Paper Trading
Paper trading lets you run strategies with simulated funds against live market data. Your strategy reacts to real price movements, but no actual orders are placed on any exchange. It's the step between backtesting and going live.
How paper trading works
When you run a strategy in paper mode:
- The platform simulates a virtual balance (default: $10,000)
- Your strategy receives real-time price data from the exchange
- Buy and sell orders are simulated at current market prices
- Profits and losses are tracked as if the trades were real
- No actual exchange API calls are made
Paper mode supports all product types: spot, margin (isolated and cross), and futures. For futures, the simulation includes realistic liquidation mechanics, funding rate calculations, and collateral management -- so the numbers you see in paper mode closely match what you'd experience live.
Starting a paper trade
- Open the Strategies panel
- Find the strategy you want to test
- Start it in paper mode
- Monitor it in the Statistics panel — you'll see it under Active Trades with a "Paper" label
When to use paper trading
- After backtesting -- Your strategy looked good on historical data, now test it with live unpredictable data
- Testing new parameters -- Changed some indicator settings? Paper trade first
- Learning the platform -- Get comfortable with how strategies execute before using real money
- Trying futures or margin -- Practice with leveraged products risk-free before committing real funds
Monitoring paper trades
The Statistics panel shows:
- Active paper trade count
- Current P/L for each paper trade
- Trade history for completed paper trades
Moving to live
Once you're satisfied with paper trading results over a meaningful period, you can switch to live trading. Make sure you've connected an exchange with API keys first.