Copy trading
How a leader's trade becomes your trade, and what happens on close and liquidation.
Papertrade positions cannot be partially closed, so Paper Strategy mirrors per position, not per balance. Each leader position gets exactly one scaled copy on your account. When the leader closes that position, your copy is closed. If they hold ten positions and close one, you close the matching one, which is the same as them selling 10%.
The pipeline
- The worker subscribes to Papertrade's public trade websocket. Every open, close and liquidation on the exchange arrives within a block.
- For each leader you follow, your rule sizes a copy (see Sizing rules). If it passes every check, the worker signs an OpenPosition intent with your session key and submits it to Papertrade's relayer, exactly as their app does.
- Your account's live stream reports the new position carrying the intent id. The mirror is now bound to a real position id.
- When the leader closes or is liquidated, the worker signs a Close for your mirrored position. If your copy already got liquidated on its own, it is marked as such.
- Settled mirrors record your realised PnL from your account stream.
Latency, honestly
You see the leader's trade only after it lands on-chain, then your copy lands a block or two later. At low leverage that is noise; at 1000x a few seconds can be the whole trade. The max entry drift setting skips copies when the price has already moved too far from the leader's entry, and the leverage cap keeps you out of the most latency-sensitive range.
What can go wrong
- Your win can be queued even when the leader's is paid, because queue position is per account.
- Small-move scalpers can be profitable while a slightly late copy of them is not. The leader page shows average move size for this reason.
- Session keys expire after 30 days; the Copy tab shows when yours needs re-signing.