Simple mode

Simple mode is a calmer screen for your first trades. You pick buy or sell, how much of your balance to use and the leverage, then press one button. There is no stop or target: the trade runs until you close it.

Choosing Simple or Advanced

The first time you open the desk it asks whether you are new to trading or have traded before. I'm new to trading opens Simple mode and the steps to get started; I've traded before opens the full desk (Advanced). Your answer is kept in this browser.

The Simple / Advanced switch at the top of the page changes it at any time. It is the same account in both: nothing is closed or hidden when you switch.

• Open trades always show in Simple mode, whether you started them there or in Advanced.
• Waiting orders, such as a limit order that has not filled, have no place in Simple mode. If you have any, switching to Simple asks you to Cancel them and switch or Stay in Advanced.

Starting a trade

1. Pick a coin. Click the coin's name to open a short list with popular coins first, or search, such as "bitcoin" or "TSLA".
2. Choose Buy / Long if you think the price will rise, or Sell / Short if you think it will fall. Selling means you win when the price falls.
3. Slide How much do you want to use? to the share of your balance to put in: from 1% to 100%. It starts at 1%, or at the smallest share that reaches the $10 minimum.
4. Slide Leverage. At 1× the trade moves with the money you put in; at 10× it moves as if you had put in ten times as much, so gains and losses are ten times larger. The panel shows the result as Position.
5. Click Buy Bitcoin or Sell Bitcoin.

Under the leverage slider the panel says how far the price can move against you before the trade is closed out, for example "Closed out if Bitcoin falls 8.9%". The chart draws the same price as Closed out here. From $100 a note says how much the trade uses, and under the button you see the fees to open and close it. The sliders also work with the arrow keys, Home and End.

Before you have connected a wallet, the sliders work against an example $1,000 balance so you can try them.

How the amounts are worked out

• Amount is the share of your balance you picked. It is the most this trade can lose. Near 100% it is a little less, so the opening fee fits too.
• Position is the amount times the leverage. The exchange's smallest position is $10; more leverage can lift a small amount over it.
• Leverage goes up to the coin's maximum. On a large position the exchange can allow less; the trade then uses the highest it allows.
• Each trade is a market order with its own margin (isolated), so it never draws on the rest of your balance.

If the trade can't be placed, the button is greyed out with one line saying why, for example that other trades hold your free balance. The daily loss limit from Settings, the Terms and the builder fee apply in Simple mode exactly as in Advanced. See Daily loss limit.

Being closed out

A Simple trade has no stop. If the price moves far enough against you, the exchange closes it (liquidation) and the money you put in is lost. At 1× a buy can't be closed out this way; higher leverage brings the close-out price closer. The panel, the chart and your trade's card all show where it is.

One trade per coin

Simple mode does not add to, reduce or reverse a trade. If you already have a position in a coin, from Simple or Advanced, the panel shows that trade's card instead of the sliders. Close it to start a new one. If the desk can't check your account just before the trade, it doesn't place it and asks you to try again.

Your open trades

Each trade has a card: its direction and leverage, how it is doing in dollars, the position, and the close-out price with its distance from the price now. One button closes it at the market price and shows what you would take; the card's amounts all count the fees to open and close. A trade given a stop or target in Advanced also shows what you would lose or win at each.

When a trade closes

When one of your trades closes, whether you closed it, it was closed out, or a stop or target set in Advanced closed it, a card comes up with the result after fees, in green for a win and red for a loss, and how long you held it. Share turns the trade into a picture to save or post. On a phone the card comes up from the bottom of the screen.

Simple mode keeps to the trade screen: the P&L calendar, the journal and market events are only in Advanced. It shows no pop-up notices. The panel says Trade started for a few seconds when your trade is on, and shows any problem right under its button.

The chart

A single price line across the full width, without candles or indicators. Live moves tick by tick and shows the last 5 minutes. The other buttons, 1m, 3m, 5m, 15m and 1h, draw one point per interval, about 2 hours, 6 hours, 10 hours, 1 day and 5 days at first. The default is 5m, and the desk remembers the button you last picked.

• Zoom with the scroll wheel, or pinch with two fingers on a trackpad or phone.
• Drag sideways to move through time: left opens empty space for the future, right goes back. Earlier prices load as you go, as far back as the exchange keeps them (about 3.5 days of 1m, 17 days of 5m, 7 months of 1h).
• Double-click to go back to the starting view.
• Point at the chart (or tap it on a phone) to read the price and time of any moment.

The price now and Closed out here sit at the right edge. When the close-out price is outside the chart, its label shows at the edge with its distance, for example "Closed out here ↓ 8.9%".

Starting from nothing

If you have no wallet yet, Get started walks you through it, one step at a time and in this order: get a wallet, connect it, add money, then turn on trading. The exchange only accepts the trading approval from an account that already holds money, which is why adding money comes before turning on trading. Close the page at any step and it picks up where you were.

• Get a wallet. On a computer without a wallet, the guide links to the MetaMask download page and asks you to reload this page afterwards. On a phone, open the desk inside the MetaMask app. When your wallet shows 12 words, write them on paper: they are the only key to your money. Never type them into a website.
• Connect. Your wallet asks you to confirm. Nothing is paid or sent.
• Add money. See below.
• Turn on trading. One approval in your wallet lets the desk place trades for you; it can never withdraw your money. A second approval covers the desk's fee per trade (see Fees).

Add money

In Simple mode the top bar's deposit button reads Add money. The guide looks at your wallet on Arbitrum and shows what fits:

• No USDC yet. Choose Buy with a card in your wallet (buy USDC on Arbitrum, and a little ETH on Arbitrum for the network fee), or Send from an exchange (send USDC on the network Arbitrum One to the address shown, which also comes as a QR code). Other networks can lose your money.
• USDC arrived, no ETH. It asks for a little ETH on Arbitrum to pay the network fee.
• USDC and ETH arrived. It offers "Add it to your trading account?" and opens the usual deposit with the amount filled in.

The guide watches your wallet and moves on by itself when the money arrives. Details of the deposit itself are in Deposits and withdrawals.