Start here: trading
Where a trader stands in the house, which floors every order touches, what you use to trade, and a reading order from a first trade to professional practice.
Where you are
Section titled “Where you are”You stand on the market pillars. Your account holds the margin beneath them; fee tiers and referrals above them set what each trade costs.
What that means for you
Section titled “What that means for you”- Every order is public. Matched on chain in price-time priority. No private flow, no off-chain book.
- Margin lives in your account. Standard mode keeps each perp dex separate; unified and portfolio margin combine them.
- Any front end, same books. An app’s builder fee never exceeds what you approved.
- Fees fall as you trade. 14-day volume sets your tier; staked HYPE cuts up to 40 per cent; a referral code discounts your first $25M.
What you touch
Section titled “What you touch”1A front endThe Hyperliquid app or any app built on it. You sign with your wallet, or with an API wallet you approved.2Your accountDeposit USDC. Your account mode decides which balances back which positions.3A marketSpot, a perp or an outcome. Orders match on HyperCore in price-time priority.4Margin and riskThe clearinghouse checks margin, settles funding every hour and liquidates below maintenance.5FeesYour tier, less staking and referral discounts, plus any builder fee you approved.
What you use
Section titled “What you use”| You want to | Use | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Trade by hand | The Hyperliquid app, or any front end built on it | Your first trade |
| Let a bot trade without the right to withdraw | An API wallet approved by your account | API wallets and agents |
| Automate orders | The exchange endpoint for signed orders; the info endpoint and WebSocket for data | Architecture |
| Keep strategies apart | Sub-accounts, each with its own margin | Sub-accounts |
| Earn on idle stablecoins or borrow against HYPE | Lending, from the same account | Borrowing and lending |
What to read, in order
Section titled “What to read, in order”First trades
Section titled “First trades”Accounts, deposits and your first tradeFoundationTrading on Hyperliquid needs an EVM address, a deposit that lands on HyperCore and one gas-free signature; then every order is an on-chain transaction.Order types and time in forceFoundationEvery order on HyperCore is a limit order with one of three time-in-force rules, Gtc, Ioc or Alo; a market order is a limit order with a worst acceptable price.Fees, tiers and rebatesFoundationEvery fill pays a maker or taker fee set by one 14-day volume tier, cut by staked HYPE and referral codes, with rebates for the largest makers.What a perpetual future isFoundationA perpetual future is a contract on an asset's price that never expires, kept close to that price by an hourly payment between longs and shorts.Entry price and PnLFoundationEntry price and PnL are display conventions computed from your fills; HyperCore itself margins cash and signed position size.Spot marketsFoundationA spot market on HyperCore swaps one token balance for another on an on-chain order book, fully funded, with no funding or liquidation, under pair names like @107.
Staying solvent
Section titled “Staying solvent”Margin: cross, isolated and margin tiersPractitionerMargin is the collateral behind a perp: initial margin to open, maintenance margin to stay open, shared in cross mode or ring-fenced in isolated mode.FundingPractitionerFunding is an hourly payment between longs and shorts, set by how far the perp trades from the oracle price, that ties a contract with no expiry to its index.Leverage and liquidationPractitionerBelow maintenance margin, positions go to the order book as market orders; below two thirds of it, the liquidator vault takes them over.Take profit, stop loss, TWAP and scale ordersPractitionerTrigger orders wait for the mark price, then send an ordinary order with a worst price; TWAP and scale orders split one decision into many limit orders.Risk playbookPractitionerMost losses on Hyperliquid come from liquidation distance, shared margin, funding, auto-deleveraging and operational slips, each checkable before sizing up.Auto-deleveragingExpertWhen an account goes below zero, auto-deleveraging closes the most profitable, most leveraged opposing positions at the previous mark price, leaving no bad debt.
Outcome markets
Section titled “Outcome markets”What an outcome market isFoundationAn outcome market trades fully collateralised contracts on an event: every Yes and No pair is backed by 1 unit of quote token and always redeems for exactly 1.Market shapes: binary, labelled, multi-outcome, price bucket, scalarPractitionerEvery HIP-4 market arranges the same Yes and No outcome into one of five shapes: price binary, labelled binary, multi-outcome question, price buckets or scalar.SettlementPractitionerSettlement posts one fraction per outcome, converts every Yes to it and every No to the rest in the quote token, then prunes the outcome from the live list.
Professional practice
Section titled “Professional practice”Account modes: standard, unified, portfolio marginPractitionerAn account's mode decides whether its spot and perp balances are one pool or several, which assets back perps, and whether a 50k daily action cap applies.Portfolio marginExpertPortfolio margin treats an account's cross perps and spot balances as one portfolio, borrows against HYPE and BTC, and liquidates when its ratio passes 0.95.API wallets and agentsPractitionerAn API wallet is a key the master account approves to sign trades for it: it can place and cancel orders but cannot withdraw or send funds to another address.Carry: funding, basis and borrowExpertCarry on Hyperliquid is set by three published rates, hourly funding, the spot-perp basis and the borrow rate, each computable before a position is taken.Market making on HyperliquidExpertMarket making on Hyperliquid is post-only quoting on an on-chain book with no special terms, where repricing, reconciliation, nonces and shutdown decide survival.Latency, priority and infrastructureExpertHyperliquid latency is set by distance to Tokyo, consensus and your own round trips, and the protocol sells read and write priority for fees that are burned.