# The Sideline guide

Updated September 21, 2026

Understand the markets, trade with paper or live funds, and follow your positions through settlement.

## Welcome to Sideline

Sideline brings sports and crypto prediction markets into one place. Explore live prices, open the page for a specific market, and use a separate paper account to practise buying and selling outcome shares.

> Available now: live market data, paper trading, and wallet-authenticated USDT deposits, live trading and withdrawals on BNB Smart Chain.

Paper funds have no cash value. Your simulated shares are account records, and cannot be transferred or redeemed for real assets.

## How prediction markets work

A market asks a question about an outcome. A binary contract has two complementary sides, such as Yes / No or Up / Down. Prices are quoted between $0 and $1 per share. A 60¢ price corresponds to a market-implied 60% chance, not a guarantee.

For a normal binary settlement, each winning share pays $1 and each losing share pays $0. Buying 10 shares at $0.40 costs $4 before fees; a winning settlement pays $10. A fractional or void result follows the confirmed payout ratio instead.

An event can group several separate contracts. The market card shows its two leading options; open the event to see the others. Read the individual contract’s rules before choosing a side.

## Your first paper trade

1. Open Paper and claim the $1,000 starting balance. No wallet deposit is needed.
2. Choose a sports or crypto market. You can also open a market from the main website and select its paper-trading entry.
3. Read the question, closing time and rules. Select the outcome, Buy or Sell, quantity and order type.
4. Review the estimated cost and fee, then submit. Check Orders for the unfilled quantity and Positions for executed shares.

The starting credit can be claimed once per run. Reset starts a new run with $1,000 and clears the previous run’s orders, positions and history. A paper session lasts seven days; it belongs to that browser session and is separate from wallet login. Clearing cookies or changing browsers can create a new account.

## Finding a market

- Sports: filter by basketball, soccer, baseball, American football, tennis, hockey, golf, F1 or cricket. A category only shows markets currently available.
- Crypto: filter by asset and time frame, from five-minute rounds to one-time events. All supported crypto categories can be loaded progressively, including price targets and launch events.
- Search covers markets already loaded. Use category filters and load additional events when a market is missing.
- Each market has its own URL and ID. Sharing the market page keeps the exact contract and selected outcome; an expired round is not replaced with a different contract.

## BTC five-minute Up / Down

Every five-minute round is a separate market with its own start, end and price to beat. Use the displayed reference price and the market’s settlement rules. The handling of an exact tie is determined by those rules.

The featured view advances to the next available round. Your old shares stay attached to their original round until settled. Orders stop at the round’s close, but a zero countdown does not mean the official result is already confirmed.

> The line chart and sampled candles show historical outcome probabilities. They are not the BTC spot-price chart. Sampled candles aggregate probability observations, rather than every individual trade.

## Orders and the order book

The bid is the price available to a seller; the ask is the price available to a buyer. Their difference is the spread. Available depth is the quantity offered at each price, so a large order can fill across several levels.

| Order type | Behavior |
| --- | --- |
| LIMIT | Buy at or below your limit; sell at or above it. The remaining quantity stays open until filled, canceled or expired. |
| MARKET | Execute against available depth within your protective price. Cancel any unfilled remainder. A full fill is not guaranteed. |

Buying reserves virtual cash, including the simulated fee; selling reserves existing shares. You cannot sell more shares than are available. Canceling releases only the unfilled remainder and does not reverse completed fills.

Paper fills use observed real order-book depth. They do not model your actual queue position, network latency or impact on other participants, so simulated performance can differ from real execution.

## Cost, current price and returns

| Metric | Definition |
| --- | --- |
| Average cost | Remaining cost basis, including buy fees, divided by remaining shares. Multiple buys use a weighted average. |
| Current price | The latest available bid for your outcome. It is an indicative selling price, not a guarantee that all shares can sell there. |
| Unrealized return | (Current value − remaining cost) ÷ remaining cost. It excludes a future sell fee and potential slippage. |
| Realized P&L | Net sale proceeds or settlement payout minus the cost allocated to those shares. |

Example: 100 shares bought at $0.40 have a $40.40 cost including the 1% paper fee, or $0.404 per share. A current bid of $0.55 gives a $55 valuation, $14.60 unrealized profit and about 36.14% unrealized return. These are illustrative numbers.

## Price updates and settlement

- While the paper page is visible, it refreshes about every eight seconds. The selected market and up to five held or open-order markets are checked per refresh; further holdings rotate through later refreshes.
- A quote older than 15 seconds cannot execute a new paper order. After 30 seconds without a fresh quote, current price and return display “—”. Missing data is not treated as a zero price.
- At expiry, unfilled orders are canceled and their reserves released. Holdings wait for the official result. The server checks the finalized payout ratio and credits the account once.
- Closing the page pauses its refresh loop. Reopening it catches up on prices, expired orders and confirmed results; continuous background matching is not provided while you are away.

## Paper fees and limits

| Item | Current setting |
| --- | --- |
| Starting balance | $1,000 |
| Simulated execution fee | 1% of filled notional on buys and sells. |
| Minimum order notional | $1 |
| Order price | $0.01–$0.99, up to four decimal places. |
| Share quantity | Up to three decimal places; maximum 100,000 per order, subject to available balance and risk checks. |

These settings apply to the paper account. Real-money trading uses the maker/taker schedule in Live trading fees below. Prices and depth can change between the estimate and execution. A rejection can also reflect available balance, reserved shares or simulated risk limits.

## Live trading fees

Maker fills have no trading fee. Taker fees follow the executed share price and quantity: base fee rate × min(price, 1 − price) × filled shares. The documented standard base rate is 2%; the order uses the current market’s feeRateBps (200 basis points = 2%).

An order is not automatically a maker order just because it is a limit order. The quantity matched immediately can incur taker fees; a resting quantity later executed as maker is fee-free. Fees apply to fills, not the canceled or expired unfilled remainder.

| Price per share | Fee for 100 taker shares at 2% |
| --- | --- |
| $0.05 | $0.10 |
| $0.20 | $0.40 |
| $0.40 | $0.80 |
| $0.50 | $1.00 |
| $0.80 | $0.40 |
| $0.95 | $0.10 |

Sideline charges the full taker fee at the market’s base rate, with no fee discount. Maker fills remain free. Any execution-provider fee rebate is retained by Sideline and does not reduce the customer’s taker fee.

The fee table expresses the collateral-equivalent value. Taker buys credit shares after the full fee; taker sells credit proceeds after the full fee. The displayed fee is already included in these net amounts and is not charged again in cash.

> The trading panel shows a taker estimate at your limit and a conservative fee reserve. Execution prices can differ from the limit, so these amounts can differ. A reserve is not a charge; unused reserves are released when the order completes, is canceled or expires. Public live trading remains subject to the account’s activation status.

## Wallets and live accounts

The Account page supports wallet-signature login and displays live balances, positions and activity. Service status, market availability and balance checks are applied to every financial action.

Funding uses USDT on BNB Smart Chain mainnet (56) only. BNB pays network gas and is not accepted as a deposit. After final confirmation, 1 USDT credits 1 USD, rounded down to six decimals. Withdrawals return BSC USDT to your signed-in wallet. The treasury and Predict execution account are separate accounts on the same chain.

## Frequently asked questions

| Question | Answer |
| --- | --- |
| How do market orders work? | The server rereads the current order book, requires enough depth for the full requested share quantity and applies your slippage limit. Confirmed chain fills—not the browser estimate—determine the final shares and cash. |
| Why is my order still open? | A limit order needs enough matching depth at your price. It can remain open or partially filled. Review it under Orders or cancel the remainder. |
| Why has an ended round not paid yet? | Closing time and confirmed settlement are different events. The account waits for a finalized result; a missing or delayed result does not trigger an assumed payout. |
| What are legacy sample positions? | Positions from the earlier fixed-data demo remain labeled separately. They cannot be mapped to a real market result or receive new orders. |
| Can I change language or appearance? | Use the header controls for English, Chinese or French and light or dark mode. Original market questions and rules may remain in their source language. |