If an app tells you that a "user or API wallet does not exist", it can read like your funds have vanished. They have not. The message points at the signing key an app uses on your behalf, not at your balance. This guide explains what that key is, the cases in which Hyperliquid stops recognising it, and what to do about each. It uses Hyperliquid's own documentation as its source and says so wherever a detail depends on it.
Hyperliquid's documentation uses "API wallet" and "agent wallet" for the same thing. A master account can approve an API wallet to sign on behalf of the master account or any of its sub-accounts. That is how an app places orders for you without asking your main wallet to sign every click.
One detail from the documentation explains many "empty balance" scares: API wallets are only used to sign. To read the account's data you have to use the actual address of the master account or sub-account. Looking up an agent wallet's own address returns an empty result, and the documentation calls this a common pitfall. If you queried an agent wallet's own address through the API and saw nothing, that is why.
The documentation lists the cases in which an API wallet, and its nonce state, may be pruned:
Hyperliquid's documentation does not quote the error text, but these are the situations in which a previously approved agent is no longer registered, and "does not exist" is what an app sees when it signs with a key the exchange no longer knows.
In every case the fix is the same: authorise the app again so it registers a fresh agent (if the account has no funds, that has to be dealt with first). Nothing about the error means money has moved.
The documentation is explicit here. If you use API wallets programmatically, it strongly suggests not reusing their addresses: once an agent is deregistered, its used nonce state may be pruned, and previously signed actions can be replayed once the nonce set is pruned. Generate a new agent wallet for future use instead of re-registering an old one.
Trending uses an agent key so that you can place and manage orders from the chart without signing each action in your wallet. Your funds stay in your own Hyperliquid account, and the key is authorised with withdrawals disabled, so it can trade for you but cannot move money out. If Hyperliquid no longer recognises that key, Trending asks you to authorise again rather than showing a balance of zero.
Hyperliquid can change how API wallets are approved and pruned. Everything here reflects its documentation as checked on 2 October 2026. If a specific account is behaving unexpectedly, Hyperliquid's documentation and support channels are the authority, not this page.
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Trending does not provide investment advice. Trading perpetual contracts involves market and leverage risk. You are responsible for wallet safety and local regulatory compliance.