Perps on Hyperliquid

A perp (perpetual future) is a contract on the price of an asset, such as BTC, that you can trade with leverage. Strategies on Base can trade perps on Hyperliquid, an exchange that runs on its own chain. Because no contract on Base can see a Hyperliquid account, a strategy with perps works differently from one without. Tango posts the account's value onchain, and Tango must co-sign every order. This page explains how that works for creators and what it means for backers.

Key points

• A strategy with perps has a second sub-account on Base, an attested one, linked to the strategy's own trading account on Hyperliquid.
• Tango's NAV service posts the account's value on a regular schedule and before settlements. The vault only uses a value if it is recent, was observed after the latest transfer, and falls inside its deviation band.
• Every order needs signatures from both the creator and Tango. Tango only co-signs orders in the strategy's chosen markets, at isolated margin and within leverage ceilings.

How a perps strategy is set up

Vault on Base -> Hyperliquid Account (attested sub-account on Base): sends USDC and brings it back
Hyperliquid Account -> trading account on HyperCore: Circle CCTP fast transfer, to a recipient fixed at deployment
Trading account -> Hyperliquid Account: USDC sent back can only go to this sub-account
NAV attester: reads balances on Base and Hyperliquid, and posts the account's value on Base

When you pick perp markets for a strategy, deployment adds three things:

• A Hyperliquid Account, an attested sub-account on Base. It is a sub-account valued from a figure that Tango posts. It has only two approved transaction types (call shapes). It can approve USDC for Circle's bridge, and it can make a bridge transfer to the strategy's own trading account.
• A trading account on Hyperliquid, a wallet that the creator and Tango control jointly. See Hyperliquid trading wallets.
• A NAV provider, the contract that receives the account's posted value. Its only NAV managers are the strategy's attester and watcher keys.

Perps are available on Base. While they roll out, they may be limited to selected creators.

Markets and leverage

You choose markets when you create the strategy. They come from Hyperliquid's main exchange and from its xyz exchange. The choice is fixed: a market you did not choose can only be closed.

Each market has a leverage ceiling, which the order ticket shows. A ceiling never goes above Hyperliquid's own live maximum for that market.

When the underlying market is closed, xyz markets take their price from their own order book. So they keep trading and keep being valued at weekends, unlike tokenized stocks.

Order rules

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

• Positions use isolated margin only, so each has its own margin. Leverage must be at or under the market's ceiling 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.

You can place market and limit orders, with optional take-profit and stop-loss. Tango can pause actions that add risk for all strategies at once. Even then, closing, cancelling, protection, adding margin and withdrawals stay available.

How the value is posted

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

On a regular schedule, after transfers land, and before settlement: read, check, post
Read: USDC in the Hyperliquid Account on Base, plus the trading account's equity and spot USDC on Hyperliquid
Check: no bridge transfer open, the ledger matches, and the data is recent
Post: attest the account's equity in USDC, rounded down
Vault accepts: a fresh value, observed after the last activity, inside the band
Watcher: an independent service re-reads the account and pages Tango if the figures disagree or a posting is late
Below the band: the account is invalidated until the NAV guardian re-anchors it

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

The heartbeat is how old a value may be before the vault treats it as stale. The deviation band is how far a new value may move and still be used.

Before posting, the service checks its work. It skips a run while a bridge transfer is in flight or an outflow is unexplained, and it checks that its readings are recent. Posting costs the strategy no gas.

A separate watcher re-reads every account over its own connection. It pages Tango's on-call team if its figure differs from the posted one, or if a posting is late. The watcher has no power onchain.

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, the role that can freeze and re-anchor attested values, re-anchors it to a posted reading.

Moving USDC

CCTP is Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, which moves USDC between chains.

After each transfer, the account's value waits out the stale period for a fresh posting. Until then, deposits and withdrawals cannot settle.

When trading is enabled, spot USDC moves to the perps balance. Tango tops up a small amount of HYPE in the trading account. This pays Hyperliquid's network gas on transfers back to Base.

Enabling trading

After the first USDC lands, the creator enables trading once. This sets the account to Hyperliquid's standard mode, approves Tango's builder fee, and moves spot USDC to the perps balance. Both the creator and Tango sign each step.

Risks specific to perps

• Positions use leverage, and Hyperliquid can liquidate them. The app shows each position's liquidation price and how far it is from it. The app does not send liquidation alerts.
• Part of the strategy's value is a figure that Tango posts. The vault limits how that figure can move, but backers rely on the attester as well as on the contracts.
• Only the creator, with Tango's co-signature, can trade, close positions or bring money back from Hyperliquid. A forced exit cannot reach funds on Hyperliquid.
• Tango's co-signature enforces the market choice, leverage ceilings and order rules offchain. The vault contracts do not.
• Hyperliquid, Circle's bridge and its forwarding service are third parties. Outages or failures on their side can delay or prevent transfers.
• Deposits and withdrawals wait for a fresh posted value, and for the stale period after any transfer.