Choose the market and direction

The order builder puts the asset, long or short side, allocation, leverage, entry, stop and take profit in one view. Candles, the order book and the live position come from the venue, so your decision starts with the same market data the venue uses.

The account has no key

On GMX the trading account is the Arlo's own wallet contract, and nothing else signs for it. There is no session key and no agent wallet: orders leave only through the wallet contract's own screened routes, so there is nothing a person could sign with, which is the same absence that stops anyone moving the money out.

You trade in the venue's own interface

Markets, candles and open positions are read straight from the venue, unchanged and unstyled by us, because reads were never the thing being locked. Orders are the part that is different: they leave through the wallet contract, which refuses anything without a stop or beyond the available opening risk room before the venue ever sees it. Arlo's own strip sits around the venue's screen and holds the two things the venue cannot know: whose wallet this is, and how much of the cap is left.

The stop is a condition, not an order

Nothing rests on the venue's book waiting to fire. The stop each position declares is published by the contract, and once the price genuinely crosses it anyone can close the position on it. The contract verifies the crossing in the same transaction, so a position that is still fine cannot be closed by someone claiming otherwise.

A fee to open, and a fee to close

Charged on the size of the position, both times. It is the one cost a Trader can predict before they act, and the one most easily forgotten when sizing up: a position opened and closed pays it twice.

Price impact, which cuts both ways

A trade that pushes the venue further out of balance pays for doing so, and one that helps bring it back can be paid instead. It is charged the moment the position opens and again when it closes, and it grows faster than the position does, which is the same reason Protections gives for why an enormous book cannot be built here.

Borrowing, charged for every hour the position is open

Leverage is rented, not owned. This one accrues quietly against an open position whether the market moves or not, so a trade held for three weeks pays it for three weeks. On a thirty day term it is the cost most likely to be underestimated.

Funding, which may be paid or received

Longs and shorts pay each other depending on which side is crowded. A Trader on the unpopular side of a market can collect it. It is the only item here that can run in the Trader's favour, and it cannot be relied on to.

A gas cost to execute each order

GMX settles orders through keepers rather than instantly, and the keeper is paid to run them. It is small next to the others and it is charged per order, so it falls on how often a Trader trades rather than on how much they trade.

For the Trader, they sit on top of Arlo's fee

The Trader seat page states a break-even of +5.00% on the wallet. That figure is Arlo's $750 and nothing else. The venue's costs are charged on top of it, so the return a Trader actually needs to clear $10,750 is higher than +5.00%, and how much higher depends on how they trade rather than on anything we fix at formation. A Trader who opens and closes constantly pays far more of it than one who does not.

For the Backer, they are a slow drain on the same cushion

Nothing about your position changes: you are still paid $10,600 before the Trader takes anything, and the cascade still spends the Trader's money, then ours, then your bonus, before it reaches your capital. What venue costs do is push the wallet down toward $10,750 a little at a time, without the market having moved against anyone. They make a bad Arlo likelier. They do not change what you are owed or the order it is paid in.