In Part 2, we looked at how gTrade’s design translates into fairness, transparency, and a smoother trading experience.
Now, let’s get into the practical part, the stuff that actually defines your day-to-day experience. If the previous posts were about why gTrade is different, this one is about how it trades.
This is the reference guide for anyone using gTrade, either directly or through carrotfunding, to understand what’s happening under the hood when you hit that “Trade” button.
We already touched on this in Part 2, but since we want this series to be complete, let’s start here.
gTrade offers a wide range of markets: crypto, forex, commodities, indices, and major U.S. stocks. You’ll always find the most up-to-date tables of tradable assets on the site. The team regularly adds new markets, including exotics and volatility products (remember $BVIV and $EVIV from Part 2).
This is also where you’ll find Market Hours for each trading pair. Crypto trades 24/7, but traditional markets don’t. For forex, commodities, and stocks, trading hours still reflect real-world sessions. During weekends, holidays, and after-hours periods, conditions adjust, leverage and spreads tighten or expand to reflect liquidity.
This is an important detail for traders used to continuous crypto markets. In other words, if you’re trading GBP/USD or XAU/USD at 3 a.m. on Sunday, you might not get the same conditions you see mid-London session. Understanding these time-based nuances is key.
Now we’re getting to something every trader should be aware of. Leverage and spreads on gTrade aren’t static. They adjust dynamically around key events and liquidity shifts.
Here’s how it works:
Leverage is temporarily reduced and spreads are widened:
Check the live high-impact news calendar, you can also use any reputable trading calendar and filter for high-impact events. It’s worth bookmarking.
Same logic:
This mechanism mimics best practice for handling exposure around macro events. If you’ve ever traded through an NFP or CPI release, you know that “liquidity” can vanish in milliseconds. gTrade models that reality instead of pretending the risk isn’t there.
Fees are straightforward: they’re calculated on the total position size (collateral × leverage), not just your margin. In line with industry standards, the lifecycle of a trade includes:
Examples by asset class can be found here.
Please note that spreads and fees are set by Gains and are subject to change. For the latest fee schedule, check the documentation. You’ll see current values reflected directly in the front end.
When opening a trade, the Chainlink oracle returns a price, e.g., 3,003.19. The fixed spread is then applied (say 0.04%), so the open price becomes 3,004.39 before considering any dynamic spread.
Calculation: 3,003.19 + (3,003.19 * 0.04 / 100) = 3,004.39
Note: the spread differs per pair, smaller pairs with lower liquidity have a higher spread. It’s displayed on the front end next to Price in the Trade Parameters box.
If there’s an active open-interest imbalance, a dynamic spread is added. This depends on the size of your trade, current open interest, and the 1% depth from the most liquid exchanges for that pair.
Formula:Dynamic Spread (%) = (Open interest {long/short} + New trade position size / 2) / 1% depth {above/below}
Cryptocurrencies:
Dynamic spreads use the 1% depth in each direction (long: 1% depth above / short: 1% depth below) from Binance.
Example:
If ETH’s 1% depth is $8M, and current long OI is $100K, opening a $2,480 position adds roughly 0.0126% to the spread.
Borrowing fees are applied while trades are open. Open trades on the dominant side are treated as vault borrowers. The fee is determined by a pair’s (or its group’s) net OI relative to overall vault TVL, pairs with more lopsided OI will charge more than balanced pairs.
The fee is charged per block on a trade’s total position size.
effectiveOi is calculated by the delta between long and short sides, then clamped using minP and maxP to set a floor and ceiling, ensuring a minimum fee is always paid and the fee is never excessive. An exponent maintains an exponential relationship between the borrowing fee and current market conditions.
Traditionally, the funding rate keeps perpetual futures near spot by shifting payments between longs and shorts based on price deviation:
Funding Rate = (Perp Price – Index Price) / Index Price
If the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts; below spot, shorts pay longs.
On gTrade, the model is open-interest based, not price-based:
Funding Rate = Base Rate × (OI_long – OI_short) / Vault TVL
OI_long / OI_short: total long/short exposureVault TVL: vault liquidity backing tradesBase Rate: small constant defining sensitivityThe side with higher exposure pays the other. The velocity model (v10) smooths adjustments as market imbalance changes. All data, open interest, rates, and vault utilization are visible on-chain and in your frontend, making funding dynamic, transparent, and self-balancing.
Your liquidation price is dynamic and can move slightly closer over time as borrowing fees accumulate.
Example:
Long BTC/USD at $20,000, 100x leverage, $50 collateral, $17 combined fees → liquidation around $19,888.
Liquidation thresholds vary by asset class and leverage, crypto and commodities carry higher risk, so thresholds are tighter. You can find an up-to-date liquidation thresholds table here.
Liquidations rely on oracle prices, preserving the protocol’s reputation for trader-friendly thresholds and medianized pricing where it matters.
Let’s say ETH/USD went up 1% from the open price, and we close the trade at 3,033.6. The pending PnL is 1% of 2,480 (our leveraged collateral) = 24.85 DAI.
Closing fee is applied on the initial position size (without PnL):2,485 * (0.06/100) = 1.988 DAI
PNL after closing fee: 24.85 – 1.988 = 22.862 DAI
Subtract 0.5 DAI of borrowing fees: 22.362 DAI final PnL
Payout: you receive 270.862 DAI (248.5 DAI collateral + 22.362 DAI PnL) to your wallet after closing.
Here’s where it gets interesting, OI limits are one of those behind-the-scenes parameters that most traders ignore… until they matter.
Every trading pair on gTrade, like BTC or ETH, has a maximum open interest limit, basically, a cap on the total size of all open positions across the platform. Think of it as the protocol’s built-in risk control.
Why does this matter for you as a trader? Because OI limits define how deep the market really is. If a pair hits its cap (say, $17.8M on BTC or ETH), you might see order rejections or delayed fills on new positions. It’s not a bug, it’s the system keeping leverage and exposure sustainable.
In practice, these limits keep gTrade’s trading environment realistic and capital-efficient, so your trades aren’t being subsidized by unsustainable leverage.
Knowing these parameters lets you plan your trades better, understand your risk, and operate under conditions that mirror real markets.
And for carrotfunding traders, this is where everything comes full circle: you’re being evaluated under the same mechanics that drive real execution, real liquidity, and real market behavior and this is how transparent trader funding should look.
Stay tuned for our final post, where we’ll zoom out and look at the big picture, how all of this ties together, and how we’re building something genuinely new and exciting with gTrade, where the trader comes first.
Buy a carrotfunding.io evaluation or join our early community on Discord.
