How Hyperliquid copy trading works, step by step

Why copies drift from the leader

Most copy tools break in the same few places. A $500 account can't hold a scaled copy of a $2 million book without some legs falling under the exchange minimum. A missed trade message leaves you holding a position the leader already closed. A spike during a big news release fills your copy far worse than the leader's entry. This article shows what MirrorTrade does about each one, where it still falls short, and the numbers the engine runs on today.

The engine at a glance

The life of a copied order

1. 1. Read both accounts

   On each check the engine pulls a fresh snapshot from Hyperliquid's public data: the leader's and your open positions, account values, spot balances, mid prices and any deposits or withdrawals. It compares positions, not individual trades. If a check fails, the next one starts from the true state, so nothing needs to be replayed.

2. 2. Work out your target size

   For each coin the leader holds, your target is the leader's size times your ratio. The difference between that target and what you hold now becomes an order. If the leader flips from long to short, that becomes 2 orders: a close, then a new open.

3. 3. Check the risk limits

   Before anything is sent, the engine caps leverage at 40x per position, scales the whole book down if your margin couldn't carry it, holds back orders under $10, and in market mode sets a price limit no worse than 3% from mid. Sizes are rounded down to what Hyperliquid accepts for that coin.

4. 4. Place and record

   Orders go out in batches of up to 10, at most 15 per check, each carrying the 0.05% MirrorTrade fee. Every order is logged as copied, skipped or rejected, with the reason. That record means "why didn't this trade copy?" always has a specific answer.

Sizing math for uneven balances

The formula:

your size = leader size × (your account value ÷ leader account value) × risk multiplier

The risk multiplier runs from 1x to 2.5x and is labelled "Risk multiplier (leverage)" in the copy setup. Here is a leader with a $2,000,000 account holding 5 BTC long at $100,000, copied by 3 different accounts:

The last row is where small accounts lag. B's $1.25 add is below Hyperliquid's $10 minimum, so it waits. The gap isn't forgotten: each check compares B's position with the leader's full size, so once B's gap reaches $10 (or $9, which is lifted to just over $10), B catches up in a single order. At B's size, that takes another $31,000 to $35,000 of leader adds. Until then, B is under-sized on that coin. Sizes also round down to each coin's size step, which is why A's $12.50 goes out as $12, with the rest carried forward.

3 details keep the ratio honest:

• Profits don't move your ratio. It is only reset when something other than trading changes either account's balance: a deposit, withdrawal, transfer or liquidation. If the leader's account doubles from trading, yours should too, so your size stays proportional.
• Spot cash counts. On Hyperliquid's unified margin, spot stablecoins can back perp positions. The engine counts the larger of an account's perp value or its spot stablecoins, on both sides, so a leader keeping $400,000 of USDC in spot isn't sized as if they had almost nothing behind their perps.
• Your size only ever scales down. If a 2.5x multiplier on a highly leveraged leader would push you past 40x total exposure, or past 95% of your equity in margin, every position is scaled down by the same amount, so your book keeps the leader's proportions.

What stays in your control

• Your funds stay in your wallet. The engine trades through an agent key you approve. A guard checks every action before it is signed. Orders, cancels, and leverage and margin settings are allowed. Withdrawals, transfers and sends are refused.
• A stop-loss and take-profit for the whole strategy. They are measured against what you put in, with deposits and withdrawals netted out. When one hits, every position is closed and the strategy stops. See how TP and SL work.
• Where you start. Full sync copies the leader's current book at today's prices. Forward-only copies only what they do next. See the tradeoffs.
• Stop at any time. Stopping closes your copied positions with market orders and skips the normal wait between checks.

When things go wrong

Fast markets, thin order books and rate limits are where copy tools lose money quietly. Here is what the engine does in each case.

The market is thin or moving fast

In the default market mode, the order is immediate-or-cancel with a price limit taken from deeper in the order book. If that limit is more than 3% from mid, it is pulled back to 3% and anything unfilled is cancelled. The next check sees the gap and tries again. The cap is measured from the mid price on that check, not the leader's entry, so after a spike you can still enter well above where the leader did.

The copy is under Hyperliquid's $10 minimum

Opening orders and partial closes under $10 are held back and logged. The gap carries forward and is placed once it reaches $10. At $9 or more, the order is lifted to about $10.20. Only a full close always goes out, whatever its size.

Hyperliquid rate-limits the account

After 3 rate-limit errors a circuit breaker opens. While it is open, only closes and flips go out. After 60 seconds it lets up to 5 orders through per check, and returns to normal after 2 succeed.

An order's result is unknown

If the connection drops mid-submit, the order may or may not have reached Hyperliquid. The engine doesn't guess. The next check reads your real position and places only what is still missing.

The leader trades a market you can't

Positions on other HIP-3 markets are mapped to the matching xyz market when one exists. Otherwise the leg is skipped and logged.

Your stop-loss or a liquidation hits

The strategy switches to unwind: every position is closed with reduce-only market orders, and the engine re-runs until the account is flat.

How fast is a copy?

The engine waits 20 seconds between checks, so a new leader trade is usually copied on the next one. We don't publish a millisecond latency figure. We haven't measured one end to end, and a figure like that would suggest a speed this design doesn't aim for.

The tradeoff is deliberate. Comparing full positions every 20 seconds is slower than streaming each trade, but a dropped connection or missed message can't leave you holding something the leader closed. For leaders who hold positions for hours or days, a few seconds rarely matter. For leaders who scalp in and out within a minute, they do. Check a trader's holding times before you copy them.

Setting up a copy

1. Pick a trader and read their open positions. This is the book you will inherit under full sync.
2. Set your capital. The smaller it is, the more of the trader's small positions scale below $10 and are skipped. Compare their position sizes with your ratio first.
3. Choose a risk multiplier, start mode and stop-loss. Start at 1x until you have watched a few copies land.
4. Approve the trade-only agent and the builder fee in your wallet. The fee approval is a 0.1% ceiling for that Agent Account. Copy trades are charged 0.05%. You may also be offered automatic agent renewal, which you can decline. None of these can withdraw or transfer your funds.
5. Check the first copies. Compare your positions with the leader's after the first few checks. Differences should match the ratio in your setup.

Sources

• MirrorTrade: Fees
• MirrorTrade: Trust and selection methodology
• MirrorTrade: Hyperliquid copy trading guide
• Hyperliquid: API documentation
• MirrorTrade: Editorial policy