Crypto perps with USDC on Arc: trade BTC and ETH perpetuals from arky

By the arky team · Last updated: 5 Oct 2026

What are crypto perps?

Crypto perps (perpetual futures) are contracts that follow a coin's price but never expire. Instead of buying bitcoin, you open a position on its price: a long gains when the price rises, a short gains when it falls. You post USDC as margin and can add leverage, so a small move in the price becomes a larger move in your profit or loss. Because there is no expiry date, a mechanism called funding keeps the perp price anchored to the spot price, and a mechanism called liquidation closes positions whose losses have eaten their margin. Both are explained below, with the venue's own documentation.

How does funding work on crypto perps?

Funding is a periodic payment between longs and shorts that pulls the perp price back toward spot. When the perp trades above spot, longs usually pay shorts; when it trades below, shorts usually pay longs. On Hyperliquid, the venue arky routes to, funding is paid every hour, is "purely peer-to-peer" with no fee taken on the payments, and is capped at 4% per hour (Hyperliquid docs: Funding, checked 5 Oct 2026). Holding a perp for days therefore has a running cost or income that a spot purchase does not have.

What is liquidation, and why does leverage raise the risk?

Liquidation is the forced close of a position when your account equity falls below the maintenance margin. Hyperliquid sets the maintenance margin at half the initial margin at a coin's maximum leverage, and it uses a mark price that combines external exchange prices with its own order book, not a single trade (Hyperliquid docs: Liquidations, checked 5 Oct 2026). Leverage is what makes this bite: at 10x, a move of about 10% against you wipes out your initial margin, and liquidation comes before that point. At 20x, about 5% is enough. arky shows Hyperliquid's own liquidation price on every open position.

Where do arky's crypto perps trade?

arky's perps are executed on Hyperliquid, a dedicated perpetuals exchange, and arky attaches its builder code to each order. Hyperliquid describes builder codes simply: they "allow builders to receive a fee on fills that they send on behalf of a user", and the user must first approve a maximum builder fee (Hyperliquid docs: Builder codes). So the order book, matching and liquidations are Hyperliquid's; the screen, the USDC bridge from Arc and the safety rules are arky's. You see the arky fee in the approval prompt before your first order.

Which coins can you trade with leverage on arky?

arky offers perps only on an allowlist of 35 majors, picked by market cap and Hyperliquid volume. It never offers leverage on a memecoin: not arky launchpad tokens, not other Arc memecoins, and not Hyperliquid's meme perps such as kPEPE, WIF or FARTCOIN. DOGE is included as a top-10 asset. Each coin's cap is the lower of arky's 20x limit and Hyperliquid's own maximum. List as of 24 Sept 2026, from Hyperliquid's market data:

Caps follow the venue and can change; the ticket's "Max leverage" field is the source of truth. A position opened elsewhere on a coin outside the list still shows in arky, tagged "Close only".

How to trade perps with USDC on arky

1. Open a major. On app.arky.bet, open Trade for BTC, ETH or another listed major and switch the ticket from Spot to Perps.
2. Deposit USDC. Move USDC from your Arc wallet to your Hyperliquid perps balance in the deposit panel. arky uses Circle CCTP, which credits the wallet you are connected with; there is no recipient field to get wrong. Circle documents the route in CCTP-enabled HyperCore transfers.
3. Approve and enable. Sign once to approve the arky fee and once to enable a trading key. After that, orders sign without a wallet prompt until the key expires, after 7 days at most.
4. Place the order. Choose long or short, market or limit, a USDC size and leverage up to the coin's cap.
5. Protect it. Set one take-profit and one stop-loss for the whole position. Both are reduce-only triggers, and arky refuses a trigger set on the wrong side of the mark price.
6. Manage it. Watch live P&L and the liquidation price. Close the whole position or use Close ½ to take half off.
7. Withdraw. Send USDC back to Arc. Your wallet signs the withdrawal and the recipient is fixed to your own address.

What can the trading key do, and what can it not?

The trading key places and cancels orders; it cannot withdraw or transfer funds, because Hyperliquid refuses withdrawals signed by an agent key and arky's withdrawal is signed by your wallet. The key expires after 7 days at most, and you can re-enable it with a fresh signature. arky's 20x cap and the majors-only list are enforced in arky's interface; on the exchange side, Hyperliquid's own per-coin limits apply. Keep your browser and extensions clean, as you would with any trading app.

Crypto perps vs spot vs Up/Down on arky

If you only want a quick view on direction, Bitcoin up or down rounds cap your loss at the stake. For new tokens, see memecoins on Arc; those trade spot only. The Up/Down and perps launch post covers both products.

What does it cost?

• Hyperliquid's trading fee, charged by the venue on each fill.
• arky's builder fee, shown in the approval prompt before your first order. Fee levels can change; the app is the source of truth.
• Funding, paid or received every hour while a position is open.
• Circle's forwarding fee on CCTP moves between Arc and Hyperliquid, quoted live in the panel, plus Hyperliquid's one-time 1 USDC activation fee on a new account's first outbound action.

Leverage magnifies losses as much as gains, and a liquidation can take your whole margin. Trade only what you can afford to lose. This page is not financial advice.

Related guides: how to trade crypto with USDC on Arc, the Arc trading terminal, Scout, the AI trading agent, and how to bridge USDC to Arc. On the chain itself, see docs.arc.io.