What a copy is
A trading card is not a trade. It is a rule: a symbol, two venues, an open and a close threshold, a size ladder, stops. Copy trading mirrors the rule and its lifecycle, not the lead's fills — your own server watches its own order books and decides every entry itself.
Copied from the lead
- Symbol, venues, side and hold mode
- Open and close thresholds, delays, the ladder's shape
- The lifecycle — publish, edit, pause, exit
Yours alone
- Your API keys and your fee tier
- Order size and leverage, refit to your account
- Slippage alerts and liquidation protection
A copy never enters at a spread worse than the lead's own rule allows. It runs the same rule against the books your server sees — no forwarded fills, no prices from the lead's account.
One rule, two accounts
What a copy takes from the lead's card, and what stays yours
- Pair
- BTCUSDT · Binance ⇄ Bybit
- Open
- 0.45%
- Close
- 0.10%
- Size ladder
- $500 × 4
- Force Stop
- $120
- Leverage
- 5×
- Pair
- BTCUSDT · Binance ⇄ Bybit
- Open
- +0.02 0.47%
- Close
- 0.10%
- Size ladder
- $200 × 4
- Force Stop
- × 0.4 $48
- Leverage
- 3×
Stops scale with the position — $120 on $2,000 is 6%, and so is $48 on $800. The ladder keeps its shape at your size.
How your settings translate
You choose how much, the rule decides everything else. Three fields on the follow form refit the lead's card to your account; the rest of the card carries over unchanged.
A fixed amount per sub-order, or a multiplier of the lead's. The ladder's shape — how many orders, how they step — stays the lead's.
A ceiling, never a boost: the copy takes the lead's leverage, clamped by your ceiling and the venue's maximum. Zero means no ceiling of your own.
A cap on the combined maximum position of your live copies. A copy that would cross it is refused until another copy ends. Zero means off.
| Setting | Default | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size per order | — | $5–$1,000,000 · ×0.1–3 | A fixed amount per sub-order, or a multiplier of the lead's. The ladder's shape — how many orders, how they step — stays the lead's. |
| Leverage ceiling | 0 (off) | 0–5000 | A ceiling, never a boost: the copy takes the lead's leverage, clamped by your ceiling and the venue's maximum. Zero means no ceiling of your own. |
| Total exposure cap | 0 (off) | $0–$100,000,000 | A cap on the combined maximum position of your live copies. A copy that would cross it is refused until another copy ends. Zero means off. |
The lead's dollar stops are rescaled by your position ratio, so a stop stays the same percentage of the position: a $120 force stop on the lead's $2,000 becomes $48 on your $800.
Why you take fewer trades than the lead
Every copy opens at the lead's threshold plus a small platform-set offset, after a short per-copy delay. A spread widens into an entry, so a higher threshold is simply hit later: the lead is served first, and a crowd of copies never slams one thin book together.
copy open = lead open + offset- offset
- Platform-set, +0.02 percentage points by default. Auto-spread cards compute their own thresholds and take no offset.
The close threshold carries no offset — a copy exits on the same line as the lead. The per-copy delay, up to 400 ms and fixed per copy, stretches the card's signal-hold window on top.
That is by design. Copies firing at the lead's own line would take the very depth the lead's fill needs — your copy waits for a wider spread instead: a later entry, not a worse one. When the swell dies at the lead's level, no copy fires.
The life of a copy
Follow while the lead is mid-ladder and your copy arms, then waits. It opens on the rule's next entry from flat — it does not buy into the lead's old price.
One case is yours to decide on the follow form: the lead has exited — or sat in error for an hour — while your copy still holds a position.
Wait for my close signal
Default- The copy stays in exit mode and leaves when its own close threshold is hit
- The same spread discipline on the way out as on the way in
Close at market
- Both legs close at market as soon as the lead is out
- Costs the exit spread, but you are never holding what the lead has left
Unfollow, and open copies leave on their own close signal, whatever you chose above — except a hold-mode copy, which has no close signal and closes at market. Pause, or stop a single copy by hand, and nothing exits at all: entries stop, the position stays yours to manage.
When a card cannot be copied
Some of the lead's cards will not copy, and the follow page says so before you subscribe: every refusal is named, with whether it clears itself or waits for you. The common ones:
No key on a venue
The card trades somewhere you hold no API key. Add the key and the copy appears on its own — nothing else clears this one.
Card limit reached
Your plan's card limit is full. The copy is created as soon as room frees up — the follow keeps trying on its own.
Symbol conflict
You already trade the same symbol on the same venues. Your own card wins; the copy waits until it is gone.
Below the venue minimum
Your size is rounded up to the venue's minimum and tagged nearest size. A refusal only comes when the minimum is more than twice what you asked for.
The lead's card is full
Each lead card takes a limited number of copies — 20 by default. Clears itself the moment a follower leaves.
Daily loss limit reached
Your own brake, read back as a refusal: no new entries today, positions kept, gone at the next UTC day.
A follow that has copied nothing for 14 days — the default window — because every published card sits behind a refusal that will not clear on its own is ended, with a notification. Following again later is one click.
Your brakes
Following someone does not outsource the risk. Three brakes stay in your hands, and none of them needs anything from the lead — they act on your copies, on your server.
Inherited from the lead's card at your scale and watched per copy, open positions included. The same hard flatten as on your own cards.
Losses across the whole follow, counted on closed trades. Trips once and stays tripped until you re-arm it; you choose in advance whether it closes everything or lets copies leave on their own signals.
Closed-trade losses since midnight UTC. Copies stop opening, positions are kept, and the limit clears at the next UTC day.
| Setting | Default | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Force Stop | — | — | Inherited from the lead's card at your scale and watched per copy, open positions included. The same hard flatten as on your own cards. |
| Stop copying if I lose | 0 (off) | ≥ 0 | Losses across the whole follow, counted on closed trades. Trips once and stays tripped until you re-arm it; you choose in advance whether it closes everything or lets copies leave on their own signals. |
| Daily loss limit | 0 (off) | ≥ 0 | Closed-trade losses since midnight UTC. Copies stop opening, positions are kept, and the limit clears at the next UTC day. |
The two follow-level brakes read realized PnL — a position that is merely under water does not trip them. Open positions are the force stop's job.
What the lead earns — and sees
What you pay
- Exactly what you would pay trading alone: the platform commission on your profitable weeks
- No copy surcharge, no markup, nothing on losing weeks
What the lead earns
- A share of that commission — 10% by default — carved out of the platform's cut, not added to yours
- Only from weeks where their cards made you money
The lead's console shows follower counts, copied notional and refusal tallies — never a name, never a balance. Even removing a follower points at an opaque id.