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TradePerpetuals9 pages
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.Contract specificationsPractitionerEvery Hyperliquid perp is a linear contract on 1 unit of its asset, defined by size decimals, maximum leverage, a margin table and a margin 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.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.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.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.Hyperps and index perpetualsPractitionerHyperps fund against a moving average of their own mark price until spot trading exists; index perps track a formula the validators publish.AMM-priced perpetualsExpertSome perps price off a Uniswap V2 or V3 pool instead of exchange spot prices, and are isolated only, with margin locked in until the position closes.DelistingPractitionerWhen validators vote to delist a perp, positions settle at the 1-hour time-weighted oracle price before the vote and no new orders are accepted.

Accounts, deposits and your first trade

Foundation

Trading 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.

There’s no sign-up form: your EVM address becomes a HyperCore account when value first arrives. Until then, actions return “Must deposit before performing actions”.

Only the deposit costs gas. It moves money onto HyperCore for the clearinghouse to count as margin; orders, cancels and fills then pay the trading fee.

  1. Address. An EVM wallet, or an email login that creates one (key exportable from settings). Whoever holds the key or seed phrase holds the funds.
  2. Deposit.
You hold Send it to It arrives as
USDC on Arbitrum, wallet connected The Deposit button, confirmed in your wallet (needs ETH on Arbitrum for gas) USDC on HyperCore
USDC on Arbitrum, Ethereum, Base or Polygon, email login The deposit address the app shows USDC on HyperCore
BTC, ETH, ENA, SOL, MON, XPL, AVAX and a few other native assets A network-specific address run by a third-party bridge A spot token, to be sold for USDC or another quote asset
USDC on another chain, or on an exchange A CCTP transfer, or an exchange that withdraws to Hyperliquid directly USDC on HyperCore, or on the HyperEVM if that is where the exchange sends it
  1. Activation. The first transfer to a new HyperCore account costs 1 quote token (such as 1 USDC), whatever is sent. On testnet it sat on the sender’s ledger entry: 1.0 USDC on the first send to a fresh address, 0.0 on the second.
  2. Enable trading. Browser wallets refuse chain id 1337, which orders are signed for, so one gas-free signature approves an API wallet that trades but cannot withdraw.
  3. Account mode. The docs recommend unified (one balance per asset for spot and perps) for most users; standard keeps them apart (account modes).
  4. Place a limit order. Set perp leverage per asset first (a whole number, 1 to the maximum); cross margin unless you pick isolated (margin). With the best ask at 100, a buy at 99 rests; at 100 or above it fills at once.
Item Value
USDC deposit from a connected wallet Arbitrum only; below 5 USDC the deposit is lost
USDC deposit with email login Below 5 USDC not credited and returned to the email wallet; below 1 USDC lost
BTC deposit minimum and time 0.0003 BTC; about 30 minutes
ETH and ENA deposit minimums and time 0.007 ETH, 120 ENA; about 5 minutes
SOL deposit minimum and time 0.12 SOL; about 1 minute
AVAX, MON, XPL deposit minimums 1.5 AVAX, 450 MON, 60 XPL; about 1 minute each
Activation fee 1 quote token, once per new HyperCore account
Minimum order value $10 on perps; 10 units of the quote token on spot
Price format at most 5 significant figures; integer prices always allowed
Action expiry in the app 15 seconds, unless the protection is switched off
Testnet faucet 1,000 mock USDC; needs a prior mainnet deposit from the same address
  • Available Balance below the deposit: cross positions with negative unrealised PnL took the new margin first. Total balance is intact.
  • A non-USDC deposit is a spot token, and backs no perp until sold unless your account mode counts it as collateral.
  • On testnet an email login has a different address: export the key and connect it as a wallet.
  • Keep transaction delay protection on. Without it a stuck order can land late, and repeated clicks become repeated orders: a sell to close a long can open a short.

Query userFills with the trading account’s address; an API wallet’s address returns nothing.

{ "type": "userFills", "user": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000" }
Field Meaning
coin Market name: BTC for a perp, @107 for a spot pair, dex:COIN for a HIP-3 perp
px, sz Fill price and size, as decimal strings
side B for a buy, A for a sell
dir For example Open Long on a perp, Sell on spot
startPosition Position or balance before this fill
crossed true when this order took liquidity; the fee schedule calls taker rates cross and maker rates add
fee, feeToken Fee charged, including any builderFee, and the token it was charged in
closedPnl Realised PnL on a closing fill (entry price and PnL)
oid, tid, hash, time Order id, trade id, transaction hash, time in milliseconds
  • Each match gives two rows, one per side, same notional. Deduplicate on tid; partial fills of one transaction share hash.
  • At most 2,000 rows per call; page older history by time.
  • The order response is {"resting":{"oid":...}} or, if filled on arrival, {"filled":{"totalSz":...,"avgPx":...,"oid":...}} (orders).

Wrong deposits, renamed tokens and expired actions

Section titled “Wrong deposits, renamed tokens and expired actions”
  • Email login: a wrong asset sent to the USDC deposit address returns to the email wallet in about 10 minutes.
  • App names differ: BTC/USDC is UBTC/USDC on HyperCore.
  • “Action already expired”: the 15-second window passed and the action was dropped on purpose.

For what your order does on the book, see Order types. For what the fill cost, see Fees.