Funding your account
How to get USDC onto your Hyperliquid account so you can trade live, and what the "Fund your account" card shows.
Live orders use the money in your own Hyperliquid account as margin. Tandem never holds your money and can't deposit, withdraw or move it. You fund the account on Hyperliquid, and tandem shows you when the money arrives.
What you need
- A wallet connected to tandem, with live trading turned on.
- USDC on Arbitrum in that same wallet.
- A little ETH on Arbitrum in that wallet to pay for gas.
How to deposit
Choose Deposit on Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid's site opens.
Send USDC on Arbitrum
On Hyperliquid's Deposit, send USDC on Arbitrum from the same wallet you connected to tandem.
Send at least $10
$10 is Hyperliquid's smallest order, so it is the least tandem can trade with. Hyperliquid's own bridge loses a deposit under 5 USDC.
Wait about a minute
The money lands on your perps balance, and the card in tandem updates.
Never send less than 5 USDC, and only USDC on Arbitrum
A smaller deposit, or a different token or network, can be lost.
Deposit from the wallet you connected
Money sent from another wallet lands on another Hyperliquid account, which tandem does not trade.
The "Fund your account" card
When live trading is on and your Hyperliquid account has too little to trade, a Fund your account card appears under your account summary. It shows:
- your two balances, Perps and Spot;
- what to do next, with a button that opens the right page on Hyperliquid;
- "Watching for your deposit": as soon as Hyperliquid has your money, the card updates by itself.
The card says one of three things:
| The card says | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Live trading is on, but your Hyperliquid account is empty." | Use Deposit on Hyperliquid. |
| "Live trading is on, but your Hyperliquid account has too little to trade." | Deposit a little more. |
| "Your USDC is on your spot balance." | Use Move it on Hyperliquid to move it to perps. Never shown for a unified account. |
If some money arrived but not enough, the card says how much arrived and asks you to add a little more. When the deposit is enough, you see "Your deposit arrived" with the amount, and "The account is ready to trade."
Spot and perps balances
Hyperliquid keeps two balances for each account:
- Perps is the margin for perpetual futures, the orders tandem places. A deposit lands here.
- Spot holds tokens bought on Hyperliquid's spot market, and USDC.
On a standard account, if your USDC is on spot, move it to perps on Hyperliquid's Portfolio page, with Transfer. Choose Move it on Hyperliquid on the card to go there.
When spot counts as margin
On a unified account (or with portfolio margin), spot USDC is the margin as it is. In Hyperliquid's standard mode it is not. There, if an order is refused because perps margin is short, tandem may offer a move from spot to perps for your wallet to sign. You always sign that move yourself.
A unified account
In Hyperliquid's unified account mode, and with portfolio margin, one USDC balance backs every market. Your USDC sits on your spot balance, and it is your margin as it is: there is nothing to move to perps. Copies on stock and commodity markets need this mode. You switch it on Hyperliquid's site; tandem can't switch it for you.
On a unified account, tandem counts your money as your spot USDC:
- The Fund your account card shows only while your spot USDC is under $10. It never asks you to move USDC to perps.
- The card's Perps figure is then only the margin and result of your open positions. They already sit inside your spot USDC, so tandem never adds the two together.
- In Portfolio, Equity is your spot USDC total, which is Hyperliquid's own value for the account.
- Your live copies check their plans against the same money.
When you switch to unified
When you switch an account to unified, Hyperliquid moves your perps USDC to spot. For a moment the money seems to leave the account, so tandem reads the account's mode again before it acts on that. It then counts your spot USDC:
- your running live copies keep their plans: none is scaled down because of the switch;
- new copies can start straight away.
If Hyperliquid doesn't answer that read, tandem changes nothing until a later read. A new copy started at that moment is refused; try again a little later.
Withdrawing
Withdrawals happen on Hyperliquid's site, from your wallet. Tandem has no withdraw button, and its trading key can't withdraw. Before you withdraw, close or reduce your positions so you don't leave too little margin behind (see Risks).