Direction, amount, term, and leverage

The ticket has four controls. Together they describe a position. Everything else on the ticket is calculated from them.

Direction

Long pays if the settlement price is above your target. Short pays if it is below.

That is the whole decision. You pay for the right to be paid if the price finishes on your side of a line, with no borrowing and no margin. Both directions are paid for in USDG and pay out in USDG.

Amount

The USDG you are willing to spend on the position:

It sets your position size together with leverage.
It is the most you can lose. Nothing is ever taken from you after this.
It is paid once, at open. There is no funding while you hold, and no fee when the position settles.

At launch the amount is between $10 and $10,000 per position. A single position also cannot be more than a small share of the pool, and the ticket tells you if you are over it.

You are charged exactly the amount you enter, fee included. The ticket shows it as Max loss.

Term

How long until the position settles: 1, 3, 7, or 30 days. The ticket shows the exact date and hour, because settlement lands on a fixed schedule rather than exactly one day from the moment you click.

Term changes the trade in three ways:

More time costs more. For the same amount and leverage, a longer term pushes your Profit above price further from today's price, because each unit of exposure is more expensive when it has longer to work.
More time to be right. A 7-day position survives two days of going the wrong way. A 1-day position does not get that chance.
More room to run. The price at which the payout stops growing sits further away on a longer term, so the Max payout is larger.

There is no way to close before the term ends. Pick a term you are happy to wait out.

Leverage

5x, 10x, 25x, 50x, or 100x. Leverage sets how much a move pays. Enter $500 at 25x and you hold a position of at least $12,500, so every 1% past your target is worth at least $125. Lower the leverage and each 1% is worth less.

Higher leverage also means higher risk. Your Worthless at or below price moves closer to today's price, so a smaller move against you leaves the position with nothing, and your Profit above price usually sits a little further away. What leverage means here shows every tier side by side.

Leverage does not create a liquidation price. A 25x position that goes the wrong way for six days and comes back on the seventh pays out in full.

How the four fit together

You change	Position size	Worthless price	Profit price	Payout per 1% move past target	Max payout
Larger amount	Bigger	Same	Same	Bigger	Bigger
Longer term	Same	Closer to today's price or the same	Further away	Same	Bigger
Higher leverage	Bigger	Closer to today's price	Usually a little further away	Bigger	Bigger

One rule of thumb covers most of it. Every 1% the price settles past your worthless price is worth leverage percent of your amount, until the payout reaches its maximum. At 25x, each 1% is 25% of your amount. At 5x, each 1% is 5%.