getting-started

Your first Paper Trading session (7-day live test)

Run a saved strategy against real candles with virtual capital — no real money at risk

15 min setup + 7 days observation · beginner

What you'll have when finished

  • Have one paper session running against live candles for 7 days
  • Know what GOOD vs BAD paper results look like
  • Be confident enough to promote the strategy to a real bot, or scrap it

Before you start

  • Sessions persist server-side — closing the browser does NOT pause them. Use Pause explicitly if you want to freeze a session
  • Cap is 3 concurrent sessions. Pick your tests deliberately
  • 7 days is the bare minimum. 14-30 days is more honest. Strategies that print for 3 days then collapse are common

Walkthrough

  1. Confirm you have a saved strategy + connected exchange

    Open Strategy Builder → My Strategies. You need at least 1 saved strategy. Open Settings → Connections. You need at least 1 connected exchange (read-only API scope is enough — paper trading never places real orders). The Paper Trading page shows banner warnings if either is missing.

    Success criteria: You see at least one strategy in My Strategies AND at least one connected exchange in Settings → Connections

  2. Open Paper Trading and click New session

    CEX Trade → Paper Trading. Top-right amber "New session" button. Opens the create modal. The button is disabled if any prerequisite is missing — the page header tells you which one.

    Success criteria: Create Session modal is open showing Strategy / Exchange / Pair / Capital fields

  3. Configure: ETH/USDT, Coinbase or Binance US, $10,000

    Strategy = pick the one you saved. Exchange = your connected one. Pair = ETH/USDT (or ETH/USD on Coinbase — type "ETH" in the search box to filter). Initial capital = 10000. Timeframe is locked at 1h. Click Create.

    Success criteria: A new card appears in the sessions grid with RUNNING status

  4. Wait 5-10 minutes for the first tick

    The worker evaluates each session every 5 minutes against the latest 1h candle. The Last tick timestamp on the card updates after each evaluation. First fill — if your strategy fires immediately — happens within 5-10 minutes. If you see no trades after 30 minutes, your strategy conditions just haven't triggered on the current market.

    Success criteria: Last tick timestamp on the card is recent (< 10 minutes old)

  5. Walk away for 7 days

    Sessions run on the server. Close the browser, log out, restart your computer — the worker keeps ticking every 5 minutes. Come back in a day, in a week, whenever. Equity, trade count, and win rate accumulate automatically. Do NOT add more sessions hoping for faster signal — let one session run honestly.

    Success criteria: 7 days have passed since session start AND the session still shows RUNNING (or PAUSED if you paused it deliberately)

  6. Read the result after 7+ days

    GOOD: 30+ trades, positive return, drawdown under 15%, win rate 40%+ with average win > average loss. BAD: under 10 trades (strategy too restrictive — broaden conditions), drawdown over 25%, all losses cluster in one window (strategy is regime-dependent — wrap in Conditional Bot). MIXED: positive but only 12-15 trades = honest signal but tighter than expected.

    Success criteria: You can articulate why the strategy passes, fails, or needs more time

  7. Promote to live OR scrap

    Promote: same strategyId assigned to a real bot in CEX Trading → Bots. Start with the SMALLEST viable position size for another 30 days. Scrap: Stop the session (preserves history for reference), go back to Strategy Builder, tweak conditions, save as a new strategy, repeat this guide.

    Success criteria: You have either a live bot running the validated strategy OR a clear list of what to fix in the next strategy iteration

What's next

You have one strategy with a 7-day live track record. Next: run the SAME strategy on 2-3 different pairs (BTC/USDT, ETH/USDT, SOL/USDT) in parallel paper sessions. Strategies that work across all three are robust; strategies that only work on one pair may be over-fit to that pair's recent regime.