Simulate Before You Trade
Model any delta-neutral position before committing capital. See projected returns, break-even time, and historical data.
Never commit capital to a position you haven't modeled first. The Simulator shows you exactly what to expect — projected returns, break-even timeline, and the historical data behind the numbers. Before you place a single dollar into a delta-neutral position, you should know how many days it takes to recover your entry costs, what the funding rate has looked like over the past month, and whether the spread between your two DEXs is predictable enough to justify the trade.
The Simulator at /simulate is available without an account. Log in and you unlock additional features, including position mode, which tracks an active trade in real time.
Setting Up a Simulation
The first step is selecting your DEX pair. A delta-neutral position on ArchiNeutral always involves two sides: one long on a DEX, one short on another. The spread between those two venues is what drives your costs; the funding rate is what drives your yield.
Open /simulate and choose:
- Long DEX — the exchange where you hold the long perpetual
- Short DEX — the exchange where you hold the short perpetual
- Trading pair — ETH, BTC, SOL, and other supported assets
- Capital — enter the USD amount you intend to deploy on each side
Once you have a pair selected, the DEX swap button lets you flip the long and short assignment in one click. This matters because funding rates are directional — positive funding on one DEX means longs pay shorts, and the same pair configured in reverse produces a different yield profile. Swapping takes one second and immediately recalculates every projection.
Reading the Projections
Once your inputs are set, the projection panel gives you three numbers that matter:
Daily earnings is what you would earn per day at the current funding rate, net of the spread costs amortized over time. It is not raw funding — the calculation already accounts for what you paid to enter and what you will pay to exit.
Break-even is the number of days until your cumulative earnings cover the total cost of entry and exit. Entry spread, exit spread, and DEX fees are all included. This is the number to pay the most attention to. If break-even is 12 days, you need 12 days of stable, positive funding just to get back to zero.
Total return projects your yield over a custom period — 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days. Change the period using the selector and the panel updates instantly. This helps you compare the same position at different time horizons and stress-test your assumptions.
All three numbers are honest. They assume current conditions persist, which they may not, but they do not inflate the figures by ignoring fees. The spread costs are baked in.
The funding period selector (1h, 24h, 7d, 30d) controls which historical window is used to calculate the projected rate. Using the 1h rate gives you the most recent signal; using 30d gives you a more conservative, smoothed estimate. Both are useful depending on whether you are trying to capture a short-term spike or model a long-duration position.
The token size display converts your USD capital into token units at the current live price. This tells you the actual position size in token terms, which is relevant for understanding liquidation risk and for verifying your inputs on the DEX itself.
Funding Rate Chart
The funding rate chart shows the historical rate for your selected pair across both DEXs over time. You can toggle between four windows: 1h, 24h, 7d, and 30d.
APR annotations are displayed alongside the raw rate so you can immediately see the annualized equivalent without doing the math manually.
Two things to look for when reading this chart:
Consistency. A funding rate that has been positive and relatively stable for 30 days is a different proposition than one that spiked yesterday. Stable rates produce reliable yield. Volatile rates mean your projections could be off by a large margin within days.
Direction. Mostly positive is what you want to see. Periods where the rate went negative are worth noting — they represent windows where the position was losing money from the funding side. The longer and more frequent those negative periods, the riskier the pair.
The chart shows both DEXs overlaid, which lets you see divergence. A large, persistent gap between the two rates on the same pair is worth investigating before you enter.
Spread Chart
The spread chart shows the historical difference between entry and exit prices across your two selected DEXs. It displays minimum, maximum, and average bands — not just a single line.
The bands are what matter. A tight band means the spread has been consistent, which means your entry and exit costs are predictable. A wide band means conditions have been unstable — a tight spread today does not guarantee a tight spread when you need to exit.
You can view the spread chart over 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days. The longer the window, the more context you have about how the spread behaves under different market conditions.
What you are looking for: average spread low enough that break-even stays under a reasonable number of days, and max spread not so wide that a bad exit would erase most of your gains.
From Simulation to Position
When the projections look right and the historical data supports the trade, the next step is creating the position.
Click Create Position inside the Simulator. All parameters — the two DEXs, the trading pair, and your capital amounts — are passed directly to the Position Manager at /deltaneutral. Nothing needs to be re-entered. The form opens pre-filled and ready to execute.
This shortcut exists because re-entering parameters manually is a source of error. The Simulator and the Position Manager share the same parameter structure so that what you modeled is exactly what you open.
Position Mode
If you already have an active delta-neutral position, the Simulator can be linked to it directly. This is position mode.
In position mode, the Simulator pulls your live unrealized PnL from the position and uses it to calculate your current break-even status. Instead of asking "how many days until I break even from the start?", it answers: "given what I've already earned, how many days remain?"
This is useful for tracking whether a position is performing in line with expectations. If the break-even date is approaching faster than projected, funding has been stronger than the model assumed. If it is receding, something has changed — funding dropped, the spread widened, or both.
Position mode requires an account. Once logged in, open /simulate and select an existing position from the dropdown. The capital fields fill automatically from the position data.
Tips
Check the 30d spread chart before entering. Current conditions are not always representative. The 30-day view reveals how the spread behaves across different market regimes. A spread that looks tight today may have been consistently wide just three weeks ago.
Compare the same pair across different DEX combinations. The same symbol — ETH, for example — can have very different spread and funding profiles depending on which DEXs you pair. Running multiple simulations for the same pair on different DEX combinations takes a few minutes and can meaningfully change the outcome.
If break-even exceeds 5-7 days, the position needs stable funding to justify entry. A break-even of 10 days means two weeks of positive, consistent funding before you see net profit. That is achievable, but it requires the position to run long enough and the funding not to flip negative mid-way. Be conservative about how long you expect conditions to hold.
This guide is part of the ArchiNeutral Guide Series.