How to trade perps in MetaMask
Perpetual trading or “perps” is available in MetaMask Mobile! If you’re new to this, start with our explainer What is perpetual trading. Once ready, open the app to trade. This guide covers everything you need from depositing and withdrawing funds, to opening, managing, and closing a position.
Jump to any section:
- Perpetual trading isn’t available to users in the following regions: USA, UK, Ontario (Canada), Belgium and countries on the USA sanctions list.
- Trading with leverage can be risky. Always do your own research and understand your risk tolerance before diving in.
Deposit funds
To start trading perps, you’ll first need to fund your perp account. You can pay with any EVM token, and your token will automatically be converted to the required USDC on Hyperliquid. MetaMask doesn’t take any fee on deposits.
Your perps balance is separate from your regular account balance. When you fund perps, you’ll see your token balance decrease, and your perps balance increase by that amount.
- Open MetaMask Mobile and go to 'Perps' (either through the tab, or trade button in the middle of the nav bar)
- Tap 'Start trading' > 'Add funds'
- Once your account is funded, you can deposit more funds by tapping 'Available balance' > 'Add funds'
- Choose the token and amount you want to deposit and tap 'Continue'
- The minimum funding value is $10
- Review details and tap 'confirm'
- This usually takes ~30 seconds, but could take up to a few minutes
- You can check progress within the Activity > Transactions tab
Once complete, you’ll see your available trading balance within the perps tab.
Open a position
Once you’ve deposited funds, you can start trading. There are more than 150 contracts to choose from.
Leverage varies per contract. Each token supports different max leverage levels (up to 40x for BTC) ; you can view this in the available list of contracts where the max leverage size is listed next to each token.
- Tap the trade icon in the navigation bar and select 'Perps'
- Pick a token from the list of available contracts.
- You can also search for your favorite token by tapping on the magnifying glass at the top right
- Choose your direction
- Tap Long if you think the price will go up
- Tap Short if you think the price will go down
- Drag the slider to set your order size (the “notional value” of your trade)
- Order size = margin x leverage
- Use the slider to choose how much of your trading balance to use
- Set leverage with the slider or presets
- The max leverage varies per market
- Remember: higher leverage = smaller liquidation distance.
- If liquidated, your margin cannot be recovered. Learn more about leverage & liquidation in our guide here.
- Add Take Profit/Stop Loss (TP/SL) parameters to automatically close your position at these thresholds. This is optional but strongly recommended to protect against fast swings.
- You can change your TP/SL anytime, even once your position is open
- Review your order details including margin used, liquidation price and fees. Tap 'Confirm' to continue.
Your order will be executed immediately at the market price.
Limit orders
Instead of buying or selling at the current market price, you can also set a limit price at which you want your order executed. This gives you more control, but your order will not be filled immediately. Execution depends on whether the market price reaches your limit price.
- If your limit price is reached, the order fills automatically
- If not, the order stays open until canceled
- You can track your limit orders in the perps homepage, and within the order tab on the token’s page.
- Limit orders can be canceled anytime by opening the order tab of the token’s page and tapping 'Cancel order.'
Manage a position
After opening a position, you can monitor it within the 'Perps' tab. You will see:
- Your open position token, leverage, and direction
- Your position size in $ and number of tokens
- Your unrealized PnL in $ and %.
Tap your active position to see details like the price chart, liquidation price, and statistics. You can also update or add TP/SL parameters from this screen.
Take profit and stop loss (TP/SL)
TP/SL parameters automatically close your position at these thresholds. This is strongly recommended to avoid bad surprises. You can change or add a TP/SL parameter anytime.
TP/SL is not guaranteed to work 100% of the time. It can fail: for example, if the price drops from $120 to $50 in a second and no one is willing to buy your position at $100, your stop loss will execute at $50 instead of $100.
This is unlikely to happen with “blue-chip” tokens (tokens with more volume and liquidity like ETH and BTC) but be cautious of this when trading “long-tail” tokens (niche memecoins with a tiny market cap). For each market, you can see the 24hr trading volume under the 'Overview' tab when you select a token.
Charts
You can use the candlestick chart to track activity per token and adjust candle intervals from 1 minute to 7 days. You can see both short-term movements and longer-term market trends. Traders often use these patterns for technical analysis.
Each “candle” represents four key data points:
- Open: The price when the candle started
- Close: The price when the candle ended
- High/Low: The range during that time.
- Color:
- Green = price closed higher than it opened (uptrend)
- Red = price closed lower than it opened (downtrend)
If you press on a candle for ~1 second, this data will be displayed at the top left of the chart.
Increase position exposure
If you already have a position, and want to increase your exposure, you can open another trade in the same direction for a token by tapping 'Long' or 'Short' (e.g., add more to a long ETH position). You can’t use a smaller leverage size than your open position.
Close a position
When you’re ready to exit a trade:
- Go to the 'Perps' tab and select your position
- Tap 'Close position'
- Drag the slider to choose how much of the position to close (partial or full)
- With partial close, your close order must be larger than $10
- Review the order information, including estimated PnL (profit and loss), fees, and amount you will receive
- Tap 'Close position' to confirm
Your position will be closed at the market price.
Withdraw funds
You’ll receive USDC on the Arbitrum network so you’ll need a bit of ETH on Arbitrum for gas (~$1 is generally enough) to swap it to another token or to another chain. You should have received some as part of your deposit transaction, but if not you can swap within MetaMask to move tokens from other networks easily.
You can withdraw your available perps balance back to your regular account. When you withdraw, you will receive USDC on Arbitrum. There is currently no way to receive any other token.
- Tap on 'Available balance' within the perps tab and select 'Withdraw'
- Enter the amount you want to withdraw
- Review details and confirm by tapping 'Withdraw'
- A flat $1 fee is charged by our provider, Hyperliquid
Questions
Who is the provider?
All perp trading within MetaMask is powered by Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals exchange built on the HyperEVM network.
What is the fee breakdown? Who gets them?
You pay a fee every time you open and close a position, along with a $1 withdrawal fee.
- MetaMask fee: The fee charged by us, MetaMask. We don't take any fee when you deposit or withdraw funds, only when you open and close a position.
- Provider fee: The fee charged by Hyperliquid
- Network fee: The required fee (gas) to process transactions on a network
- Bridge fee: The fee charged by bridge providers to move your funds across networks when depositing funds into your perp account
How many tokens can I trade?
You can trade all tokens (over 180) supported by Hyperliquid displayed in the list of available contracts. You can also search for your favorite token by tapping on the magnifying glass at the top right when you open a position.
What tokens can I deposit?
You can fund your perp account with any EVM token (e.g., ETH, mUSD, USDC, USDT, LINEA, etc.). Solana tokens are not supported yet.
What margin type is used?
All orders use isolated margin only. It means that for any given position, only your margin is at risk. There is no risk of loss on your available balance or token balance.
Why does my account token balance drop when funding my perps account?
Your perp balance is separate from your account token balance. When you add funds to your perp account, your regular account balance will go down but your perp balance will go up by that amount.
What happens when I deposit funds in my perp account?
Hyperliquid (our provider) requires you to deposit USDC from Arbitrum to receive USDC on HyperEVM (the network where perps trades run). But we made this simpler:
- You can select any EVM token on any chain: in the background, we swap your token for USDC on Arbitrum, and then bridge it to HyperEVM.
- The bridge requires some ETH on Arbitrum for gas. We will automatically bridge a tiny portion of your selected payment token into ETH on Arbitrum to cover this if you don't have any. That's why you may notice a few cents of ETH on Arbitrum after your deposit transaction.
- The deposit transaction time depends on our bridge partners and may vary, but we're selecting the fastest and cheapest one for you.
- During a swap transaction, there can be slippage. We ensure that slippage is no more than 0.5%.
- MetaMask doesn't charge any swap fee on those deposit transactions
- Once the deposit transaction is complete, you'll receive USDC on HyperEVM tracked in 'Available Balance'.
If you use USDC on Arbitrum to deposit funds in your perp account, the deposit transaction is nearly instant. Just make sure you have enough ETH on Arbitrum to pay for the network fee, otherwise the transaction will fail.
When will I receive notifications on my positions?
With push notifications enabled (you can check in Settings > Notification), you will receive notifications when:
- Your take profit is executed
- Your stop loss is executed
- Your limit order is executed
- Your position is liquidated
What are the risks associated with perpetual trading?
The max loss you can incur is your margin. Higher leverage increases the risk of liquidation.
Low-liquidity tokens are also riskier due to higher risk of slippage for market orders, and risk of failed stop losses as there may be no trader willing to act as a counter part to your order.
See our guides: What is perpetual trading and Understanding leverage and liquidation. Always do your own financial research before deciding what trading strategy is best for you.
Can I get my margin back if I'm liquidated?
No, once liquidated, your margin cannot be recovered. This is why risk management is important. We recommend playing around with our leverage and liquidation calculator to better understand scenarios.
How is the funding rate calculated and paid?
Funding rates are charged every hour and deducted from your margin. The longer you keep a position open, the more these fees add up. It is taken from your margin.
- If the perp price is above the spot price, the funding rate is positive: longs pay shorts.
- If the perp price is below the spot price, the funding rate is negative: shorts pay longs.
With Hyperliquid, the base funding fee is +0.00125% per hour (longs pay shorts). This is automatically adjusted by Hyperliquid depending on how far the perp price drifts from spot.
How does TP/SL work?
- Take Profit (TP): Creates a limit order that closes your position once the market reaches your chosen price, locking in gains.
- Stop Loss (SL): Creates a market order that closes your position when the price hits your chosen level, limiting losses.
How TP/SL behaves with multiple trades:
- After your first trade, your TP/SL settings automatically follow your position, so you don't need to set a new TP/SL if you open another trade in the same direction.
- But if you do set a TP/SL for your second trade (with an open position on this market), the TP/SL will only apply to the order size of that second trade. Both TP/SL settings will be visible in the 'Orders' tab of the perp asset page.
TP/SL parameters are not guaranteed in extreme market conditions. If liquidity disappears or price gaps past your set level, your order may not execute at the exact price chosen.
How is unrealized PnL calculated?
PnL stands for Profit and Loss. It's unrealized until you close your position.
- $ unrealized PnL is calculated as (effective margin - initial margin)
- % unrealized PnL is the return on equity. It is calculated as (($PnL ÷ initial margin) - 1) or ((effective margin - initial margin) ÷ initial margin). You can view your total PnL in the perps tab across all open positions.
Need more help?
Start a conversation with our support team below.