Module 1 of 6 · 12 min read · free

The venues.

Four venues power the BABA engine. Each does one thing well. By the end of this module you'll know which to set up first, why, and what each one costs.

What a perpetual futures venue is

A perpetual future ("perp") is a derivative contract with no expiry date. You can hold it as long as you want, paying or receiving a periodic funding rate that nudges the contract price back toward the spot price of the underlying. Perps let you go long or short with leverage, and they're how the bulk of crypto trading volume actually happens.

BABA uses a perp venue because it's efficient: tight spreads, deep liquidity, instant settlement, no expiry to worry about. Only one venue below is a perp venue — Hyperliquid — and it covers both crypto and TradFi perps in a single account.

Hyperliquid — the flagship

Hyperliquid (HL) is BABA's primary venue. It's a high-throughput on-chain perp DEX with its own L1 chain, deep crypto perp liquidity, and an institutional-grade matching engine. Wallets connect via a one-time signature; trades sign with an "agent wallet" so your main key stays cold.

Onboard first. Most directional MD signals fire here. The setup: bridge USDC over to Hyperliquid, sign in once at app.hyperliquid.xyz, fund the margin sub-account. Minimum useful balance to follow the engine: $50. Recommended starting balance: $200–$500 to give breathing room for two or three concurrent positions.

Hyperliquid also runs the HLP vault, a market-maker yield product that lets you deposit USDC and earn a share of the platform's market-making profits. BABA tracks its APR continuously; the engine treats HLP as a passive yield bucket rather than a trading venue.

TradFi on Hyperliquid — HIP-3 markets

Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework lets builders deploy perpetual markets on real-world assets: gold (XAU), oil, individual US equities (TSLA, NVDA, AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, META), index products, FX, and the crypto-adjacent equity ecosystem (COIN, MSTR, HOOD, PLTR). They trade in the same account, with the same margin and the same workflow as the crypto perps.

For BABA this is huge: TradFi catalysts (earnings, EIA inventory prints, FOMC meetings) become tradable in the same workflow as crypto — and there's nothing extra to onboard. One Hyperliquid account covers the entire MD pillar, crypto and TradFi alike.

Polymarket — prediction markets

Polymarket is a prediction-market venue: binary YES/NO contracts on real-world events. "Will the Fed hold rates at the June 2026 meeting?" trades as a YES token (worth $1 if hold, $0 if change) and a NO token (the inverse). They sum to $1, always.

BABA's ORACLE pillar trades Polymarket. The engine uses a three-vendor voting committee (Claude, Grok, Gemini) to read world events from a news feed and judge whether the market price is fair, cheap, or expensive. When the committee agrees with high conviction, ORACLE fires.

Onboard Polymarket second, only if your jurisdiction permits access (the United States explicitly restricts retail Polymarket; see the Risk Disclosure). The setup uses a Gnosis Safe proxy — slightly more technical than a standard wallet but well-documented at polymarket.com.

Aerodrome & prjx — the LP venues

Aerodrome is a concentrated-liquidity DEX on Base (Coinbase's L2). BABA's LP Agile pillar uses it to provide liquidity to pairs like cbBTC/USDC and earn trading fees plus AERO emissions. Concentrated liquidity means you choose a price range; while the asset trades inside your range you earn fees, when it exits you earn nothing until the position is rebalanced. The same pillar also runs on prjx, a concentrated-liquidity DEX on HyperEVM — the second of the two LP venues.

LP is the slowest-moving pillar but the most consistent income source when configured well. The engine continuously suggests rebalances when ranges drift, and harvests fees on a daily cadence. Onboard Aerodrome last, after you've watched the LP pillar operate for a week or two and understand what "in range" means.

Recommended onboarding order

  1. Hyperliquid — $50–$500 starting margin. Every MD trade fires here — crypto and TradFi (HIP-3) in one account.
  2. Polymarket — $20–$100. Skip if restricted in your jurisdiction.
  3. Aerodrome — $50–$200. After you've seen the LP pillar fire a few rebalance suggestions.
  4. prjx — $50–$200. The HyperEVM side of the LP pillar; optional until you want both LP venues.

Total starting capital across all the venues for a meaningful tracking experience: $300–$1,500. Less is fine if you're paper-trading first; more is fine if you're confident in the workflow.

Key takeaways

  • Each venue does one thing well — don't try to onboard them all at once.
  • Hyperliquid first: it's where every directional trade fires.
  • TradFi (gold, oil, equities, FX) lives on Hyperliquid too, via HIP-3 markets — no extra venue needed.
  • Polymarket may not be lawfully accessible in your jurisdiction. Check the Risk Disclosure.
  • Aerodrome is the income engine, not the trading engine — slower, steadier.

Quick check — 4 questions

Answer at least 3 of 4 correctly to unlock Module 2 — Reading a signal. Retake as many times as you want. BMI Premium subscribers bypass this gate.

1. What do Hyperliquid's HIP-3 markets add to the venue?
2. Why might Polymarket NOT be available to you?
3. What is Aerodrome's role in the BABA universe?
4. What's a reasonable total starting capital across all the venues for a meaningful tracking experience?
← Module 0 Module 2 — Reading a signal →