Open a position

Overview

Opening a position is a single signed transaction. Margin is pulled from your wallet at the moment of execution. The protocol borrows the leveraged portion from the lending pool and routes the swap through a DEX aggregator.

The order panel

Before you sign, the panel shows:

• Entry price. The current best fill from KyberSwap or 0x routing.
• Position size. margin × leverage.
• Liquidation price. The price at which the 88% threshold triggers. See Liquidations.
• Fee. 10 bps of position size, deducted at open.

If any of those numbers look wrong, don't sign. The panel is the last thing you see before the chain commits.

Step by step (UI)

1. Pick a market from the list at the top.
2. Pick a side. Long if you expect the price to rise, Short if you expect it to fall.
3. Enter margin in the pair's quote currency (USDC.e for USDC pairs, WETH for WETH pairs).
4. Set leverage (1x–20x on every listed market; see Trading pairs).
5. Read the panel. Entry price, liquidation price, fee.
6. Approve the asset if it's your first time trading this market (one-time ERC-20 approval).
7. Buy / Sell and sign.

The position shows up in Open Positions the moment the transaction confirms. On Arbitrum that's usually under a second.

Order types

Three order types. Entries and exits are market orders. TP and SL are conditional automation that sits on top of an open position.

Setting, editing or cancelling a TP/SL is free. You only pay a fee if and when the trigger actually fires.

Setting Take Profit and Stop Loss

1. In Open Positions, click Edit on the live trade.
2. Enter target prices for TP, SL, or both.
3. Sign the transaction. Targets are stored on-chain.
4. The keeper network watches the position and closes it when either target is hit.

You can change or remove them at any time. Editing only costs gas.

What the chain sees

When you sign the open transaction:

1. Margin USDC.e leaves your wallet.
2. The lending pool lends margin × (leverage − 1).
3. The combined notional is swapped through an aggregator into the long or short asset.
4. The position - entry price, margin, liquidation threshold, borrowed amount - is written against your address.

Closing reverses each step in a single transaction: aggregator unwind, pool repayment, residual margin back to your wallet. There's nothing held overnight in any vault.

Common mistakes at open

• Ignoring the liquidation price. If it sits inside the day's normal trading range, the position is too aggressive. Drop the leverage.
• Approving infinite spend. First-time approvals can be set to "exact amount" instead of "infinite". A bit more gas later, a much smaller blast radius if the wallet is ever compromised.