Getting started

You know what the index is and how the market stays tied to it, and you want to open a position. This page takes you from nothing to that position: a wallet, dollars on the right chain, a deposit, a market, an order, and the view where you follow the position afterward.

A wallet

The DEX is self-custody, so your account is your wallet, not a login we hold for you. Most Solana wallets work, whether a browser extension, a mobile wallet, or a hardware wallet paired with either. The connect window lists the supported ones.

Connect it from the DEX. There are no network settings to configure: the DEX runs on Solana only, and the wallet you connect is the account you trade from. Quanta never takes custody of your funds, just as it never takes custody of a card.

USDC on Solana

To deposit, you need USDC, a dollar stablecoin, in your own wallet on Solana. USDC is also the unit the trading account keeps its books in: margin, profit and loss, fees and funding are all counted and settled in it. What you deposit is what you trade with, with no conversion in between.

Deposits come from the wallet you connect, in USDC on Solana. Funds on another chain, on an exchange or in a different wallet need to arrive in that wallet as USDC on Solana first. If you already hold a dollar stablecoin elsewhere, move it with the exchange or bridge you normally use (a bridge is a service that moves tokens from one chain to another) and send it to your Solana address as USDC. If you are new to crypto, buy USDC on an exchange available in your country and withdraw it to your Solana wallet.

On Solana, every transaction you send pays its network fee in SOL, the network's native token. Keep a little SOL next to your USDC for deposits. Withdrawals need none, because a withdrawal is a message your wallet signs rather than a transaction it sends.

Deposit

The trading account holds your margin while you trade. A deposit moves USDC from your connected wallet into it, and your wallet asks for a single confirmation, the deposit itself, with no separate approval step. It is an on-chain transaction paid in SOL, covering its network fee and the fee for the message that delivers the deposit to the trading infrastructure; the form shows an estimate before you confirm. The account stays in self-custody: funds settle on-chain, remain under your wallet's control, and can be withdrawn at any time. While a position is open, the amount you can withdraw is the balance not currently assigned as its margin.

Pick a market

The board at tradequanta.xyz shows all 44 collectible indexes (The index family). The first tradable market is PKMN, graded Pokémon, at /trade/PKMN.

Route	What is there
https://tradequanta.xyz	The index board: 44 collectible indexes with their levels and history
/trade/PKMN	The PKMN market: chart, index and mark price, funding, order form, positions

Before you size anything, check three numbers on the market page. The index price is the Quanta index level, delivered by our oracle at least once per second. The mark price is what your position is valued and liquidated against; the matching engine clamps it inside a narrow band around the index, so it stays close to it (Index price, mark price, last price). The funding rate, current and predicted, tells you which side is paying the other right now; on a collectors' market it often runs positive for long stretches, which means longs pay shorts (Funding). A mark price above the index together with positive funding points to a crowded long. Treat that as information, not as a reason to trade.

Place an order

The order form asks for four inputs: direction, size, leverage and margin. Direction is your view on the category, long or short. Size is the exposure you want, in USDC. Leverage, up to 20x, sets how much of that exposure your margin carries. Margin is the amount you assign to this one position, also in USDC, and since margin is isolated, it is also the cap on what this position can lose (Margin, leverage and liquidation).

Next, choose how to enter. A limit order rests on the book at a price you set and fills when someone meets it. A market order takes the best price available right now. Every new market opens with limit orders only and enables market orders once liquidity is proven continuous on both sides (Market safeguards), so every early trade happens at a price someone chose in advance.

Taker and maker fees apply at the rates shown on the market page (Fees). Funding is separate and is not a fee.

Manage the position

When the order fills, the position appears under the chart, alongside every other position you hold across markets and your trading account balance. For each one you see the margin assigned, the unrealized profit or loss at the current mark price, the funding accrued since you opened (paid or received), and the liquidation price: the mark price at which the position's margin would no longer meet the maintenance requirement and the engine would close it. The number to watch is the distance between the mark price and that level, not the last trade.

You can close a position fully or reduce part of it at any time with an order in the opposite direction. If a market switches to reduce-only because one of its health conditions fails, closing keeps working and only new risk is paused (Market safeguards). Realized profit and loss settles to your trading account in USDC, and a withdrawal pays it out to your wallet as USDC on Solana, minus the trading infrastructure's withdrawal fee, which the withdrawal form shows before you sign.

Where to get help

The Glossary defines every term used in these docs. The FAQ covers what first-time traders ask most. For what a perpetual is and how long and short positions behave, go back to Perpetuals, explained for collectors.

Sources for this page are listed in Sources.