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Oracles

Helm uses a hybrid oracle system instead of x*y=k to price trades. No bonding curve means no arbitrage-driven impermanent loss.

Why Oracles?​

In traditional AMMs, prices come from pool reserves. When the market moves, arbitrageurs extract value from the pool — that's IL. Concentrated liquidity (Uni V3) makes it worse.

Helm sidesteps this by pricing trades from external oracle data. The pool's own reserves don't determine price.

Hybrid Oracle Architecture​

Different operations use different oracle sources:

Deposits & Withdrawals: HyperCore Oracle + Pyth​

Deposits and withdrawals value LP shares through the pool's oracle contract using two price sources:

  • HyperCore oracle — Prices the volatile asset via L1 state reads
  • Pyth oracle — Derives the stable leg needed to express the pool value in the correct quote asset

This keeps LP mint/burn math aligned with both Hyperliquid market state and stablecoin valuation.

Swaps: HyperCore Prices + Pyth​

Swaps use HyperCore's native price data together with stablecoin oracle data when quote conversion is needed:

  1. Perpetual BBO — Real-time order book prices
  2. Mark price — Fair value from the exchange
  3. Oracle price — Hyperliquid's aggregate oracle
  4. Pyth oracle — Stablecoin prices used for quote conversion and valuation

This enables atomic swap settlement — the swap completes in a single transaction, no waiting for oracle updates.

Why different oracle inputs for swaps vs. deposits?

Swaps need executable pricing and atomic hedge settlement, so they use HyperCore market data such as BBO, mark price, and oracle price. Deposits and withdrawals value the pool rather than execute a trade, so they combine the HyperCore oracle price with Pyth stablecoin oracle data for LP share accounting.

Next Steps​