How Papertrade works
The protocol you are trading on: synthetic perps against a house bankroll, with all costs taken from wins.
Papertrade is a perpetuals exchange on HyperEVM. You never trade against other traders. Every position is a synthetic swap against the protocol's liquidity pool (the LP), priced at Hyperliquid's order-book mid read on-chain through a precompile. BTC and ETH only, up to 1000x leverage, no slippage, no funding, no spread, no gas.
What a win costs
- Deadband. Your gain is measured as if the exit were 0.02% (0.2 bps) less favourable. Wins smaller than that pay nothing.
- Impact haircut. A sliding cut that is harshest on tiny moves. On BTC a 0.1% move keeps about 74% of the raw gain, a 1% move about 88%, never more than 90%.
- 2% win fee on what is left.
Losses cost nothing extra. You lose the price move times notional, capped at your margin, and you are minted PAPER tokens for the loss.
The bankroll and the queue
The LP started at $0 and only grows from traders' losses. If it cannot pay your win, the profit goes into a first-in-first-out queue and is paid as others lose. Your margin always comes back immediately; only profit can be queued.
Liquidation
Liquidation is a hard bust: 100% of margin is forfeited. The trigger sits about 5 bps of price before true zero equity. At 1000x that is after a 0.052% move, when a manual close would still return roughly half your margin. Positions cannot be topped up or partially closed.
The Calculator tab runs these exact formulas for any trade.