Futures paper trading · Free · Public beta, signups open

Crypto Futures Paper Trading, Under the Exchange's Own Rules

Open a long or a short on a Bitfinex USDT perpetual, choose your leverage, and see where the position would be liquidated before you place it. Margin, funding and liquidation follow Bitfinex's published rules for each pair. The money is paper, so the first liquidation you watch costs nothing.

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// HOW THE PAPER MATCHES THE EXCHANGE

Built on Bitfinex's numbers, not round ones

A futures simulator is only useful if a position fails the way a real one would. These four parts are where most simulators cut corners.

Margin and liquidation, per pair

// LIQUIDATION

Each perpetual uses Bitfinex's own initial and maintenance margin, read from its public pair settings. Initial margin sets that pair's maximum leverage. Maintenance margin sets the liquidation price, which the order ticket shows before you open.

PER-PAIR MARGINS BITFINEX RULES

Fills that pay for their size

// FILLS

Bitfinex charges no commission on perpetuals, so a paper fill pays none either. A market order still pays the spread, plus its walk through Bitfinex's live order book, so a large order fills at a worse average price than a small one.

0% COMMISSION BOOK DEPTH

Funding the way Bitfinex charges it

// FUNDING

Funding settles every 8 hours, and a positive rate means longs pay shorts. Bitfinex charges only the part of the accrued rate beyond a 0.05% dead band, capped at 0.25%. The paper wallet is charged by the same rule.

EVERY 8 HOURS DEAD BAND APPLIED

Bots and backtests on perpetuals

// AUTOMATION

Run a DCA, grid, dip-buy or signal bot on a perpetual, long or short. Before you start one, replay it over up to 90 days of Bitfinex's mark-price history, funding included.

4 BOT TYPES 90-DAY BACKTEST
// FIRST POSITION

Opening a first paper perpetual

No exchange login, no API key and no card at any step.

1

Fund the futures wallet

Sign up, switch the dashboard from Spot to Futures, and transfer part of your paper balance across. A transfer is not a gain or a loss, and you can move it back.

2

Set margin mode and leverage

Pick a perpetual, choose Isolated or Cross, and set leverage up to that pair's maximum. The ticket shows the margin needed, the expected fill price and the liquidation price.

3

Open, then watch the line

Place a Market, Limit or Stop order to open a long or a short. Add a take-profit, a stop-loss or a trailing stop, and follow the liquidation line on the chart as the price moves.

// THE MECHANISM

What happens between opening a position and closing it

A perpetual position is a small set of numbers: size, entry, margin and the pair's maintenance rate. Every outcome below follows from those four and the mark price.

How the liquidation price is worked out

An isolated position puts up margin equal to its size times its entry price, divided by its leverage. It is liquidated when that margin plus its unrealized P&L falls to the maintenance requirement: size times entry price times the pair's maintenance margin rate.

Take a long opened at 100 with 10x leverage, on a pair whose maintenance margin is 0.5%. Its liquidation price is 100 × (1 − 1/10 + 0.005), which is 90.50. A short with the same settings is liquidated at 100 × (1 + 1/10 − 0.005), which is 109.50. Higher leverage moves both prices closer to the entry.

Funding moves the liquidation price

Funding is charged to the position's own margin, as it is on the exchange. A long paying a positive rate loses a little margin at each 8-hour settlement, so its liquidation price creeps toward the mark. A position receiving funding gains margin and moves the other way.

At each funding time the paper wallet settles at the rate Bitfinex is about to apply, worked out with the dead band. About a minute later Bitfinex publishes the rate it actually applied, and the paper settlement is corrected to it. It is one charge per period, adjusted, never two.

Isolated or cross: whose money is at risk

Isolated is the default. Each position stands on its own margin, and a liquidation takes that margin and nothing else. It is the easier mode to reason about, because the worst case is printed on the ticket.

Cross is set per pair. Every cross position shares one pool: the futures wallet, less isolated margin and what orders and bots hold back. A shared pool sits further from liquidation, but when it fails, every cross position closes together and the whole pool is lost. Paper is a good place to see that happen once.

Exits that watch the mark

A position can carry a take-profit price, a stop-loss price and a trailing stop that sits a set percent behind the best mark since it was set. Vectixs holds all three itself and closes at market when the mark reaches one. A Stop order works the same way for entries: it waits for the mark to cross its trigger, then fills at market.

Two consequences follow, and the ticket states both. A market close takes the price that is there, so a fast move can fill past the stop. And nothing fires while Vectixs is offline; the next mark it reads is checked against every stop.

// EVERY FUTURES SETTING

Futures settings and limits

Everything the futures ticket and the futures bots let you set, with the limits that apply.

Setting What it does Range
Leverage Margin is size times price, divided by leverage. 1x to the pair's maximum
Margin mode Isolated or Cross, chosen per pair. Switch with nothing open on it
Position mode One-way or Hedge, for the whole futures wallet. Switch with nothing open
Order type Market, Limit or Stop. Reduce only is optional. Bitfinex's size limits
Take-profit and stop-loss Prices on a position, closed at market when the mark reaches one. Optional
Trailing stop Percent behind the best mark since it was set. 0.1% to 50%
Open positions Positions held at once across every pair. Up to 10
Resting orders Limit and Stop orders waiting at once. Up to 25
Futures bots DCA, grid, dip-buy and signal bots running at once. 3, 2, 3 and 2

Commission is 0%, as on Bitfinex perpetuals. Market and stop fills pay the spread plus the order's walk through the book. Limit fills take their own price.

// PRICE SOURCES

One venue: Bitfinex USDT perpetuals

Paper futures read Bitfinex's public data only: its mark price, funding, order book and margin settings for every crypto perpetual quoted in USDT. Index and currency perpetuals are left out.

Spot paper trading still covers WOO X, Binance, Bitfinex and Bitkub. The futures wallet sits beside that spot balance in the same paper account, and the portfolio page can show Combined, Spot or Futures. Every P&L figure there leaves transfers out.

BITFINEX USDT PERPETUALS MARK PRICE PAPER ONLY
// RELATED

Before your first leveraged position

Liquidation price calculator Where a leveraged position closes, from each pair's own margin rate. Futures trading bots Grid, DCA, dip-buy and signal bots on paper perpetuals. Isolated vs cross margin What each margin mode puts at risk, with a worked example.

Futures is one wallet inside the paper account. For spot orders, fills and fees, read how spot paper trading works.

// FUTURES PAPER TRADING FAQ

Crypto futures paper trading FAQ

01 // REAL MONEY Can I trade real futures on Vectixs?

No. Futures on Vectixs are paper only, for every account. No order reaches Bitfinex or any other exchange, and you never connect an exchange account or enter an API key.

02 // LIQUIDATION What happens when a paper position is liquidated?

When the mark price reaches the liquidation price, the position closes and its whole remaining margin is lost. On an isolated position, that margin is the most it can lose. Cross positions share one pool and are liquidated together, which takes the whole pool.

03 // MARK PRICE Why does a position follow the mark price, not the last trade?

Bitfinex values, stops and liquidates perpetuals at its mark price, which one unusual trade cannot jolt. Vectixs reads that same mark every few seconds. A brief spike in the last trade does not liquidate a paper position unless the mark follows it.

04 // HEDGE MODE Can I hold a long and a short on the same pair?

Yes, in Hedge mode. The default, One-way, keeps one net position per pair. Hedge gives each side its own position, margin and exits. You can switch only with no positions or orders open, and bots always run one-way.

05 // LEADERBOARD Do futures results count on the leaderboard?

No. The leaderboard ranks the spot account only. With leverage in the mix, the order would mostly show how much risk each account took.

06 // BACKTEST How does a futures backtest work?

It replays Bitfinex's mark-price history, about one reading a minute, through the same code the live bot runs, funding included. Trade prints are not used, because a perpetual's last trade can spike far from its mark. The window is up to 90 days.

07 // GRID Which directions can a futures grid bot run in?

Long, short or neutral. Its rungs rest inside the bot behind one hold on your wallet, so a manual Cancel cannot pull a rung. Trailing is optional: a long grid can trail up and a short grid can trail down. A neutral grid does not trail.

08 // SIGNAL Which indicators can a futures signal bot use?

SMA, Bollinger Bands, RSI, MACD, volume, or a combination where all must agree or a majority must. It can trade long, short or both, and acts only when a bar of its timeframe closes.

09 // BOTS AND CROSS Can a bot trade a pair set to cross margin?

No. Bots refuse a cross pair. While a bot runs it owns its pair, so manual futures orders on that pair are refused until the bot stops.

10 // CALCULATOR Can I work out a liquidation price without signing up?

Yes. The liquidation price calculator does the same arithmetic as the order ticket, with each pair's current maintenance margin filled in for you.