Hyper Unit

Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.

REJECTED. Hyper Unit lets a user deposit native BTC, ETH, SOL, and other assets from their home chain and mints a matching balance on Hyperliquid, distinct from the separately-reviewed Hyperliquid Bridge (the Arbitrum-to-HyperCore USDC path). Custody runs through a ”Guardian Network” using MPC/threshold-signature cryptography rather than a conventional multisig, but the network is reported to have only three total operators with a 2-of-3 signing threshold — a smaller, more concentrated trust set than the already-rejected Hyperliquid Bridge’s 27-validator set. Cryptographic sophistication does not offset having only three parties, any two of whom can move funds, and no independent, Unit-specific security audit was confirmed.

Kill criteria: the events that revoke this verdict
• Guardian count expands materially, for example to seven or more, with published, named operator identities
• An independent, Unit-specific security audit, not the general Hyperliquid L1 audit, is published with no critical findings outstanding
• Withdrawal timing and dispute or challenge mechanics are independently confirmed and pass a proposed-size stressed-exit test
• Twelve consecutive months with no Guardian-key or MPC-ceremony compromise

The research file

Mechanism

Lock-and-mint. A user sends a native asset on its home chain; Unit locks it and mints a matching token to the user’s Hyperliquid spot balance, tradeable or usable as collateral, and withdrawable back to the origin chain. Supported origin chains include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and others per DefiLlama’s tracked chain list for this protocol.

Control and governance

Custody and signing use an MPC/threshold-signature scheme so no single party ever holds a complete private key, marketed as the ”Guardian Network.” Reported operator count is three, with a 2-of-3 signing threshold — meaning any two of three parties can authorize a movement of funds. That is a materially smaller trust set than this registry’s already-rejected Hyperliquid Bridge entry (27 validators) and than WBTC’s named 2-of-3 custodian structure across three identifiable institutions; Unit’s guardians were not found named in public documentation. No Unit-specific third-party security audit was confirmed in this review; a Zellic audit sometimes cited in connection with Hyperliquid appears to cover the core L1 and bridge, not Unit specifically, and should not be conflated with one.

Incident record

No exploit of the legitimate protocol was identified. A phishing lookalike site impersonating Unit has been documented and is designed to drain connected wallets — a user-facing scam risk rather than a protocol-level failure, but worth flagging for client communication regardless of this entry’s verdict.

Exit

A documented withdrawal-lifecycle process exists in Unit’s API reference, but this review could not confirm specific withdrawal timing, fees, or evidence of a stress-tested redemption at scale. Combined with the unconfirmed audit status, that leaves both the custody model and the exit path short of what this registry requires to certify a position.

Comparison

Against the already-rejected Hyperliquid Bridge (27 validators, closed-source software), Unit’s 3-guardian, 2-of-3 signing set is a smaller trust set using a more novel but less independently audited design. Against WBTC’s 2-of-3 multisig across three named, identifiable institutional custodians, also rejected in this registry for a different reason, Unit’s guardians are unnamed. Neither comparison favors approval. Unit also inherits the underlying Hyperliquid L1 dependency this registry’s stHYPE memo separately flags: reported validator-set concentration around Hyperliquid’s own team, most visibly in the March 2025 episode where the exchange intervened on a contested position rather than letting on-chain mechanics resolve it — a systemic risk layered underneath Unit’s own custody model, not resolved by it.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Unit Docs — architecture quickstart · primary · accessed 2026-08-17
  Supports: mechanism, Guardian Network
• OAK Research — Hyper Unit: the hidden engine powering Hyperliquid · secondary · accessed 2026-08-17
  Supports: guardian count, trust model
• Messari — analyst note: introducing Unit · secondary · accessed 2026-08-17
  Supports: product overview
• PCrisk — fake HyperUnit website scam · secondary · accessed 2026-08-17
  Supports: phishing risk, user-facing scam
• DefiLlama — Unit protocol record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-17
  Supports: tracked TVL, chain perimeter

Inherited controls

The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.