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On gains.trade you take a position on a price going up or down, with leverage, on crypto, forex, commodities, stocks and indices. You trade from your own wallet: there is no account to open and nothing to hand over to Gains. Your money stays in your wallet until you open a trade, and comes back to it when you close. This page takes you through a first trade, from logging in to closing it. The screenshots follow one example, a 100 USDC trade at 5x on BTC/USD, and their figures are examples. Prefer to watch first? This video runs through the same steps in a minute and a half.

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Five words to know first

With a 100 USDC long at 5x on BTC/USD, before fees: A short is the mirror image: it gains when BTC falls, and is liquidated if BTC rises about 18%.
Start with low leverage and a stop loss. You can always take more risk later, but a liquidation cannot be undone.

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1. Log in

Click Login in the top right corner, and pick one of the two options:
  • Instant wallet, tagged Fastest: log in with Google or an email address. A wallet is created for you, Gains pays the network fees (gas), and no wallet window asks you to confirm each order. The simplest choice if you do not have a crypto wallet yet. You can also log in there with a wallet you already use: the gas is still covered, but that wallet asks you to confirm each action. See Gasless trading.
  • Your wallet: connect MetaMask, Rabby or another wallet you already use. You confirm each transaction in it and pay the gas yourself, in ETH on Arbitrum. Switch the wallet to the Arbitrum network: until you do, the panel reads Select Arbitrum Network.
The Login to Gains window with two options: Instant wallet, tagged Fastest, and Your wallet.
Either way the wallet is yours: Gains does not hold your keys and cannot move your funds.

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2. Add USDC

You trade with USDC on Arbitrum, the network the app opens on. Click Deposit in the top bar, or Get Funds at the bottom of the trading panel. Both open the same window:
  • Bridge / Swap turns crypto already in your wallet, on another network or in another token, into USDC on Arbitrum.
  • Deposit buys it with a card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or a bank transfer. Where card purchase is not available, this tile shows your address to send USDC to instead.
The Get Funds window with three options: Bridge / Swap, Deposit (buy crypto with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or bank transfer), and Wrap / Unwrap.

The Get Funds window.

You can also send USDC from an exchange or another wallet: click your address in the top right corner, then its copy button. With an instant wallet, this is also how you bring in crypto you hold in another wallet.
Sending from an exchange? On its withdrawal page, pick USDC and the Arbitrum One network. USDC sent on another network does not show up in your balance on Gains.
With your own wallet, also keep a little ETH on Arbitrum for the gas. Your USDC balance shows in the trading panel, on the row of Market, Limit and Stop.

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3. Pick a market

The app opens on BTC/USD. To trade something else, click the pair name above the chart, then search for it or browse by category. Crypto trades around the clock. Forex, stocks, indices and commodities follow their market hours: outside them the panel reads The market is currently closed. A position you hold stays open while its market is closed, and nothing executes until it reopens, when the price can jump past your stop loss.

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4. Set up the trade

In the trading panel, from top to bottom:
  1. Long or Short.
  2. Leverage: click the bar under Long and Short to change it. It starts at 5x, moved into the market’s allowed range (forex starts at 10x). It keeps its value when you switch market, so check it before each trade.
  3. Market, to open now at the current price.
  4. Position size: the size of the trade. Click the token next to the number to type it in USDC rather than in the token. Your collateral is the position size divided by the leverage.
  5. Stop Loss / Take Profit: open this row and pick a level. A stop loss is an order to close the trade at a loss you choose, a take profit at a gain you choose. The presets are a share of your collateral.
Then read the summary under the button: Liq. Price is the price that would liquidate the trade, Collateral what you put in, Fees what opening costs.
The trading panel: Long, 5x, Market, a balance of 250 USDC, a position size of 500 USDC, a stop loss at -25% (-25 USDC) and a take profit at 50% (+50 USDC), the Market Long button, then the summary: Order ready, estimated execution price, liquidation price, position size in BTC, collateral 0 to 100 USDC, max slippage 1%, price impact and fees of 0.18 USDC.

A 500 USDC long at 5x: 100 USDC of collateral out of a 250 USDC balance, a stop loss at -25% and a take profit at +50% of the collateral.

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5. Open it

The first time, the button reads Approve. Click it to let Gains use your USDC; you do it once. With your own wallet, confirm it in the wallet. Then the button reads your order, here Market Long. Click it: a window sums the trade up. Check it and click Confirm. With your own wallet, confirm in the wallet too.
The order window for a BTC/USD long: collateral 100 USDC, leverage 5x, position size 500 USDC, estimated open price, max slippage 1%, price impact, liquidation price, stop loss, take profit and fees of 0.18 USDC, a Do not show trade confirmations switch, then a Confirm button.

The order window.

A notification follows the order: Pending Transaction, Market Open Initiated, then Market Open Executed. The trade does not open the instant you click: your order goes on chain first, then an oracle network fetches the price, and the trade opens at that price. See How orders execute.

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6. Follow your position

Your trade appears under Positions, below the chart.
The Positions tab with one row: BTC/USD 5x long, 500 USDC, 100 USDC of collateral, the open price, the current and liquidation prices, the stop loss and take profit, the holding fees and their hourly rate, the unrealized PnL, then a Close button.

The example trade under Positions.

  • Current/Liq. Price: the price now, and the price that would liquidate the trade. The liquidation price moves closer as holding fees add up.
  • SL/TP: your stop loss and take profit. Click them to change them.
  • Holding: the holding fees so far and their rate per hour, in green when you earn them rather than pay them.
  • uPnL: the price move so far, before fees. The close window shows what you would actually get.

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7. Close it

Click Close on the row. The window that opens is set to close the whole position. Check Receive, what comes back to your wallet, and click Close Trade.
The Edit Position Size window on Decrease, with 100% of the position selected, the net PnL, the liquidation price, a Details toggle, Receive 99.60 USDC and a Close Trade button.

Closing the whole position.

In the example the price has barely moved, so the Net PnL is the fees: a trade closed right after it opens gives back a little less than its collateral. If you turned on Do not show trade confirmations in the order window, Close closes the whole position at once, without this window. The USDC goes back to your wallet and the trade moves to History. To move USDC out of an instant wallet, click your address in the top right corner, then Withdraw.

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What a trade costs

  • Opening and closing fees, a small share of the position size, with a small minimum. The panel shows the opening fee before you trade.
  • Spread and price impact, already in the execution price the panel estimates.
  • Holding fees, for every hour the position stays open.
  • Gas, the network fee: covered by Gains with an instant wallet, paid in ETH with your own wallet.
The details per market are in Fees & Spread.

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If something does not work

Gains needs your permission to use a collateral, once. Click Approve, and with your own wallet confirm it there. The button then shows your order.
Your wallet holds less USDC on Arbitrum than the trade needs. Lower the position size, or add USDC through Deposit.
A market order is canceled if the price moves further than your Max Slippage (1% by default, in the summary) before it executes. The USDC comes back to your wallet on its own, less a small fee. If the oracle network does not answer in about a minute, the app shows Open Market Timeout with a Claim Collateral button: click it to get your USDC back before you try again.
No. A trade can never cost you more than the collateral you put in it. A liquidation takes all of it, which is why a stop loss, closing the trade before the liquidation price, is worth setting.

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Next

Opening and closing trades

The full guide: limit and stop orders, editing a position, partial closes.

Practice Mode

Trade with test USDC from your own wallet, no real money.

Fees & Spread

Every fee, per market.

FAQ

Answers to common questions.