Perps on Hyperliquid

A perp (perpetual future) is a contract on the price of an asset, such as BTC, that can be traded with leverage. A tango.finance strategy can trade perps on Hyperliquid, an exchange that runs on its own chain. No contract on Base can see a Hyperliquid account, so a strategy with perps works differently from one without: Tango posts the account's value onchain, every action needs Tango's signature, and cash crosses a bridge each way. This page explains how that works.

Key points

• A strategy with perps has a second account on Base, the Perps account, linked to the strategy's own trading account on Hyperliquid.
• Rules and Autopilot trade on Hyperliquid's main exchange, in the markets you chose on Review, at isolated margin and at or under each market's Max Leverage.
• Tango's NAV service posts the Perps account's value. The vault uses a value only if it is recent, was observed after the latest transfer, and falls inside its deviation band.
• Agents move cash to and from Hyperliquid by themselves. The first transfer pays Hyperliquid's account activation.

How a perps strategy is set up

When a strategy has perp markets, deployment adds three things:

• A Perps account, an attested sub-account on Base, valued from a figure Tango posts. It has only two approved transaction types: approving USDC for Circle's bridge, and a bridge transfer to the strategy's own trading account.
• A trading account on Hyperliquid, a wallet that you and Tango control together. See Hyperliquid trading wallets.
• A NAV provider, the contract that receives the Perps account's posted value. Tango's NAV service holds its posting keys.

Trading starts once the first transfer reaches Hyperliquid and you sign the last setup steps for the trading wallet. See Build a strategy.

Markets and leverage

You choose markets on Review, from Hyperliquid's main exchange. Hyperliquid's xyz markets, for stocks, indices, commodities and currencies, are not supported. The choice is fixed: a market you did not choose, or one Hyperliquid later delists, can only be closed.

Each market has a Max Leverage, chosen on Review and changed in Settings. It can never go above Hyperliquid's own maximum for that market. See How agents run a strategy.

Perps are traded by agents:

• A rule trades its one market, when its price condition is met.
• Autopilot can trade the strategy's markets, but may only reduce on a market a rule trades.

Order rules

Tango checks every order before it signs. An order must meet these rules:

• Positions use isolated margin only, so each one has its own margin. Leverage must be at or under the market's Max Leverage and within Hyperliquid's margin tiers.
• Anything that adds risk must be in one of the strategy's chosen markets. Closing, cancelling and protective orders are always allowed.
• An order must meet a minimum size.
• Market orders have a slippage limit, with a little more room when closing a position.
• Tango's builder fee is attached, never above Hyperliquid's maximum. A builder fee is a fee an app adds to the orders it sends to Hyperliquid.

A rule opens with an order that never fills past its entry price, and places its stop loss and take profit from the actual entry once it fills. Every perp Autopilot opens carries a resting stop. Tango can pause actions that add risk for every strategy at once. Even then, closing, cancelling, protective orders, adding margin and transfers back stay available.

How the value is posted

Tango's NAV service works out the Perps account's value and posts it onchain. The vault then decides whether to use it.

1. On a regular schedule, after a transfer lands, and before settlements, the service reads the USDC in the Perps account on Base, plus the trading account's equity and spot USDC on Hyperliquid.
2. It checks its work: no bridge transfer is open, its records match, and its readings are recent. Otherwise it skips the run.
3. It posts the account's equity in USDC, rounded down. Posting costs the strategy nothing.
4. A separate watcher re-reads every account over its own connection, and alerts Tango's on-call team if its figure differs from the posted one or a posting is late. The watcher has no power onchain.

Each setting is fixed when the strategy is deployed. See Attested sub-accounts for how the vault applies them.

The vault decides onchain what happens to each posted value:

• Inside the band, the vault uses it.
• Above the band, the vault ignores it. The last accepted value stands until it becomes stale.
• Below the band, the vault invalidates the account. Settlement waits until the NAV guardian re-anchors it to a posted reading. Your wallet is the NAV guardian, and the app does not offer the re-anchor yet.

While the value is updating after a transfer, Activity shows an Updating Value step.

Moving USDC

CCTP is Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, which moves USDC between chains by burning it on one and minting it on the other. See Bridging.

Agents move cash so that each rule has the margin it needs. A rule's margin comes from what is already on Hyperliquid first, then idle cash, then money markets. Between trades, it stays on Hyperliquid or comes back, depending on what your prompt asked.

Transfers have fixed costs, so agents send cash only when the transfer's fees fit within a limit you signed at setup. A transfer too small for that waits, and a return too small to be worth sending stays on Hyperliquid as the rule's own cash. The first transfer can be a little larger than the rule needs, since it also pays the activation. Review's Minimum for a perps strategy makes sure that first transfer can go through.

A Close brings margin back whatever its size, within the bridge's own limits. Cash below Hyperliquid's withdrawal minimum stays there, and the Close says so.

Risks specific to perps

• Positions use leverage, and Hyperliquid can liquidate them. The Positions tab shows how far each position is from liquidation. The app does not send liquidation alerts.
• Funding is paid or received while a position is open, and can turn against you.
• Part of the strategy's value is a figure Tango posts. The vault limits how that figure can move, but relies on it.
• Tango's signature enforces your markets, Max Leverage and order rules offchain. The vault contracts do not.
• Hyperliquid, Circle's bridge and its forwarding service are third parties. Outages on their side can delay or prevent trades and transfers.
• Deposits and withdrawals wait for a fresh posted value, and for the stale period after any transfer.