Overview
- Papertrade opened trading on Oct. 10, 2026 and recorded roughly $14.4 billion in notional volume and multi‑billion dollar open interest within minutes, with Bitcoin and Ether positions near $3 billion and $2.66 billion respectively.
- The exchange offers up to 1,000x leverage on synthetic perpetual contracts that use the midpoint of Hyperliquid’s best bid and offer for pricing rather than matching orders on Hyperliquid’s book.
- Every trade is settled against a protocol‑owned house pool that started with no capital and is designed to grow from realized trader losses, which means winners may enter a payout queue if the pool lacks funds.
- PAPER tokens begin with zero supply and mint from realized losses at a high initial rate while the pool is small, but transfers are disabled at launch so minted tokens can only be staked for pool rewards.
- Because notional figures reflect extreme leverage, the platform’s large reported volume does not equal available cash to pay winners, and the model ties settlement risk to Hyperliquid price feeds and unresolved U.S. regulatory questions.