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Setup Guide · 5 steps

How to set up a Hyperliquid trading bot

Setting up a Hyperliquid trading bot takes five steps and about ten minutes. No API keys, no passwords, no custody — just a wallet signature, a USDC deposit, and a strategy choice. This guide covers exactly what you click, what you sign, and what each step does to your money.

Before you start

Two things to have ready:

A way to get USDC. A debit or credit card (Coinbase Onramp routes you through checkout), or USDC already sitting in a wallet on Arbitrum.
$50 minimum deposit recommended. Hyperliquid enforces a ~$10 minimum notional per order. Below $50, the bot's risk sizing breaks down — most setups won't clear the position-size floor. $200+ is where it runs without constraint.

You do not need: an existing Hyperliquid account, MetaMask, a seed phrase, or any prior trading experience. The flow handles all of that.

The five steps

Step 1~30 sec

Connect your wallet

Open trade.hyperperps.app and click Get Started. Sign in with email, passkey, Apple, or Google — Privy creates a real Ethereum wallet tied to your login. If you already have MetaMask, Rabby, or a WalletConnect wallet, connect that instead.

What you sign: one EIP-191 message signature. This authenticates you to the app — no password, no API key, nothing is shared with any third party. It costs no gas and expires after the session.

Step 21–2 min

Fund your Hyperliquid account with USDC

Hyperliquid accepts deposits via Arbitrum. Two paths:

Buy with a card via Coinbase Onramp (Apple Pay supported). $50+ recommended. USDC lands in your wallet on Arbitrum within 1–2 minutes after payment clears.
Send from an existing wallet if you already hold USDC on Arbitrum. The funding screen shows your deposit address with a copy button.

Once the funds arrive, click Bridge. This sends an ERC-20 transfer to Hyperliquid's bridge contract on Arbitrum. The funds credit directly to your Hyperliquid cross-margin balance — no extra steps needed. First-time wallets have bridge gas covered automatically.

Step 3~30 sec

Approve the agent wallet

HyperPerps AI uses Hyperliquid's native agent wallet system. An agent wallet is a separate keypair that can place and cancel orders on your behalf. It cannot withdraw or transfer funds — that restriction is enforced at the Hyperliquid protocol level, not just by us.

What you sign: one approval to delegate order-placement authority to the agent. The agent key lives encrypted inside a per-user Cloudflare server — it never touches your browser or our logs. You can revoke the delegation anytime from Hyperliquid's UI.

For more on the security model, see Is a Hyperliquid trading bot safe?

Step 4~1 min

Pick a strategy preset or write your own

Three built-in style presets:

Scalp — 15-minute timeframe, faster signal cadence, tighter targets.
Balanced — the built-in default strategy. Recommended starting point for most users.
Swing — 4-hour timeframe, fewer trades, wider targets.

You can also write a plain-English custom strategy — no code. Examples: "only trade breakouts," "stand down 30 minutes around CPI," "skip any setup with low volume." The AI reads your instructions on every evaluation and treats them as hard preferences. Safety floors (correct stop-loss side, risk-reward minimum, position cap) stay in effect regardless — you shape the AI's thinking; you can't disable the rails.

Also set your symbol (which perp to trade) and risk per trade (1–2% is the standard starting point — the bot sizes positions from this percentage, not the other way around).

Step 5~30 sec

Choose your LLM and start the bot

Two options for the AI model that evaluates setups:

Free tier: Kimi K2.6 or Qwen 3.6 Plus — both rate-limited per wallet, both completely free. No cost to you beyond the 0.02% builder fee on trades. See free Hyperliquid bot options for a full breakdown.
BYOK (bring your own key): paste in an API key from Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), OpenRouter, or Google (Gemini). Your key is encrypted in the server and never logged. You pay your provider directly at their listed rates.

Hit Deploy. The bot is live. You should see evaluations appear in the event log within the first minute.

Deposit gotcha: if fees shave your $50 card purchase to $47 by the time it arrives, the first eligible trade may not clear Hyperliquid's per-order minimum at your chosen risk percentage. Either lower risk-per-trade temporarily or top up to $60–100. The Deposit pill in the header lets you add funds whenever you're ready.

What happens after you deploy

The bot does not trade immediately. Every minute it scores the current market setup on a 0–100 readiness scale — computed by a Rust engine that runs on live Hyperliquid WebSocket data. Below threshold, no AI call runs. Above threshold, the AI gets a structured report plus 15m/1h/4h chart images and writes its reasoning, then a decision.

When it decides to trade, it places the entry and stop-loss as one atomic signed bracket. The stop is always on the correct side (long → below entry, short → above entry) — the server enforces this before the order reaches Hyperliquid, so a malformed AI output is rejected, not executed. Take-profits attach as the position fills. When the first take-profit hits, the stop moves to breakeven and the remainder runs.

Every evaluation — trade or no-trade — appears in your event log with the AI's full reasoning. Read them. The first few will tell you if the bot's thinking matches your expectations; adjust the custom strategy prompt if it doesn't.

Whale and liquidation cluster data is available for free at hyperperps.app/hyperliquid-liquidation-heatmap — the same signals the bot uses, without authentication.

Ready to walk through it?

Five steps, about ten minutes. Free to use — 0.02% builder fee per trade, no subscription.

Launch HyperPerps AI →

No email required. No credit card. Funds stay on Hyperliquid.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need API keys to use a Hyperliquid trading bot?

No. HyperPerps AI uses EIP-191 wallet signatures and Hyperliquid's native agent wallet system. You don't create or paste any exchange API key. Authentication is a one-time wallet signature; trade authority is delegated via the agent wallet approval.

What is the minimum amount to fund?

The practical minimum is around $50. Hyperliquid requires a ~$10 minimum notional per order. Below $50, the bot's risk-sizing math breaks down and most setups won't pass the position-size floor. $200+ is where it runs without constraint.

Can the bot withdraw my funds?

No. The Hyperliquid agent wallet the bot uses is protocol-enforced: it can place and cancel orders, but it cannot withdraw or transfer funds. Your money stays in your Hyperliquid account. You retain full withdrawal access via app.hyperliquid.xyz at all times.

The bot deployed but isn't placing trades — is that normal?

Yes. The bot scores market readiness every minute and only runs an AI evaluation when the score clears a threshold. It only places a trade when the AI's reasoning also supports it. On a quiet market day a Swing-preset bot may evaluate dozens of times without trading. Watch the event log — if evaluations are firing with reasoning attached, the bot is working as designed.

Can I undo the agent wallet?

Yes. Go to app.hyperliquid.xyz → Approved Builders. Find the agent wallet entry and revoke it with one click and one signature. The bot loses trade permission immediately. Your funds stay in your account.

Can I write my own trading strategy?

Yes. Under "Custom strategy" in the bot config, type plain-English instructions — no code required. Examples: "only trade between 8am and 4pm NY time," "skip CPI weeks," "favor breakouts over mean-reversion." The AI applies your instructions on every evaluation. Hard safety rails (stop-loss on correct side, risk-reward floor, position cap) stay in effect regardless.