Axiom perpetuals: how perps on Axiom work

Axiom perpetuals let you trade leveraged long and short positions without leaving the Axiom terminal. The feature is powered by Hyperliquid, a separate perpetuals exchange, and it works differently from Axiom's spot trading: different collateral, different fees, a different portfolio and a risk that spot trading does not have, which is liquidation. This page explains the mechanics from Axiom's documentation and then spends real space on what leverage does to your money.

What are Axiom perpetuals?

Axiom perps are perpetual futures: contracts that track an asset's price, never expire, and can be traded long or short with borrowed exposure. According to Axiom's perpetuals docs, they are Hyperliquid-powered, use USDC as margin and allow up to 50x leverage.

In practice, Axiom is the interface and Hyperliquid is the venue. Orders you place on Axiom's perps screen are routed to Hyperliquid, and DefiLlama tracks Axiom's perps income as Hyperliquid builder-code fees under a separate "Axiom Perps" entry. You never hold the underlying coin. You hold a position whose value rises or falls with the price, backed by the USDC you posted.

How much do Axiom perps cost?

Axiom's docs state that "Axiom takes a 0.01% fee per transaction" on perpetuals, and Hyperliquid's own trading fees apply on top of that. Axiom does not publish Hyperliquid's schedule, so check Hyperliquid's documentation for the current maker and taker rates.

The 0.01% figure looks tiny next to the 1% base fee on Axiom spot trades, but the two are not comparable one to one. Perps fees scale with the position, not with your margin. Assuming the fee applies to order size, a $10,000 position costs $1 in Axiom fees to open and $1 to close, whether you backed it with $10,000 of margin or $200. The docs do not spell out the base, so treat that as an illustration. High leverage makes fees a larger share of the money you actually put in.

Perpetual contracts in general also carry funding payments between longs and shorts. Those are set by the venue, not by Axiom, and the Axiom docs we checked do not list them. Check the current funding rate for your market, on the trading screen or on Hyperliquid itself, before holding a position for long.

How do you deposit to Axiom perps?

You fund perps separately from spot, because the margin has to be USDC on Hyperliquid. The deposit page in the docs covers the flow, and it is the same page that states the 0.01% fee and the 50x limit.

1. Log in at the official site. Perps live inside your normal Axiom account. Our safe login guide lists the checks to make first.
2. Open the perpetuals section and choose deposit. You move funds from your Axiom wallet into USDC margin on Hyperliquid. The withdraw docs describe the return leg as a swap back to Solana USDC, so the deposit is the reverse trip.
3. Check the amounts on the confirmation screen. The exact conversion and bridge costs are not specified in the docs, so the confirmation screen is the only reliable place to see them.
4. Wait for the balance to appear on the perps side. It shows in the perps portfolio, not in your spot balance.

How do you withdraw from Axiom perps?

A withdrawal swaps your Hyperliquid USDC back to Solana USDC and takes about 5 minutes, according to the withdraw page. The docs do not state a fee for this step. That does not mean it is free; it means you need to read the confirmation screen.

Two practical points. First, only free margin can leave safely: pulling USDC out while a position is open lowers the cushion under that position and moves its liquidation price closer. Second, five minutes is a long time in a fast market, so do not count on perps funds being available for a spot trade at short notice.

What does the Axiom perps screen show?

The perps screen follows the usual exchange layout: a chart, an order form with a leverage setting, and three tabs below for positions, open orders and history.

• Positions lists each open position. The docs note that positions show take-profit and stop-loss (TP/SL) fields, so you can attach exit prices to a position directly.
• Open orders lists orders that have been placed but have not filled yet, so you can review or cancel them.
• History shows past fills, which you need for checking the fees you really paid.

This is one place where perps are better served than spot. Axiom has no dedicated TP/SL page for spot trading, where exits are built from limit orders and Auto-Strategies. Results appear in the perps portfolio, separate from spot, and Axiom's changelog shows a Portfolio V2 update on 2026-08-28.

How do leverage and liquidation work?

Leverage multiplies the size of your position compared with the margin you post, and liquidation is what happens when losses on that larger position use up the margin. At that point the exchange closes the position for you and the margin is gone. This is the single most important thing to understand before you touch perps.

The arithmetic is simple. With $100 of margin at 10x, you control a $1,000 position. If the price moves 10% against you, the position loses $100, which is all of your margin. The adverse move that equals your whole margin is roughly 100 divided by the leverage.

Real liquidation comes a little earlier than the table suggests. Exchanges keep a maintenance buffer and close positions before the margin reaches zero, and fees and funding eat into the margin along the way. The exact rules are Hyperliquid's, so read its documentation and watch the liquidation price shown on your position, not a mental estimate.

Note what the table does not say. Higher leverage does not raise your profit on a given position size; it only lowers the margin needed to hold it, and with it the distance to liquidation. A $1,000 position gains or loses the same dollars at 2x and at 20x. What changes is how little room you have before the position is closed.

What else can go wrong with perps on Axiom?

Besides liquidation, perps add dependencies that spot trading on Axiom does not have.

• Two platforms, not one. You rely on Axiom's interface, Hyperliquid's exchange and the swap step between Solana USDC and Hyperliquid USDC. An outage or delay at any of the three can stop you from adding margin or closing a position when you need to.
• Stablecoin exposure. Your margin and your profits are in USDC, so you carry the risk of that stablecoin too.
• Session security. A logged-in Axiom session can trade. Malicious browser extensions that stole Axiom session data were reported by Socket in September 2026. Our Axiom safety review covers the incidents on record.
• Your own jurisdiction. Axiom claims no licence, and its Terms place legal compliance on the user. Leveraged derivatives are restricted for retail traders in many countries, so check your local rules.
• Limited recourse. Axiom's Terms cap its liability at $100, and support is handled through Discord tickets only.

None of this makes Axiom's perps unusual; these are the normal conditions of on-chain leveraged trading. They are reasons to keep position sizes within what you can lose in full. We do not recommend leverage levels or trades. If you are new to the platform, start with the basic Axiom walkthrough before opening the perps tab.

Sources: Axiom docs: Trading on Hyperliquid, the Deposit and Withdraw pages of the same docs (linked above), DefiLlama: Axiom Perps. The liquidation table is our own arithmetic, not data from Axiom or Hyperliquid.