About Cipher Intelligence

What we cover

Cipher Intelligence reviews the exchanges where on-chain perpetuals volume actually trades — Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, edgeX and others on our DEX comparison — plus the apps built on them, and publishes practical guides on fees, deposits, order types, funding, API trading and risk management, in English and Japanese. We do not cover token price predictions, airdrop speculation or "signals".

Who writes it

Cipher Intelligence is run and edited by BLTZ (@bltzman on X), the pen name of the site's editor. BLTZ decides what the site covers, edits and updates the English, Japanese and Korean guides, and is responsible for every article that carries the byline. The rule behind each page is the one described below: every fee, limit and volume figure is checked against the exchange's official documentation or public API and dated on the page, and anything that cannot be verified from a primary source is labelled as such.

What BLTZ does for each page, and where you can check it

• Screenshots from the live apps. The 348 screenshots on this site were captured by us in the live apps, explorers and official pages we cite; the main guides say when, for example most steps of How to use Hyperliquid.
• Measurements on mainnet. Where the docs leave a question open, we measure what the exchange actually does from its public data. Example: whether Hyperliquid's 4% referral discount still applies to orders placed through apps with a builder code (our study: it does, on Hyperliquid's part of the fee). Results are published in aggregate; we never name or profile individual traders. Order-book depth is measured the same way, by walking the live books to price a $100,000 market order (Hyperliquid review, DEX vs CEX fees).
• A facts registry. Every fee, discount, limit and leverage cap the site repeats is a record holding the source it was read from (the official one wherever it exists) and the date it was read (4,865 records today). Pages render their numbers from it, and an automated check flags any critical number that is overdue for re-checking until it has been re-verified.
• Tested calculators. Our 11 free calculators use the same registry rates, and their formulas are covered by automated tests that run before every automatic deploy.
• Public corrections. When we get something wrong we fix it on the page and change its "Updated" date; the corrections log lists what changed and why. The full method is on How we verify.

BLTZ writes under a pen name and does not publish trading results or professional credentials. Judge each page by the sources, dates and measurements it shows, and tell us when one is wrong.

How we verify

Every fee, leverage limit, discount tier and volume figure on this site is taken from the exchange's official documentation or public API and dated in the article. We keep a single internal fact sheet that every article must agree with; when an exchange changes its schedule we update the sheet and every page that cites it. Where a claim cannot be verified from a primary source, we say so rather than estimate. Live figures such as daily volume and open interest are read from public APIs when the site is built, and dated on the page.

The full method, with live counts of the records we track: How we verify.

Editorial policy

Which exchanges we cover, how we rate them and what we recommend is our own decision. We do not accept payment for reviews, placements or ratings, and whether we hold a referral code for a venue does not change what we write about its fees, limits or risks — several venues we review earn us nothing. Every article shows when it was published and when its figures were last updated.

How we make money

Some links on this site carry our referral codes. When you join through them the venue shares part of your trading fees with us out of its own referral budget; it never costs you more, and on some venues the code gives you a fee discount (on Hyperliquid, 4% off your fees). We say plainly when a code does nothing for a given user (for example on Lighter's Standard accounts, which pay 0% on regular orders). These are all the referral codes our links use:

• Hyperliquid — code HOLYGRAIL
• Lighter — code 718610TD
• Aster — code DTLpLc
• edgeX — code HOLYGRAIL
• Based — code HOLYGRAIL
• Liquid — code JV2EN2CX
• fomo — code DailyWiseKite
• Ondo Perps — code AGHSGT
• Polymarket Perps — code bltz13 (our prediction-market referral code; we hold no separate Perps code yet)

Links to venues we hold no code for are plain links and earn us nothing.

What we are not

Nothing here is financial advice. Perpetual futures are leveraged instruments and most retail traders lose money with them. We describe how the products work and what they cost; whether and how much to trade is your decision. We are not affiliated with any exchange or app listed on this page beyond their public referral programs.

Corrections

Fee schedules change. Every article carries the date its figures were last verified, and we re-check the published fee schedules of the exchanges we review on a monthly cycle and immediately after any announced fee change. Corrections are made on the page itself, and its "Updated" date is changed when the fix is substantive — we do not silently leave stale numbers in place. Material corrections since September 19, 2026 are listed, with their source and the pages fixed, in our corrections log.

Report an error: DM @bltzman on X with the page URL and what is wrong (a link to the source helps). Confirmed errors are fixed on the page, its "Updated" date is changed when the fix is substantive, and material ones are added to the corrections log.