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Paper trading

A paper portfolio trades simulated cash against real market prices. Use it to copy whale wallets and see what following them would have earned, or to practice your own trades on Polymarket and Kalshi markets without risking anything. Paper trading is free with a Polywhaler account.

Copying whales

When you create a paper portfolio you can pick whale wallets to copy. Orca replays each whale's actual Polymarket trades into your portfolio, sized to your copy amount instead of theirs. Everything downstream is automatic: when the whale buys, your portfolio buys at the same market price; when a copied market resolves, winners settle at $1 per share and losers at $0, and the cash comes back to your balance.

  • Copy amount: the dollar size used for each copied trade.
  • Start date: copying begins here. Pick a date in the past to backtest, and Orca replays every trade the whales made since that day.
  • Category filters: exclude categories you do not want copied, for example sports.
  • You can find whales worth copying on the Leaderboard or in your Watchlist.
A paper portfolio's workspace: the equity curve chart at the top with period tabs, summary stat cards, and the open positions table below.
A paper portfolio. The curve shows portfolio value over time; deposits are tracked separately so added cash never counts as profit.

Manual paper trades

Any paper portfolio can also trade by hand, with or without copied whales. Click Trade in the portfolio to open the market picker.

  1. Choose the venue with the toggle at the top: Polymarket or Kalshi. Paper portfolios can hold positions on both at once.
  2. Browse trending markets, narrow with the category chips, or search by name.
  3. Pick a market, choose your side with the Yes/No toggle in the order panel, enter a dollar amount, and confirm. The chart follows whichever side you have selected.
The trade picker showing the Polymarket/Kalshi venue toggle, a search box, category chips, and a grid of trending market cards with icons and prices.
The trade picker. The venue toggle switches between Polymarket and Kalshi catalogues.

Note

Prices are decided by the server at order time from the venue's live data, not by what your browser shows. On Kalshi markets, paper buys fill at the ask and sells at the bid, the same prices a real order would cross.

Positions and settlement

  • The positions table shows open and closed positions with entry price, current mark, and P&L. The Exchange column shows which venue each position is on.
  • Sell part or all of a paper position at any time at the current market price.
  • Resolved markets settle automatically, on Polymarket from the market's official outcome and on Kalshi from the exchange's posted result. You do not need to redeem anything.
  • Hide a position to remove it from the table and the portfolio math, useful when a whale holds something you never wanted to copy.

Adding paper cash

You can deposit more simulated cash into a portfolio from the portfolio page. Deposits are recorded with their date and excluded from the return calculation, so topping up never shows as gain on the curve.

Ready for real money?

Paper and live portfolios use the same workspace and order panels, so when you switch to a live portfolio everything will already feel familiar.