Step-by-Step Guide
In this guide, we will show you how to create an account on LN Markets, make your first trades, and leverage LN Markets functionalities!
LN Markets is an alpha software under active development.
Please use with care, preferably on Testnetopen in new window or with small amounts.
LN Markets comes with no guarantees, use at your own risk.
Connection to LN Markets
On LN Marketsopen in new window, click on Register in the upper right hand corner:
There are various methods to connect to LN Markets:
- Sign in with Lightning wallet: instant with any wallet which supports lnurl-authopen in new window like Phoenixopen in new window, Breezopen in new window, etc. This is a seamless and efficient way to log in and trade on LN Markets: your wallet can sign a message with its Private Key. Hence, identification can be done just with your wallet’s Public Key and no other information is needed.
- Sign in with Credentials: you can create an account directly, entering your login and password.
You have the option to enter an email address for account recovery.
Sign in with Albyopen in new window and Jouleopen in new window: they are Bitcoin Lightning Browser extensions that connects to different wallet interfaces and brings deep lightning integration to the web.
Sign in with Ligthning Node Connectopen in new window: a protocol to safely and easily connect your node to a web or mobile application like LN Markets.
Fund your account
Click on the button Deposit on the lower left hand corner.
You can either deposit with a Lightning transaction or with a regular Bitcoin transaction
For a Lightning transaction, you can scan the QR Code with your wallet or copy the invoice and paste it to your wallet.
For an on-chain transaction, you can scan the QR Code with your wallet or copy and paste it to your wallet.
Your deposit is now confirmed and you can see it in your balance.
Futures Trading
The Futures price (in the upper bar) is the reference BTCUSD price.
The first contract we list is a CFD (Contract for Difference) on BTCUSD price with leverage up to x100.
LN Markets is the direct counterparty to all trades
To enter a position, you first have to define a side (buy or sell) and the order type: market order or limit order.
A market order is a buy or sell order to be executed immediately.
A limit order is an order to buy or sell at a specific price. A limit order is not guaranteed to execute and you can cancel this order at any time before it is executed.
Then, you can define your position with a parameter, either the quantity or the margin.
The quantity is the number of contracts you want to trade (1 contract = 1 USD). For a given quantity and leverage, margin and liquidation price are automatically computed.
The margin is the minimum amount to deposit in collateral to open a trade. It is equal to a margin computed for a given quantity and leverage plus a maintenance margin, which is the minimum amount to keep your position open (it includes closing fees).
The opening fee is deducted from the maintenance margin. This opening fee depends on the tier fee in which you belong. The more volume you trade, the lower the fee.
You can also add optional take profit and stop loss orders, to specify the exact BTC/USD prices at which to close out a running position for a profit or to limit losses.
You can see all your trades in the Open / Running / Closed blotters in the lower section:
If the Futures price falls below the liquidation level for long positions, or rises above the liquidation level for short positions, your position is liquidated.
You can close your position at any time, and you will receive P&L plus margin plus maintenance margin minus closing fee.
Go All In
For a given side (buy or sell), the All in button generates a market order which maximizes the leverage and use of margin available.
Edit a trade
For each position, you can add a Stop Loss and a Take Profit.
You can also take the following Actions: remove margin (-) to cash-in P&L, increase margin (+) to decrease the probability of a liquidation event and close the position.
And you can close each position imdividually or click on the Close All button.
You can find all your closed positions in the Closed blotter in the lower section.
Options Trading
We quote a Futures price (in the upper bar) and we are direct counterparty to all trades.
In the Options section, you can trade three types of Options on BTCUSD forward price: calls (options to buy), puts (options to sell) and straddles (combination of a call and a put for the same strike).
We want to demystify options trading and make them accessible to all. That’s why we have made the following choices:
- You can only buy options. If you’re a bull, buy calls. If you’re a bear, buy puts. If you expect volatility but are not sure of the direction, buy straddles.
- They are 24-hour options: they expire 1 day after opening the position (you can close them at any time before expiry).
- There are 3 strikes for calls (next thousand down and 2 next thousands up) and for puts (next thousand up and two next thousands down), and two strikes for straddles (the two common to calls and puts).
- As with futures you have to pay a margin to open the option contract. It is equal to the option premium plus a maintenance margin, which is the minimum amount to keep your position open (it includes closing fees).The opening fee is set to 5bp of the notional expressed in BTC at the strike level (like the closing fee).
- For the delivery at expiry, you can choose cash delivery (PL of the option) or physical delivery: you get a futures contract running for the given strike.
After confirming your order, the position is open and you can see it in the Running blotter in the lower section:
Swap
Click on Swap to easily convert your BTC balance to a synthetic USD balance and vice-versa. This enables you to better manage your risk.
When you swap your BTC balance for a synthetic USD balance, what happens under the hood is that you short a BTCUSD futures with a leverage equal to 1.
We don't apply carry fees for this service.
Withdraw funds to your wallet
Click on the button Withdraw on the lower left hand corner and choose the amount you want to deposit to your account.
If you have a Lightning wallet with LNURLopen in new window, you can just scan the QR code to receive the payment immediately. Else, you can just copy the invoice to your wallet.
Edit your account
Click on your Profile section on the top right-hand corner to check your dashboard, your wallet, edit your settings, and generate your API keys:
You can also see your history of deposits and withdrawals.
Use LN Markets API
The LN Markets API referenceopen in new window provides information on all available endpoints.
Here are two Python and JavaScript packages to easily interact with the API: