Deploy Finance, a self-custodial alternative to perp DEX liquidity vaults

Disclosure: Deploy Finance publishes this page and offers a competing product that appears in it.

Not financial advice. Crypto, DeFi and perpetual-futures strategies can lose money, including your whole deposit. Yields are variable, and past or backtested results do not predict future returns. Read the risk disclosure.

Every perpetual exchange needs someone on the other side of its traders. On decentralized venues that someone is often a vault of depositor capital. HLP on Hyperliquid, JLP on Jupiter, and GM and GLV pools on GMX all pay depositors to be the house.

Deploy Finance does something else with the same venues. Its Income: Funding Rates agent does not take the other side of traders' bets. It holds a hedged position in your own wallet and collects the funding those traders pay. This page compares the liquidity vaults with each other and with that approach.

How perp DEX liquidity vaults compare

What liquidity vaults have in common

A liquidity vault earns because traders trade. It collects fees on every position, and in most designs it also takes the other side of the trades, so it gains when traders lose and loses when they win. Over many traders and many months, that house edge tends to be positive. Over a single week of strong one-way moves, it can be negative.

That has three practical consequences:

• You carry direction. JLP and GM pools hold the assets they quote, so their value moves with those assets. HLP's inventory moves with whatever the order book could not offload.
• You share the pool. Your result is the pool's result, including losses from positions opened before you arrived.
• Exits depend on the pool. Locks (HLP, ALP), pool weights (JLP), token staking (LLP), and redemption liquidity (GM and GLV) all decide how fast you can leave.

The vaults, one by one

Hyperliquid HLP

HLP is Hyperliquid's protocol vault. It runs market-making strategies, backstops liquidations, supplies USDC to Earn, and takes a share of trading fees. It charges no performance fee, and deposits lock for four days after your most recent one.

Jupiter JLP

JLP is a transferable token for a share of Jupiter Perpetuals' liquidity pool on Solana. It earns 75% of the fees traders pay for opening, closing, borrowing, and swaps, and it gains or loses traders' net PnL. Because the pool holds SOL, ETH, and WBTC, JLP's value also tracks those assets.

GMX GM and GLV

GMX prices trades from oracles against its liquidity pools rather than an order book. GM pools provide liquidity to individual markets, and GLV vaults spread liquidity across several GM markets. Deposits can be disabled or capped, and if a pool has no redemption liquidity, selling GM or GLV may mean waiting for positions to close.

Lighter LLP

Lighter's liquidity pool, LLP, quotes both sides of the order book, backstops liquidations, and absorbs trader PnL, much like HLP. Since January 2026, depositing requires staking Lighter's LIT token: each staked LIT unlocks up to 10 USDC of LLP deposits, and unstaking LIT takes three days. So you hold the venue's token as well as its book.

Aster ALP

Aster's ALP is the counterparty to trades in Aster's Simple Mode on BNB Chain and Arbitrum. Its value moves with trading PnL, fees, funding fees, and liquidations. Mint and burn fees adjust with how far each asset sits from its target weight, starting from a 0.25% base. You cannot burn ALP within 48 hours of minting, and the amount you can burn at once is capped by available pool liquidity.

Drift vaults

Drift vaults are manager-led vaults on Solana. A delegate places and cancels orders on pooled capital but cannot withdraw depositors' principal. Withdrawals need a redemption request and a notice period, commonly one to seven days.

Hyperliquid user vaults

User vaults let any trader raise capital on Hyperliquid. The leader keeps 10% of profits and must hold at least 5% of the vault. Strategies range from market-neutral to fully discretionary, so the vault's positions matter more than its name.

Where Deploy Finance differs

Deploy does not make you the house. Income: Funding Rates holds roughly 75% of capital as the spot asset and uses 25% to back a 3x perpetual short of matching notional on Hyperliquid. Price moves on the two legs cancel, and the agent collects the funding that leveraged longs pay each hour. When funding turns negative, it rebalances or closes positions rather than paying to hold.

Three differences follow:

• No trader PnL. A liquidity vault's return includes what traders win or lose against it. The agent's return is funding, which traders pay whether they win or lose.
• No pool. Your USDC and the positions sit in your own self-custodial wallet. The agent's session key can trade but cannot transfer or withdraw.
• No lock. You revoke the agent and withdraw to your own address, with no lock period and no redemption liquidity to wait for.

If you want directional exposure on purpose, Deploy's other agent, Superstar, takes long or short positions under a defined strategy from the same wallet.

When one of them fits better

• HLP if you want to be Hyperliquid's market maker and accept a four-day lock and inventory swings.
• JLP if you want Solana basket exposure plus trader fees, in a token you can trade or use as collateral.
• GM or GLV if you want to provide liquidity to specific GMX markets on Arbitrum or Avalanche.
• Lighter LLP if you already hold LIT and want to be the counterparty on Lighter.
• Aster ALP if you want house exposure on BNB Chain or Arbitrum and accept a 48-hour minimum hold.
• A Drift vault or user vault if you have researched a specific manager and want their strategy rather than a structural return.

Learn more

• Income: Funding Rates overview
• Superstar overview
• Best Hyperliquid vaults
• Best perpetual DEXs for automated strategies
• Deploy Finance vs Hyperliquid Funding-Rate Products
• Self-custody and session keys

Start with Deploy Finance

Create a self-custodial Deploy Finance wallet and review the live agents.