What Is Kinetiq? kHYPE Liquid Staking on Hyperliquid

Staking HYPE directly means choosing a validator yourself and locking your tokens. Kinetiq wraps that process in a token:

1. You deposit at least 5 HYPE into the Kinetiq staking contract ³.
2. You receive kHYPE. Your kHYPE balance stays the same. Rewards raise the kHYPE-to-HYPE exchange rate instead, so each kHYPE redeems for more HYPE over time ¹.
3. StakeHub spreads the HYPE across several Hyperliquid validators. It scores them on performance and moves stake automatically. You cannot pick a validator yourself ¹³.
4. You can hold kHYPE, trade it, or deposit it in DeFi apps on HyperEVM. Kinetiq advises using only protocols you trust, because each one adds its own contract risk ³.

• Protocol fee: 10% of staking rewards. Kinetiq says 70% of that fee buys KNTQ on the open market and 30% goes to its treasury ². The fee is taken from rewards, not from your deposit.
• Unstaking through the protocol: no unstaking fee is listed for kHYPE ²³. kmHYPE withdrawals carry a 0.10% fee ⁷.
• Swapping on a DEX: no Kinetiq fee, but you pay the venue's trading fee and any slippage. kHYPE can trade below its redemption value when many holders exit at once ².
• Kinetiq Earn: a 20% performance fee on profits, with no management, entry or exit fee. These terms were stated as of August 18, 2025 ⁵.

There are two ways out:

• Redeem through Kinetiq: you queue a withdrawal, and it takes about 8–9 days in total: a 1-day delegation lockup plus Hyperliquid's 7-day unstaking queue. Your kHYPE is then burned and HYPE arrives in your wallet ². Once started, a withdrawal cannot be cancelled, and kHYPE stops earning during the wait ³.
• Sell kHYPE on a DEX: this is instant, but the price depends on market depth and may be below the redemption rate ².

Kinetiq Earn is a DeFi strategy vault run with Veda. You deposit HYPE or kHYPE and receive vkHYPE, which represents your share of the vault ⁵. Seven Seas, Veda's in-house risk curator, allocates funds across Hyperliquid DeFi protocols that Veda has vetted, and returns auto-compound ⁵.

Earn adds risks on top of kHYPE's: the contracts of each protocol the vault uses, possible liquidations, bugs, and withdrawals that may be delayed if an underlying protocol limits exits ⁵. The displayed APY is already net of fees and changes with market conditions.

• kmHYPE (Markets by Kinetiq): a staking token for HYPE staked to back builder-deployed perpetual markets under Hyperliquid's HIP-3 standard. Its value rises as those markets' deployer revenue comes in. Withdrawals take about 8.5 days and cost 0.10%, or wait in a queue if the protocol's spare HYPE falls below 500,000 ⁷.
• iHYPE: institutional staking, arranged by contacting the team ³.
• Launch: a service that helps teams crowdfund the 500,000 HYPE stake that HIP-3 requires to deploy a perpetuals exchange. Each exchange gets its own exHYPE pool, so slashing for misconduct such as a bad oracle hits only that pool. As of June 2026 Kinetiq listed testnet deployment and the first partner exchanges as next steps ⁸.

KNTQ is Kinetiq's governance token, with a maximum supply of 1 billion. It launched on Hyperliquid on November 27, 2025 ⁶. Holders stake it as sKNTQ to vote, with a 7-day unstaking period. Staking also unlocks higher referral shares and kmHYPE minting allocations ⁶. Revenue from several products funds KNTQ buybacks. Kinetiq says the bought tokens go to Hyperliquid's Assistance Fund and leave circulation. Tokens for core contributors and investors vest over three years: a one-year cliff, then two years of monthly releases ⁶. Kinetiq does not give the allocation percentages in text.

• Audits: Kinetiq publishes eight audit reports. They cover kHYPE (Pashov, Zenith, Code4rena and Spearbit, March–June 2025), instant unstaking and kmHYPE (Pashov, Zenith, Spearbit, November 2025) and KNTQ (Spearbit, January 2026) ⁴. Launch contracts were reviewed separately by Cantina and Zero Cool ⁸. An audit lowers risk but does not guarantee that code is safe.
• Bug bounty: hosted on Cantina ⁴.
• Admin controls: role-based access with multi-sig, an emergency response system and an upgrade framework ¹. The contracts are upgradeable, so you rely on the operators of those controls.
• Slashing: Hyperliquid has no slashing today. Kinetiq notes that it could be introduced ³.
• Concentration: Kinetiq and its tokens depend on a single chain, Hyperliquid. A problem with Hyperliquid's validators or HyperEVM affects every Kinetiq product.