Hyperliquid Mark Price vs Oracle Price: What Really Drives Your Liquidations & PnL

The short answer: Oracle price is a weighted median of centralized-exchange spot prices, published by validators roughly every three seconds, and it only drives funding. Mark price is a "median of medians" built from the oracle plus Hyperliquid's own book and five CEX perp mids — and it is the price that decides your margin, your liquidation, your take-profit/stop-loss triggers and your unrealized PnL. That split is why a position can get liquidated even when the last trade never touched your liquidation price — and why you should verify your numbers in a tracker that reads mark, not last trade, like Hyperfolio.

It is the most confusing moment a Hyperliquid trader hits: the chart shows a wick that barely moved, the last traded price never reached your liquidation level, and yet the position is gone. No glitch. No scam. You were liquidated by the mark price, not the last price, and it moved because a completely different number — the oracle price — shifted underneath it.

Two prices govern every Hyperliquid position, and neither of them is the last trade. Understanding the difference between mark and oracle is not academic: it decides exactly how far you are from liquidation, why funding looks disconnected from the screen, and how your PnL is actually computed. In this guide we break down how each price is built, which one does what, and how to check your real numbers in seconds without signing up for anything.

What are mark price and oracle price on Hyperliquid?

Hyperliquid deliberately separates the price that keeps the exchange honest (oracle) from the price that keeps your account honest (mark). Here is what each one is, in one table:

Price	How it is computed	What it drives
Oracle price	Weighted median of CEX spot prices, liquidity-weighted, published by validators ~every 3s	Funding rate and funding notional
Mark price	Median of three inputs: oracle + 150s EMA basis, Hyperliquid bid/ask/last median, and a weighted CEX perp mid	Margining, liquidations, TP/SL triggers, unrealized PnL
Impact price	Average execution price for the asset's impact notional on each side of the book	Premium component of funding

The key mental model: oracle keeps funding honest, mark keeps your margin honest. If you only watch the last trade, you are watching neither.

How Hyperliquid computes the oracle price

The oracle price is built to be hard to manipulate through Hyperliquid's own order book. It is a weighted median of spot prices from major centralized exchanges, with the weight of each venue depending on its liquidity. Validators publish it approximately every three seconds, and it does not depend on Hyperliquid's market data at all.

That independence is the whole point. Because funding is computed against the oracle, a temporary squeeze or a thin book on Hyperliquid alone cannot push funding rates around. The trade-off — and this matters for you — is that the exchange inherits the behavior of the referenced CEXs: if a major venue has a bad print or an outage, it can ripple into the oracle.

Takeaway: oracle price is external by design. It is a manipulation-resistant reference for funding, not a live reflection of Hyperliquid's own screen.

How Hyperliquid computes the mark price

Mark price is where the subtle engineering happens. Hyperliquid calls it a "median of medians" because it takes the median of three independent estimates and refuses to let any single one dominate. The three inputs are:

• Oracle + basis: the oracle price plus a 150-second EMA of the difference between Hyperliquid's mid and the oracle.
• Hyperliquid's own book: the median of the best bid, best ask and last traded price.
• Weighted CEX perp mids: the median of Binance, OKX, Bybit, Gate.io and MEXC perpetual mids, weighted 3, 2, 2, 1 and 1 respectively.

If only two of the three inputs exist — for example on a brand-new or extremely illiquid market — Hyperliquid adds a fourth input: a 30-second EMA of the Hyperliquid bid/ask/last median. The result updates roughly every three seconds, in step with the oracle.

Why go to all this trouble? Because no single venue outage, wick or thin book can dictate the price that liquidates you. Taking a median of robust estimates means a flash crash on one exchange, or a fake wall on Hyperliquid's own book, gets diluted by the other inputs before it can trigger a cascade of unfair liquidations.

Mark vs oracle: which price does what

This is the practical table to bookmark, because the two prices have very different jobs:

Event	Price used	Why it matters to you
Funding payment	Oracle (notional also via oracle)	Your funding cost can move even when the screen is flat
Liquidation	Mark	You can be liquidated without the last trade touching your liquidation price
Take-profit / stop-loss trigger	Mark	TP/SL fire on the robust mark, not the last tick
Unrealized PnL	Mark	Your open PnL reflects external inputs, not just Hyperliquid's screen

This split explains the most common confusion on Hyperliquid: your unrealized PnL and liquidation distance can move while the last trade sits perfectly still, because external inputs shifted the mark underneath the position.

Why this matters for your PnL and liquidation distance

If you trade with tight stops or high leverage, the mark/oracle split is the difference between a planned exit and a surprise. A trader who sizes a position by looking only at the last price is effectively flying blind on the number that actually liquidates them.

Here is what you should watch instead:

• Liquidation distance is computed against mark, not last. A "safe" 10% buffer on the chart can be a 6% buffer against mark when basis and CEX mids are moving.
• Funding is an oracle story. If funding seems disconnected from Hyperliquid's screen, it is — it is anchored to external spot medians.
• Unrealized PnL is a mark story. The "profit" on your position can widen or shrink on external inputs alone, before any trade happens on Hyperliquid.

The cleanest way to stop guessing is to track the number that matters. A tracker that computes PnL from Hyperliquid's own data — net of fees and funding — removes the mark/oracle confusion from your daily routine. You can paste any wallet and see your real PnL, liquidation level and funding in seconds, no registration and no API keys.

Where the mark price model struggles

No price model is perfect, and honest traders want the trade-offs on the table. Hyperliquid's mark and oracle are robust, but they inherit three real limitations:

• CEX dependency: both prices lean on Binance, OKX, Bybit, Gate.io and MEXC. A bad print or a deliberate manipulation on a referenced venue can distort the oracle and, through it, the mark.
• Three-second cadence: prices update about every three seconds. In a violent micro-crash, the mark can lag the true market for a couple of seconds — enough to matter at high leverage.
• Thin markets: on low-liquidity listings, fewer robust inputs exist, so the mark leans harder on the 30-second EMA fallback, which is slower to react.

Takeaway: mark and oracle are manipulation-resistant, not manipulation-proof. They reduce the blast radius of a single bad venue — they do not eliminate it.

For a deeper look at how liquidation actually plays out on Hyperliquid, read our complete guide to Hyperliquid liquidations, and for the difference between gross and net PnL, see our breakdown of real PnL after fees and funding.

How to verify your real numbers right now

You do not need to reconstruct the median-of-medians math by hand every morning. Here is the two-minute verification routine:

1. Open app.hyperfolio.fun and paste your wallet address or any address you want to inspect.
2. Check your unrealized PnL per open position — this is the mark-driven number that matters for your margin.
3. Check funding paid and received — the oracle-driven cost that quietly compounds.
4. Check your liquidation levels against your intended stop, and size accordingly.

Everything is read-only: no sign-up, no API keys, no connection of funds. Hyperfolio reads public Hyperliquid data, which is exactly how a mark-aware tracker should work.

Frequently asked questions

Why was I liquidated on Hyperliquid when the price never hit my liquidation level?

Liquidation uses the mark price, not the last traded price. The mark is a median of the oracle plus basis, Hyperliquid's own book, and five CEX perp mids — so it can move even when the last trade on Hyperliquid does not.

What is the difference between mark price and oracle price on Hyperliquid?

The oracle is a weighted median of CEX spot prices published every ~3 seconds and drives funding. The mark is a median of three inputs (oracle + basis, Hyperliquid's book, weighted CEX perp mids) and drives margin, liquidation, TP/SL and unrealized PnL.

How often does the Hyperliquid mark price update?

Roughly every three seconds, in step with the validators publishing new oracle prices.

Which CEXs feed the Hyperliquid mark and oracle prices?

The mark's CEX component uses Binance, OKX, Bybit, Gate.io and MEXC perpetual mids, weighted 3, 2, 2, 1 and 1. The oracle uses liquidity-weighted spot prices from major centralized exchanges.

Can I see my real Hyperliquid PnL without an API key?

Yes. Hyperfolio reads public on-chain data, so you can paste any wallet and see mark-driven PnL, funding and liquidation levels instantly — free and read-only, no registration.

Track the price that actually liquidates you

Mark vs oracle is not trivia — it is the difference between a clean exit and a surprise liquidation. Once you know that your margin follows the mark and your funding follows the oracle, the fix is simple: stop watching the last trade and start watching the numbers that matter.

Paste any wallet into app.hyperfolio.fun and see your real PnL net of fees and funding, your liquidation distance and your funding history — free, read-only, no sign-up. Search any address or connect your wallet and make the mark work for you instead of against you.