Papertrade
Papertrade is a synthetic perpetuals exchange on HyperEVM offering BTC and ETH with up to 1000x leverage. Every trade is a swap against a single liquidity pool at Hyperliquid's order-book mid price, with no funding, spread or fee on position size. The protocol takes its cut only from winning closes.
Cost: No fee on position size, no spread, no funding and no gas. Winning closes pay a haircut on the gain plus a 2% win fee: on BTC a 1% move keeps about 86% of the raw gain and a 0.1% move about 72%. Losing closes pay nothing beyond the loss. Deposits carry a one-time 1 USDC activation fee.
Checked 2026-10-17 · sources below- Round trip fee
- — buy + sell, platform fee
- $1,000 buy + sell
- — before network + pool fees
- Fees paid, 30d
- — not tracked by DefiLlama
- US availability
- Unverified UK: unverified · EU: unverified
More on Papertrade: Is it legit? · Fees · Alternatives
Quick answers
- Does Papertrade require KYC? No. Papertrade does not require identity verification (KYC) to trade, according to its published terms and docs.
- Does Papertrade have a mobile app? No native mobile app is listed. Papertrade works in a web browser.
- Is Papertrade custodial? Who holds your funds? No. Papertrade is listed as non-custodial: your funds stay in a wallet you control, not with the venue.
- What chains does Papertrade support? Papertrade supports one chain: Hyperliquid.
- Why can't I withdraw from Papertrade? Withdraw any time up to your available balance, meaning anything not committed as margin to an open position. Sign with your wallet and funds go to your address on Hyperliquid, or on to HyperEVM, Ethereum, Arbitrum or Solana. Papertrade documents 2 reasons a withdrawal can be delayed or held, listed below.
- Custody
- Self-custody
- KYC
- none
- Platforms
- web
- Launched
- 2026-10-10
Best for: Experienced traders outside the US who want very high leverage on BTC or ETH with no funding and no fee on losing trades, and who accept a young protocol with an unresolved price-manipulation risk.
Papertrade fees
| Fee | Type | Rate | Applies to | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Win haircut (asymmetric impact) | protocol | — | close | Applies only to winning closes. It scales the gain by the size of the price move, not the size of the position: a winning close never keeps more than 90% of its raw gain, a 1% BTC move keeps about 88% and a 0.1% move about 74%. Gains under 0.2 bps of price are zeroed. |
| Win fee | protocol | — | close | 2% of the gain left after the haircut. Losing closes and liquidations carry a 2% fee too, but it is taken from the pool's gain, not added to your loss. |
| Account activation | other | $1.00 | Buy and sell | One-time 1 USDC on the first deposit. Deposits from chains other than Hyperliquid also pay the bridge fee. |
Platform fees only. On-chain network/priority fees, pool (LP) fees and price impact are extra and vary by trade.
Full Papertrade fee breakdown →
Is Papertrade legit?
USDC balances sit on HyperCore at a deposit address unique to each user, and trading state lives in Papertrade's HyperEVM contracts. Withdrawals need your own wallet signature. Trades are signed by an app-created session key and submitted only through Papertrade's relayer, and the contract owner can upgrade contracts, add markets and tune fee parameters.
Incidents on record
- 2026-10-10: Launch-night price manipulation. Hours after launch, one wallet reportedly realized about $1.28M in net profit by opening large leveraged positions while trading on Hyperliquid to move the reference price. The team tightened open-interest caps in the contract and at the relayer, and said the launch caps had been set loosely on purpose. No pool loss figure was published. Papertrade's own docs list this kind of price manipulation as an unresolved risk. Source
The full "is Papertrade legit?" check →
Where Papertrade is available
| Region | Status |
|---|---|
| United States | Unverified |
| United Kingdom | Unverified |
| European Union | Unverified |
Papertrade had published no terms of use or list of restricted countries as of 2026-10-17, and its docs do not mention geographic restrictions. (source)
We report what the venue's own terms say. Don't use a VPN to get around restrictions; venues can freeze accounts that do.
Pros and cons
Pros
- No funding, spread, slippage or fee on position size; you get Hyperliquid's mid price at any size up to the open-interest caps.
- Losing trades pay nothing beyond the loss and mint PAPER, which can be staked for a share of protocol fees in USDC.
- Trades sign through a session key, so there is no wallet popup or gas per trade.
- Deposits from Hyperliquid credit within seconds; Ethereum, Arbitrum, Solana and Robinhood Chain are also supported.
- PAPER had no pre-mint, team, VC or airdrop allocation; every token is minted from traders' losses.
Cons
- Only BTC and ETH were listed as of 2026-10-17.
- Liquidation forfeits the whole position margin. At 1000x it fires after about a 0.052% move, when a manual close would still return nearly half the margin.
- Winning payouts can be delayed in a queue if the pool is short of USDC.
- The docs call price manipulation on Hyperliquid's order book an unresolved risk, and one wallet reportedly made about $1.28M from it on launch night.
- Margin can't be added to or removed from an open position.
Features
perps1000x leverageno fundingno slippagesession keysisolated marginstaking
Alternatives to Papertrade
Lighter
Non-US, non-UK retail perps traders who want zero trading fees and can accept slower taker execution than paid accounts.
0%Round trip
Paradex
Non-US traders who place orders manually through a web UI and want zero-fee perps plus options from one margin account.
0%Round trip
Ostium
Traders who want onchain leveraged exposure to stocks, forex, commodities and indices from a self-custodied wallet, outside the US.
0.06%Round trip
Aster
Non-US, non-UK traders who want zero maker fees on order-book perps, very high leverage modes, or privacy-shielded orders.
0.08%Round trip
All Papertrade alternatives compared →
Head to head
Papertrade in the news
- Launch Papertrade opens 1000x BTC and ETH perps on HyperEVM October 10, 2026
Papertrade FAQ
Is Papertrade legit?
Papertrade is a live onchain perps protocol on HyperEVM that opened trading on 2026-10-10, run by the semi-pseudonymous traders Jez and Blurr. Funds sit on HyperCore and withdrawals need your own wallet signature. Its docs flag price manipulation as an unresolved risk, and a launch-night manipulation episode reportedly netted one wallet about $1.28M before the team tightened limits.
What does Papertrade charge?
There is no fee on position size, no spread and no funding. Winning closes pay a haircut on the gain plus a 2% win fee. On BTC a 1% move keeps about 86% of the raw gain and a 0.1% move about 72%. Losing closes pay nothing beyond the loss.
What is the max leverage on Papertrade?
Up to 1000x on BTC and ETH, with up to $10M notional per position. Liquidation forfeits the full position margin, so at 1000x a move of about 0.05% against you liquidates the position.
What is the PAPER token?
PAPER is minted to traders on losing closes and liquidations, at 100 PAPER per $1 of loss while the pool is under $2M. Staked PAPER earns USDC from protocol fees. It can't be transferred between wallets at launch, and it had no pre-mint, team or VC allocation.
Sources
Last checked . Fees and terms change often; the venue's own page wins if it disagrees with ours.
- Papertrade Docs: What is Papertrade? — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: FAQ — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: Asymmetric impact PnL — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: Liquidations — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: Deposits and withdrawals — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: The LP and the payout queue — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: Risk — checked 2026-10-17
- Papertrade Docs: Builder codes — checked 2026-10-17
- Bankless: What to know about Papertrade's launch — checked 2026-10-17
- KuCoin: Papertrade tightens limits after price manipulation — checked 2026-10-17