A vault is a shared trading account
A Hyperliquid vault is an on-chain account run by a manager (the leader). Depositors add capital, the manager trades the pooled balance, and profits and losses are shared pro rata by ownership share.
You are not buying a token or lending to a protocol. You own a share of a live trading account, and its equity moves every time the manager's positions move.
The leader has skin in the game — sometimes
Managers are generally required to keep their own capital in the vault. The share of vault equity that belongs to the manager is the single most useful alignment signal available, and we score it directly.
A manager holding 40% of the vault suffers alongside depositors. A manager holding 1% is mostly earning fees on other people's risk.
What you can and cannot see
Equity, profit and loss history, follower counts and the manager's stake are public. The manager's intent, leverage policy and risk limits are not. Nothing forces a manager to keep trading the way they traded last quarter.
That gap is why we score confidence separately from performance: a great-looking three-month record is a small sample, not a track record.