Avail Launches ShieldTX to Block Bots Copying Hyperliquid Traders
Avail launched ShieldTX, which opens every Hyperliquid perp position from a fresh wallet to break the link copy-trading bots follow. Its 63 bps cost estimate rests on a seven-trader sample, and a full audit is still underway.
Copied traders on Hyperliquid pay a median 63 basis points extra per trade, according to Avail. On October 28 the team launched ShieldTX, a tool built to cut the link between a trader's wallet and their positions.
The tool puts each perpetual futures position in its own Hyperliquid wallet. Deposited funds sit in a vault contract on Arbitrum. When a trader opens a position, ShieldTX spins up a fresh wallet and places the trade through it, all under one account. The position stays visible on Hyperliquid, but it is not directly linked onchain to the trader's original wallet.
When a position closes, proceeds go back to the user's shielded balance. Traders can withdraw or reuse them, and they keep full trading history for audits and compliance.
The 63 bps claim
ShieldTX's own analysis scanned 332,317 wallets that traded on Hyperliquid over 30 days. It randomly picked seven traders from the top 100 and examined 25 wallets that appeared to follow each. A wallet was flagged as a potential copier if it matched a trader's coin and long/short direction within 60 seconds at least 10 times in 30 days. Anurag Arjun, the Polygon co-founder who led Avail after its 2023 spin-out, put the added execution cost for copied traders at a median of 63 bps per trade.
That is a self-run sample of seven traders, not a market-wide measure.
ShieldTX also found that 29% of the top 150 leaderboard accounts use subaccounts. Those wallets remain transparently linked onchain, so they offer little cover.
"We built ShieldTX for Hyperliquid because traders there have limited privacy and that gap is being exploited by onchain surveillance tools, which costs traders directly."
Anurag Arjun
Beta results and access
The private beta, running since July, involved 75 traders, about $50 million in trading volume and more than 3,800 wallets, per Arjun. He did not provide before-and-after execution cost comparisons, so the beta numbers show usage, not proof the tool saves money.
"We thought we had sufficient privacy by rotating wallets," said the founder of a digital-asset fund now using ShieldTX.
Access now opens via an invite-code model, with discounts for AVAIL stakers. ShieldTX targets wallets trading $500,000 or more, plus apps using Hyperliquid builder codes. It runs on Nightshade, Avail's zero-knowledge privacy infrastructure. A scanner is also available to show which wallets may be copying a given trader.
What to weigh
The limits are plain. ShieldTX does not make Hyperliquid private; it obscures the link between deposit wallets and positions. Hyperliquid's core team was not directly involved in building it, Arjun confirmed. He said multiple internal audits were done with external security consultants, but a full audit is still underway. Your funds sit in a vault contract, so that audit matters for anyone sizing up.
Privacy tooling for onchain trading is getting crowded. Aster launched a privacy-enabled blockchain for its derivatives platform in March, and StarkWare launched OffMarket earlier this month so Polymarket users can trade without publicly linking positions to existing accounts. Hyperliquid itself is moving toward regulated venues, with Payward planned as its first CFTC-regulated HIP-3 deployer.
For size traders, the pitch is simple: 63 bps leaking on every copied fill is real money. Whether that number holds up beyond a seven-trader sample is the open question. Verify it before trusting it.
