Papertrade Draws Reported $3 Billion in Positions in First Hour

Papertrade drew a report of roughly $3 billion in open interest within its first hour of trading on Oct. 10, bringing leveraged positions to its HyperEVM exchange where traders’ losses fund payments to winners. Josh Ong reported the figure at 10:51 a.m. ET, following the venue’s scheduled 10 a.m. opening. The total remains a reported figure, rather than an independently verified onchain measurement.

DefiLlama recorded $137.1 million in total value locked at 10:08 a.m. ET. Its methodology combines customers’ trading balances with the protocol-owned pool that takes the other side of positions. That total is therefore not a reserve available entirely to pay winners, nor is it directly comparable with the notional value of leveraged positions.

For winning traders, the distinction affects when profits become available. Papertrade administrator @izebel_eth has explained that collateral does not enter the house pool—only losses do. If a winning position closes while a payout queue exists, the trader’s original collateral becomes available again, but profits join the queue. The current house-pool balance and whether unpaid profits had accumulated could not be established.

The venue offers up to 1000x leverage. DefiLlama describes its products as synthetic bitcoin and ether perpetuals priced using the midpoint of Hyperliquid’s best bid and offer, with Papertrade’s own pool as counterparty. Open interest describes outstanding position exposure, not deposits or realized profits owed to traders.

The launch moves Papertrade beyond the predeposit stage covered in The Defiant’s earlier reporting, which recorded about $85.3 million deposited ahead of trading. The later TVL reading includes both trader balances and house liquidity; it does not establish how much the house has earned from losses.

Papertrade’s launch rules cap individual positions at $10 million but allow a user to hold multiple positions. The team also set $1 billion of short-term opening headroom per market and direction—not a single $1 billion ceiling for the exchange.

Its rollout plan requires launch transactions to pass through the frontend and approved relayers. The team said transaction priority generally depends on action type and notional value, with liquidations ranked above position openings.