Winning payout factor

The Indicative win payout factor in the trade ticket is the share of a position's full, linear winning price exposure that Cardboard offers at opening. A 100% factor means the full leveraged gain from a favorable price move before the deadband and fees. A lower factor reduces the winning side only: an adverse move still acts on the position's full order value, with the loss capped at its margin. Liquidation can use that margin before a simple price-loss calculation reaches zero.

How the factor is set

Order value is your margin multiplied by leverage. Each market has a configured depth, multiplied by a global payout scale. For the first position on an otherwise empty long or short side, order value at or below the resulting effective depth receives a 100% factor. Above that depth, the factor is approximately:

100% × √(effective depth ÷ order value)

For example, with $10,000 margin and 100× leverage, the $1 million SOL order is twice SOL's current $500,000 effective depth. Its empty-side factor is about 70.7%. At 1000×, $100 margin is a $100,000 order, which is below the current effective depth in all three markets and can receive 100% on an empty side. Leverage by itself does not determine the factor.

Long and short sides keep separate capacity. Positions already open on the same side have winning exposure reserved for them, which can lower the offer for a new order. Dividing one large order into several positions does not create extra shared capacity. A 1× order must receive the full 100% factor to open; higher-leverage orders must receive a positive factor that meets the minimum the trader signed. The accepted factor is locked for each position at opening.

Current settings

These figures describe the production settings as of 13 October 2026. Parameters can change at any time without advance notice. Check the live trade ticket before opening a position; this table may lag a change. Existing positions retain the exposure and economic terms locked when they opened.

Depth is a risk setting used to size winning exposure, not a balance of USDC reserved for your payout. The global scale currently multiplies each base depth by 5.00×. In the portion of the curve below 100%, quadrupling the scale would approximately double a new order's factor, up to the 100% cap.

The market depth, scale, winning fee, deadband, and liquidation buffer can be reconfigured. The 0.5 basis point close charge is currently fixed by the protocol's code; a future code change could change it. The ticket previews the factor, deadband, close charge, and bust price, but does not currently show the winning-profit fee.

Empty-side examples

The following percentages assume $10,000 margin, the current 5.00× scale, and no open positions on the chosen side. They are winning exposure percentages before the deadband and fees, not returns on your margin.

Actual offers can be lower when the same market side already has positions open. Market settings or side exposure can change between preview and execution, so an order may be rejected instead of opening with worse terms than you signed.

How a favorable close settles

For a winning position, Cardboard first subtracts the position's locked deadband from the favorable percentage price move. It multiplies the remaining move by the position's locked winning exposure, takes the position's winning fee from that gain, and then collects the close charge from profit proceeds or returned margin when possible. Onchain integer rounding can make the exact amount differ slightly from an estimate. The resulting payable amount is in USDC; if house funds cannot cover it immediately, the unpaid claim follows the payout queue. See Wins and losses for the losing path and settlement details.