How to start trading on Phoenix Perps

1. Create an account

1. Phoenix is a perps exchange on Solana at phoenix.trade. Its terms exclude residents and citizens of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and of sanctioned territories. source ↗
2. Select Start Trading, then log in with Google or email; Phoenix creates a wallet for you through Privy, so no extension is needed. Or install a Solana wallet such as Solflare, Phantom or Backpack, select Connect new wallet and choose it. source ↗

2. Deposit collateral

1. Buy USDC on an exchange and withdraw it to the wallet address shown in the Phoenix account menu, choosing Solana as the network. Then select Deposit in Phoenix, enter the amount, select Submit Deposit and confirm. source ↗
2. Native SOL can also be used as collateral, counted at up to 80% of its value toward margin. PnL, funding and fees always settle in USDC, and Phoenix may limit or pause SOL deposits. source ↗
3. From Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum or HyperEVM, the deposit screen routes funds through Relay, which swaps and bridges them to Solana USDC. The credited amount can differ slightly from the quote if gas prices change. source ↗

3. Open your first position

1. Select the market, choose Market or Limit, choose Long/Buy or Short/Sell and enter the size (plus a limit price for a limit order). Review the details, select Place Order and confirm. source ↗
2. Turn on the TP/SL toggle in the order form to attach a take-profit and stop-loss, set by price, percentage or dollar amount. You can also add them later from the positions table or the chart. source ↗
3. Your main account is a cross account with shared collateral. An isolated position gets its own subaccount and liquidation boundary, funded from the cross account. source ↗
4. Some commodity and stock markets, such as GOLD, SILVER, AAPL and NVDA, are isolated-margin only. source ↗

4. Know how liquidation works

1. Accounts move through risk tiers as effective collateral falls. Between maintenance and cancel margin, risk-increasing limit orders can be cancelled; below maintenance margin, positions can be liquidated through the market, then by a backstop account, and as a last resort by ADL. source ↗
2. Mark price drives PnL and liquidation. It is the median of an adjusted oracle price, the Phoenix book price, and a weighted median of perp prices on major external exchanges. source ↗
3. The liquidation price shown is an estimate. In cross margin it can move without you trading that market, because of mark price changes, funding, other positions or changes to leverage tiers. source ↗

5. Withdraw

1. Withdraw USDC or SOL from the Phoenix app. The app charges a flat 0.50 USDC per USDC withdrawal; SOL withdrawals have no fee but must leave the account at or above its initial margin requirement. source ↗
2. An exchange-wide withdrawal queue limits outflows. If the queue is busy, your USDC withdrawal waits in line, is never partly filled, and can be dropped if you no longer have enough withdrawable collateral when it reaches the front. source ↗
3. If a realized loss leaves your cross account's USDC balance negative, both USDC and SOL withdrawals are blocked until you deposit USDC or sell SOL collateral. source ↗

6. Common mistakes

1. TP/SL trigger on the mark price. A triggered market TP/SL is all-or-none with default slippage limits of 0.25% for take-profit and 10% for stop-loss, which you can change in settings. source ↗
2. Flipping a position (closing and opening the other side) cancels all TP/SL on that market; you have to set them again. source ↗
3. If you use SOL collateral and your USDC balance goes deep enough into debt, Phoenix can automatically sell some SOL for USDC. source ↗
4. Funding builds up from hourly snapshots and settles every 24 hours, but unsettled funding already counts toward account health. 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.