Covered Calls Are Coming to Hypercall

Everything is coming to Hyperliquid

A year ago Hyperliquid was where you traded crypto perps. Now it’s where people trade gold, oil, Nvidia and the S&P, at 3am on a Sunday if they want to. Every month more of the world shows up.

That’s the bet we made when we built Hypercall here. Hyperliquid is becoming the place where everything trades, and everything that trades eventually needs options.

Perps got there first

The first real-world assets to work on Hyperliquid were perps. With HIP-3, anyone can launch a perp market, and equity and commodity perps took off. Open interest on trade.xyz went from $372M in January to $3.89B today.

That makes sense. A perp is the easiest way to get exposure. You don’t need to custody anything, you just need a price.

Now the spot is arriving

The next step is owning the thing. xStocks went live as spot on HyperCore in August, so you can now hold a tokenized share of a company directly on Hyperliquid, not just a bet on its price. It’s early, but tokenized stocks as a whole have gone from almost nothing two years ago to billions today, and a lot of that is going to end up trading on Hyperliquid.

What’s holding back spot?

If spot is the next step, why is it still small? Two things a stock holder takes for granted are missing on Hyperliquid: you can’t borrow against it, and it doesn’t pay you anything.

No lending. In a brokerage account you can borrow against your stocks. On HyperCore there’s no real way to do that. Box spreads are how we will fix this. A box is four options that pay a fixed amount at expiry, so buying one is lending at a fixed rate and selling one is borrowing. It works on any asset with an options market, no lending pool required. How a box spread works. More on that soon.

No yield. If you hold an xStock on HyperCore, nothing pays you for holding it. It just sits there. In tradfi this got solved decades ago: you sell covered calls. You pick a price you’d be happy to sell at, and someone pays you today for agreeing to it.

Covered call yield · NVDAX example

Get paid now for a price you'd sell at

Hold 10 NVDAX, sell 10 calls at the 240 strike, take the premium up front.

Position2,168 USD10 NVDAX × 216.80

Premium, up front+35 USDC10 calls × 3.50

Yield for one 30-day expiry1.6%35 ÷ 2,168, not annualized

NVDAX + covered callNVDAX onlyProfit at expiry, USDC, by NVDAX price

The trade-off: you give up gains above 240 in exchange for 35 USDC now. Above 243.50 (strike plus premium), holding NVDAX alone would have done better. Below 216.80 the premium cushions a loss by 3.50 a share; it does not remove it.

Illustrative: NVDAX at 216.80, 10 calls at strike 240 for 3.50 USDC each, one 30-day expiry assumed. Not a quote.

We’ve done this before

We already run covered calls on xStocks. Hypercall Earn has been live on Ink since September: you pick a strike and expiry, a maker quotes you a premium, and you get paid up front. If the stock finishes above your strike, you sell it at that price. If not, you keep it.

It worked, but it lived off to the side, in its own app, on its own chain. The point of Hypercall is that everything sits in one place on Hyperliquid. So we’re bringing it home.

Before and after

Off to the side before, one account now

The covered call moves from its own app into the account you already trade from.

Before · Earn on Ink

A separate app on a separate chain

Covered call position10 NVDAX locked in this one position

Nothing else alongside

Now · Your Hypercall account

On Hyperliquid, everything in one place

NVDAX covered call10 NVDAX in escrow · margin 0

NVDA perpmargined as before

Other optionsmargined as before

USDCfree to use

Buy the call back any time before expiry.

Illustrative: 10 NVDAX at about $217, strike 240. The covered call needs no margin; it does not change the perp's margin.

One account

On Hypercall, a covered call lives in the same account as everything else you trade. Your xStock goes into escrow against the call, the call needs no margin, and the rest of your account keeps working exactly as before. Your perps, your options and your cash are right there.

Fig. 3 · One account

The covered call sits next to everything else

Your NVDAX is held in escrow against the call. The rest of the account works as before.

Your Hypercall account

Covered call

Held in escrow10 NVDAX

Short10 calls at strike 240

Premium, paid up front+35 USDC

Margin used0

Everything else, as before

Perpsmargined as before

Optionsmargined as before

USDCfree to use

Buy it back any time before expiry, by RFQ.

At expiry, above 240 you get 2,400 USDC for the 10 NVDAX. Otherwise you keep them.

Unpaid calls lapse. If the buyer doesn't pay the strike, you keep the NVDAX.

Illustrative: 10 NVDAX at about $217, strike 240, premium 3.50 USDC per call. Not a quote.

And you’re not stuck with it. You can buy the call back any time before expiry. If the buyer doesn’t pay the strike at expiry, the call lapses and you keep your stock.

Covered calls are coming to Hypercall

Covered calls are coming to Hypercall soon. Makers bid for your call by RFQ, and you get the premium in USDC up front.

This also fixes something for us. Most options on Hypercall are bought by our users, which leaves our makers short vol. Holders selling calls is the other side of that trade, and it lets makers quote everyone tighter.

What’s next

Selling calls yourself is one way to do it. But not everyone wants to pick strikes every week. What if someone ran it for you, and you could see every trade they made? More tomorrow.

As a final reminder, Blast is shutting down today. Please remove all funds from Synapse on Blast before then.

Nothing in this post is an offer or investment advice. Options carry risk, including selling your asset at the strike if the call is exercised and missing gains above it.