Your First Steps on Hyperliquid

Wallet Setup and First Connection

Hyperliquid supports six major Web3 wallets — MetaMask, Rabby, Coinbase Wallet, Trust Wallet, OKX Wallet, and Phantom via account abstraction — and connecting any of them takes under 30 seconds. You install the wallet as a browser extension or mobile app, visit app.hyperliquid.xyz, and click "Connect Wallet." Hyperliquid then prompts a one-time signature request, which costs zero gas and creates your Hyperliquid trading account automatically — there is no email signup, no password, and no KYC step at any point in the process. Once connected, the wallet remains the sole authentication mechanism for the account; losing access to the wallet means losing access to the funds, so secure the seed phrase before depositing meaningful capital. For background on the protocol architecture itself, our guide to how Hyperliquid works under the hood covers the on-chain order book, HyperBFT consensus, and why connecting a wallet does not require giving up custody at any point.

Depositing USDC and Bridging from Other Chains

Hyperliquid only accepts USDC on the Arbitrum One network — no other chain, no other stablecoin. The native bridge inside the Hyperliquid app accepts Arbitrum USDC directly with a minimum of $5 and typically credits the account within one to two minutes. If your funds sit on Ethereum mainnet, Solana, Base, or any other L1 or L2, you bridge first to Arbitrum using a cross-chain bridge like our cross-chain bridge walkthrough outlines, then deposit normally. There is no deposit fee on the Hyperliquid side; bridging costs are paid to whichever bridge you choose, typically $1–$5 depending on origin chain and gas conditions. Withdrawals back out cost a flat 1 USDC. Most new accounts start with $20–$100 of USDC to have enough margin headroom for a real position after typical 5–10x leverage, but the protocol enforces no minimum deposit beyond the bridge floor itself. If you do not yet hold any crypto, our fiat-to-Hyperliquid funding walkthrough covers the full debit-card-to-USDC-on-Arbitrum path through MoonPay, Stripe Crypto, and Across Protocol.

Placing Your First Trade: Order Mechanics

Once funded, opening a position takes three inputs: market, size, and direction. From the trading interface, you select a perpetual market (BTC, ETH, HYPE, SOL — over 150 are available natively, plus 25+ HIP-3 builder markets for equities and commodities), choose long or short, set your size in USDC, and choose your leverage between 1x and the asset's maximum (typically 50x on BTC and ETH, lower on smaller-cap tokens). Hyperliquid supports market, limit, stop-loss, take-profit, scale, and TWAP order types — for a first trade, market orders fill instantly at the best available price and are the simplest. Long positions profit when price rises; opening a short position on Hyperliquid uses the same flow with the direction toggle flipped, and you profit when price falls — useful for hedging spot holdings or taking directional views on overbought assets. Every order settles on-chain in under a second with zero gas fees, and positions can be closed partially or fully at any time without any approval delay.

Fee Structure on Day One

Hyperliquid's base fees are 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker on perpetuals, and 0.070% taker and 0.040% maker on spot — among the lowest in crypto derivatives as of May 2026, per Hyperliquid's official fee documentation. Three discount layers stack on top: signing up through a referral link applies a 4% lifetime discount on your first $25M of volume (no expiration), 14-day trading volume thresholds unlock VIP tiers with progressively lower rates, and HYPE staking unlocks an additional 5–40% rebate based on stake size. For a typical first trade — say a $100 position on BTC at 5x leverage held for several hours — your taker fee is roughly $0.045, and a 4% discount via referral knocks that down to $0.0432. Funding payments (the perpetual-vs-spot price equalization mechanism) settle every hour and can either add or subtract from your P&L; for the average new trader these are small relative to position size, but at higher leverage they compound. Withdrawals back out to Arbitrum cost a flat 1 USDC regardless of size.

Account Safety and Mobile Access

Self-custody on Hyperliquid means the wallet is the account — losing the seed phrase means losing the funds, and there is no customer-support recovery path. Standard wallet hygiene applies: store the seed phrase offline (hardware wallet or steel backup, never a screenshot or cloud notes), use a hardware wallet for any meaningful balance, and consider a dedicated trading wallet separate from long-term holdings. Our crypto trading security guide covers the full threat model, including phishing patterns specific to Hyperliquid, agent-wallet best practices, and how to revoke approvals after testing. Trading on the go works through any wallet-browser combo on iOS or Android: our complete Hyperliquid mobile guide covers the recommended wallet apps, in-wallet browser quirks, and which features (advanced orders, leaderboard, vaults) work fully versus partially on mobile. Before signing up, check if Hyperliquid is available in your region — the frontend geo-blocks several jurisdictions including the United States, though the underlying protocol itself is permissionless.

Glossary, Reference, and Next Steps

If terms like maker, taker, funding, liquidation, or cross-margin are new, keep our glossary of Hyperliquid trading terms open in a second tab during your first few trades — it covers every term used in the trading interface with one-sentence definitions. The fastest learning path is to make a small first trade ($10–$25 risk) to walk through the full open-and-close flow live, then use our beginner checklist to track each setup step. If you came to Hyperliquid specifically to trade stocks, our beginner's guide to trading stocks on Hyperliquid walks the same wallet-to-first-trade flow but ends on an NVDA, TSLA, or S&P 500 position via trade.xyz instead of a crypto perp. Once you're comfortable with the basics, the trading hub at /guides/trading covers order types, leverage, copy trading, and the equity/commodity perpetuals available via trade.xyz HIP-3 markets.