You can trade Hyperliquid perpetuals from a phone with a self-custody wallet that connects to Hyperliquid. You deposit USDC on Arbitrum from your own address, enable trading once with a signature, and place orders in the wallet. The margin and the positions sit on Hyperliquid, not in the wallet app, and you withdraw back to your own address.
Perpetuals are leveraged and high risk. You can lose your entire margin, and it can happen quickly. They are not available in every country, and it is your responsibility to check the rules where you live.
What "from your own wallet" means
Hyperliquid is an exchange with an on-chain order book. With a self-custody wallet, your account is your wallet address, and your wallet signs for it.
- You keep your keys. No app can withdraw for you.
- Your margin is not in your wallet while you trade. It stays on Hyperliquid until you withdraw it.
- The wallet app is an interface. Hyperliquid matches the orders, holds the margin and runs liquidations.
Hyperliquid's documentation lists several interfaces: its own web interface and apps and wallets for iOS and Android, MetaMask and Phantom among them. THORWallet is another wallet you can use, and the steps below use its labels. Deposits, fees, funding and liquidation follow Hyperliquid's rules in any interface.
If funding, margin or liquidation are new to you, read perpetual futures explained first.
What you need before you start
- The THORWallet app on iPhone or Android, installed from the download page.
- A seed wallet. In the mobile app, a multi-device vault or a watch-only wallet cannot place orders on Hyperliquid.
- USDC on Arbitrum in that wallet, at least $5. If your USDC is on another network, swap it to USDC on Arbitrum first.
- A little ETH on Arbitrum for the deposit's network fee. Orders need none: Hyperliquid describes trading as gas-free.
- An amount you can afford to lose entirely.
Step 1: deposit USDC
- Tap Trade, choose Hyperliquid and tap Add funds.
- Keep Deposit selected and choose USDC on Arbitrum under Deposit with.
- Enter the amount and tap Review.
- Check the amount, the network fee and the new trading balance, then confirm.
The app shows On its way. A deposit usually arrives in under a minute.
The minimum is $5 in one deposit. Hyperliquid's bridge does not credit less, and its documentation says a smaller deposit is lost forever.
The bridge takes native USDC, the token Circle issues on Arbitrum. Bridged forms of USDC are a different token.
Step 2: enable trading
Before the first order, the app shows Enable trading on Hyperliquid. Tap Enable trading and your wallet signs two approvals.
- Permission for the app to place and cancel orders for this wallet. It cannot withdraw.
- THORWallet's fee on your orders, up to a ceiling of 1% per trade. The fee you actually pay is lower, see the cost table.
No funds move. Trading can only be enabled once the account holds USDC, so deposit first.
Step 3: place a first order
- On the Markets tab, search for a market and tap it.
- Choose Long or Short.
- Choose Market or Limit. A market order fills at once at the price available, within the max slippage you set. A limit order rests on the order book and fills only if the market reaches your Limit price.
- Enter the size. An order must be worth at least $10.
- Set the leverage and choose Cross / Isolated. Hyperliquid sets a maximum per market, shown as Max. You do not have to use it.
- Optional: open Take profit / Stop loss and enter trigger prices.
- Read Order value, Margin, Liq. price and Fees.
- Confirm with the button at the bottom, for example Long BTC.
Margin mode. With cross margin, a losing position draws on your whole trading balance. With isolated margin, it can only use the margin set aside for it, so it is liquidated sooner. Some markets allow isolated margin only.
Stop loss. It closes the position when the price reaches your trigger, but it does not guarantee the exit price. In a fast market it can fill at a worse price.
Liq. price. It is an estimate of where Hyperliquid would close the position against your will. If it is closer than a normal move in this market, lower the leverage or the size.
Funding while the position is open
Longs and shorts pay each other a funding rate that keeps the contract near the spot price. On Hyperliquid it is paid every hour, directly between traders, and no fee is collected on it. A positive rate means longs pay shorts.
Funding is charged on the position value, not on your margin. On a $500 position backed by $100, the rate applies to the $500. Over days it can decide whether a trade works. The Funding pane of a market shows the rate history.
Close the position and withdraw
To close, open the Positions tab, tap the position and close all of it or use Partial close. The close goes out as a market order that can only reduce the position.
To withdraw:
- Open the Portfolio tab and tap Withdraw.
- Enter an amount up to the balance shown as Withdrawable. Margin that backs open positions cannot leave.
- Tap Review and confirm.
The USDC arrives in your own wallet on Arbitrum in a few minutes. The minimum is $2. You cannot withdraw to a different address, but from your wallet you can send the USDC anywhere.
What it costs
| Cost | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Network fee on the deposit | The Arbitrum network | A small amount of ETH. THORWallet charges no deposit fee. |
| Hyperliquid trading fee | Hyperliquid | Published base tier for perpetuals: 0.045% taker, 0.015% maker, lower with more 14-day volume. Portfolio shows your rate. |
| THORWallet fee | THORWallet | 0.05% of the order value at Standard, 0.035% at Community, 0.025% at Community Plus. |
| Funding | Other traders | Hourly, on the position value. It can also be paid to you. |
| Withdrawal fee | Hyperliquid | About $1 per USDC withdrawal. |
Fees apply to the order value, not your margin, and both the opening and the closing order pay them. A $500 market order at the Standard tier and Hyperliquid's base tier costs about $0.48, so opening and closing costs about $0.95 before funding and slippage. With the $1 withdrawal, a very small account loses a visible share to costs alone.
The Community and Community Plus rates depend on your staked balance of $TITN, a utility token. See fees.
What can go wrong
- Liquidation. If the price moves against you until the margin no longer covers the position, Hyperliquid closes it, first with market orders on the order book. If that fails and a backstop liquidation takes over, its documentation says the maintenance margin is not returned. With cross margin, the loss can be your whole trading balance.
- Leverage. At 10x, a 1% move is about 10% of your margin.
- Bridge and contract risk. Your deposit goes into a bridge contract on Arbitrum, and withdrawals are processed by Hyperliquid's validators. You rely on that contract, those validators, Arbitrum and USDC itself. Your keys cannot protect funds from a fault in any of them.
- No reversal. Trades, liquidations and transfers are final. No support team can undo them.
A centralized exchange is simpler in some respects: one login and no bridge. In return it holds your funds. Neither model removes the risk of the trade itself.
Common mistakes
- Depositing less than $5.
- Holding USDC on the wrong network, or no ETH on Arbitrum for the fee.
- Trying to trade from a vault in the mobile app. Switch to a seed wallet.
- Using the maximum leverage on a first trade.
- Sending an order twice. After "We did not get an answer from Hyperliquid", the order may have been placed. Check the Positions tab first.
- Depositing Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana or Zcash and expecting margin. These arrive as a spot balance of that coin, not as USDC margin.
The same account on a bigger screen
Your Hyperliquid account belongs to your wallet address, not to one app. In the THORWallet web app, Pro Trading at app.thorwallet.org/pro puts chart, order book and order ticket on one screen. Connect the THORWallet app by QR code and the web app shows the same wallet, with every transaction approved on your phone. The web app also lets you trade with a connected vault or another EVM wallet.
THORWallet Terminal is the same web app in its own window on Mac and Windows. The perps page has the overview.
How to do it in THORWallet
Step-by-step articles from the help center, checked against the current app.
- Perpetuals in THORWalletHow perpetual futures work in THORWallet: they run on Hyperliquid, what you need to start, what trading costs and where to find it in the app.
- How to deposit to and withdraw from perpetualsStep by step: fund your Hyperliquid trading balance with USDC on Arbitrum from THORWallet, withdraw it again, and the minimums and fees.
- How to place a perpetual orderStep by step: open a long or short position on Hyperliquid in THORWallet with a market or limit order, add take profit and stop loss, and close it.
- Margin, funding and liquidationHow leverage, cross and isolated margin, funding payments and liquidation work for perpetuals on Hyperliquid in THORWallet.
- Trading troubleshootingFixes for common problems with perpetuals and tokenized stocks: a deposit that has not arrived, a rejected order, a stuck withdrawal, a closed market.
Sources
- Hyperliquid docs: how to start trading
- Hyperliquid docs: USDC deposits and withdrawals over the Arbitrum bridge
- Hyperliquid docs: fees
- Hyperliquid docs: funding
- Hyperliquid docs: liquidations
- Circle: USDC on Arbitrum
Reviewed on 12 Nov 2026. Statements about THORWallet were checked against the help center, and the sources above were opened on that day. This guide explains how things work. It is not financial advice.