How to start trading on Decibel

1. Create an account

1. Connect an EVM wallet (MetaMask, OKX, Ledger), a Solana wallet (Phantom, Solflare), a Sui wallet, or an Aptos wallet (Petra, Aptos Connect). Decibel runs on Aptos, but you do not need to know Aptos to use it. source ↗
2. The Terms require you to be at least 18 and not a resident of the United States or Ontario, Canada. Using a VPN to get around these restrictions is prohibited. source ↗

2. Deposit collateral

1. Click Deposit and select the chain your USDC is on: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Solana, Sui or Aptos. Decibel bridges it automatically with Wormhole and Circle's CCTP, so you do not bridge manually. source ↗
2. You can also fund the account straight from a connected centralized-exchange account inside the deposit flow. source ↗
3. There are no protocol fees on deposits or withdrawals, and Decibel pays the network gas for app transactions, so you do not need APT. Some wallets, such as Petra Vault and some MPC wallets, pay their own gas. source ↗
4. USDC is the main collateral and counts at full value. DLP vault shares count at 90%, but only after you turn on Enable as Collateral in the Collateral tab. source ↗

3. Open your first position

1. Orders can be limit or market, with GTC, Post-Only and IOC options. Take-profit/stop-loss, reduce-only and TWAP are available on perps only. source ↗
2. Perps go up to 50x leverage and use cross margin by default. source ↗
3. Initial margin is 1 divided by your chosen leverage, so a $10,000 position at 10x needs $1,000. You can switch a market to isolated margin in account settings before opening the position, and some markets are isolated-only. source ↗
4. Perp fees start at 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker, charged in USDC, and fall as your 30-day volume grows. A third-party app or bot may add its own Builder Code fee. source ↗

4. Know how liquidation works

1. Liquidation starts when account equity (collateral plus unrealized PnL, including accrued funding) falls below maintenance margin. The system first sends IOC margin-call orders to the order book and charges a per-market margin-call fee. source ↗
2. If equity drops below two-thirds of maintenance margin, the whole account is transferred to the backstop liquidator vault. source ↗
3. Maintenance margin is 1 divided by twice the market's maximum leverage, for example 1.25% on a 40x market. source ↗
4. Markets currently show hourly funding. Accrued funding sits in your unrealized PnL, so paying high funding moves you closer to liquidation even if the price does not move. source ↗

5. Withdraw

1. Withdrawals send USDC back to the chain your wallet is connected to, with no protocol fee. source ↗
2. You can withdraw only collateral not needed for open positions: collateral minus initial margin minus unrealized losses. Unrealized profits do not increase the withdrawable amount. source ↗

6. Common mistakes

1. Spot and perp markets for the same asset are separate, with separate order books. Buying BTC on spot does not change a BTC perp position. source ↗
2. A per-market PnL haircut means large unrealized gains on volatile markets add less to your tradeable balance. source ↗
3. Circuit breakers can pause matching and withdrawals when oracle prices deviate sharply. source ↗
4. DLP shares still inside the vault's lockup cannot be used as collateral, and a DLP deposit that would exceed the collateral cap is rejected. source ↗

Before you trade

Perpetual futures use leverage: a small price move against you can liquidate your collateral. Start with a small amount and low leverage, and read the venue’s current fee and margin pages, which can change after this guide was checked.