USDC or USDT. Alignment is a later designation. AQAv1 paid in fee knobs. AQAv2 pays as protocol yield share.
The live AQAv2 designation on the May 2026 product page is USDC, with Coinbase as treasury deployer and Circle as technical deployer, both 500k stakes posted. USDH is the predecessor Coinbase still describes as sunsetting over time. A HIP-3 book can use USDC without that designation doing rebate work. BloFin HYPEUSDT is USDT-margined, listed December 19, 2024 at 11:30 UTC at 75x, so the pair is a CEX row. HyperCore quote status is a different listing.
Skip memorizing 9:1 splits, one-second sample windows, or every UTC-date sum in the 30-day example. Weigh which dollar is in front of you, which vote would actually fire, and whether the yield line you are reading is Assistance Fund inflow or a trader coupon the spec leaves unwritten. Then decide whether you wanted an aligned quote, a builder perp in some other dollar, or a CEX USDT pair. Those three jobs stay separate.
If the job was generic 1:1 design, that already lived on the two stablecoin guides named above. If the job was HIP-3 product mechanics, that residual lives in the builder-perp walk. If the job was a listing-lock burn, that median lives in the slashing walk. Assistance Fund conversion into HYPE burns is a later hop, a burn path, and a separate hop from a quote-designation coupon.
Frequently asked questions
Does HIP-3 growth mode's 90 percent fee cut combine with AQAv1's 20 percent taker cut as one product?
No. Growth mode is a disjoint-market privilege on a HIP-3 asset, with a 0-10 deployer fee scale and a 30-day cooldown, a listing-mode rule. AQAv1's 20/50/20 knobs are quote-designation benefits for exclusive aligned collateral. AQAv2 has no trading-fee benefit, so combining those as one aligned discount explains a cheap HIP-3 taker with the wrong spec. Check whether the book is growth-mode disjoint, then which AQA version the quote actually carries.
Does six-month notice before a treasury deployer ceases also freeze HIP-3 USDC margin for six months?
No. Six months minimum notice is a cease-operation rule for the treasury and technical roles. Isolated HIP-3 margin stays inventory on that dex while that notice runs. HaltTrading, the 183-day listing-lock maintain, and the 2 percent per day treasury slash are separate mechanisms. If notice were given, 10,000 USDC on silver would still be inventory and margin on that dex while the issuer timer ran on the deployer roles.
If Coinbase holds a right to purchase USDH brand assets, does remaining USDH inherit Circle's AQAv2 technical-deployer role?
No. A brand-asset option is a commercial term around a predecessor dollar's name. Circle's technical-deployer stake was posted against USDC on the May 2026 product page, both 500k HYPE, so remaining USDH that still redeems is a wind-down rail. A purchase right leaves quote-status, the 9:1 treasury split, and the aligned quote with USDC.
If I pay a new-account transfer fee in 1 unit of USDC, does that unit credit AQAv2 yield share for that UTC date?
No. A new-account transfer fee paid in a single unit of whatever already quotes is a gas-adjacent privilege of quote status. It is a fee-asset door, and it sits outside the 30-day AQA interval. USDC, some other quote, and an aligned quote are the same mechanical door on that list. Paying it leaves Assistance Fund intervals, HIP-3 takers, and a BloFin USDT deposit unchanged.
If a quote-status vote disables a HIP-3 silver book, does that vote also run HaltTrading and settle the position to mark as one action?
No. A quote-status disable stops the silver book from quoting that dollar. HaltTrading is the cancel-and-settle-to-mark path. The listing-lock median stays a different vote. A deployer who turns the quote flag off on purpose leaves those HIP-3 books up, and 10,000 USDC can sit stranded while that vote leaves the mark and the 183-day lock in place.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Updated August 2026. Primary sources include the Hyperliquid Docs permissionless-spot-quote-assets and aligned-quote-assets pages, HIP-3, the May 2026 AQAv2 product update, and Coinbase's May 14, 2026 USDC post. Protocol facts independently verified against cited sources and BloFin instrument rows current as of August 21, 2026.
This article is educational and general in nature, not financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrencies like HYPE carry real risks, including price volatility, liquidation, venue risk, and the chance of losing funds. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or trade on Hyperliquid or on BloFin. Do your own research, and consider speaking with a licensed professional before making financial decisions. BloFin provides no investment advice.