Documentation
How to trade Polymarket's short windows in Strikepit: what's on the screen, what to press and what happens to your money. Plain words and live examples — everything below is clickable.
01In short
Strikepit is a terminal for Polymarket's short crypto markets: 5- and 15-minute BTC and ETH windows. The window, its index against the strike, the order book, exchanges and the window's wallets — all on one screen. You bet with one click, and your own wallet signs it.
Strike — the window's price to beat. Pit — the spot by the order book where it gets decided.
- up to 3 s earlier
- we see the index the window resolves on: we rebuild it from Chainlink's source data. The lead time is in Pro; model versus market is from the Trader tier
- every wallet
- who has built how much in the window. The five largest — for everyone, all wallets — for traders, their stats and groups — in Pro
- once a second
- an exchange digest: best prices, buy and sell flow, liquidations, open interest. Best prices — for everyone, the whole panel — in Pro
- 0 sign-ups
- the market and the window's basic analytics are open without signing in
- 0 gas
- wallet creation, approvals, redemption and merging in a Deposit Wallet are paid for by the service
- your own account
- on Polymarket — no transfers: the balance, orders and positions are the same as on polymarket.com. The terminal runs through the Polymarket Builders program
- 3 days
- of the Trader tier for free after you first link Polymarket
02How a window works
A window is a Polymarket "up or down" market lasting 5 or 15 minutes. When it opens, a strike is fixed: the price to beat. The index then moves around it. At the end of the window, Up wins if the index is above the strike or equal to it, Down wins if it is below. The example below is a real window running right now: switch the asset and the length.
No window is running right now: there are no series in the catalog yet. The example comes alive as soon as a window opens.
How you earn here
A share of an outcome costs between 1¢ and 99¢ — the market's estimate of its chance. If the window ends in that outcome's favor, each of its shares pays $1; if not, it drops to zero.
Once a window is running and the book has prices, the leader, the cheaper side's price and the payout per share appear here.
The less time is left and the further the index is from the strike, the closer prices get to 99¢ and 1¢: it gets harder for the index to turn around.
- K · strike
- the index price at the moment the window opens; the yellow dashed line on the chart
- S · index
- the asset's current price on the index Polymarket uses to settle the window
- S − K
- the distance from the strike: plus means Up is ahead right now, minus means Down
03Your first bet
Nine steps from an open window to your payout. Click a step to see how it looks on screen and what to keep in mind. The first four are one-time.
Open a window
Press the window button in the header. The menu lists the running windows: BTC and ETH on 5 and 15 minutes, each with its time left and the Up and Down prices. The basics are visible without signing in: the clock, the index against the strike and the outcome prices.
The Lite / Pro switch in the window bar opens the order book, the tape and the accumulation charts.
04What's where on the screen
The terminal opens in the simple Lite mode: only the essentials, large. The Pro switch in the window strip reveals everything: the order book, the tape, accumulation charts, exchanges. Click any zone of the diagram and a card appears beside it with what it shows and how to read it.
Bet
after linkingAn amount and four buttons: Take and Make L1 for Up and for Down. A click sends the order, and your wallet signs it.
A button shows the payout if the outcome wins, the price and the fee. The amount is all-inclusive: the button shows what leaves your wallet. Take fills right away, with a limit two ticks above the ask; Make L1 joins the queue at the best bid, at the back of that level. Make L1 pays no Polymarket fee but carries the Strikepit markup of 0.5 %; Take pays the Polymarket fee plus 1 %.
Bet fast, without the order form.
05Take or Make L1
Every outcome has two buttons. Both buy its shares, but differently: Take buys at once and pays the Polymarket fee; Make L1 is cheaper and skips that fee, but it is neither immediate nor guaranteed.
Take: buy now
- Lifts the best sell price, the ask, with a cushion of 2 price ticks: the order goes out as FAK at a limit of ask plus cushion.
- Fills at once, but may fill partly: it takes what the level holds and the exchange cancels the rest.
- Pays the Polymarket fee and the Strikepit markup. If the price ran away and nothing matches, the exchange cancels the order and no money is spent.
- Use it when little time is left in the window or the price is moving away.
Make L1: join the queue
- Places a bid at the best buy price. It joins the back of the queue at that level: whoever came first fills first.
- No Polymarket fee: you are the maker. The Strikepit markup still applies, and it is lower than on Take.
- It fills only if a seller comes, and may not fill at all.
- A price that crosses the book is not a maker price: the exchange rejects such an order and no money is spent.
Takeat once
Make L1if a seller comes
A price of 0.35 means the market puts the chance of the outcome at roughly 35 %. The amount "$10" is all-in: that is what leaves the wallet, fees included, and shares are computed after the fees and rounded down. The Polymarket fee is taker-only: 7% of the amount times (1 - price), so the cheaper the share, the larger it is. The Strikepit markup is 1% on Take and 0.5% on Make L1, of the trade amount. Markup rates are the example rates. Prices in the calculator are an example. The exact amount and payout are on the button before you press it.
- Make L1 did not fill
- it sits in the book until a seller comes, you cancel it with the cross in "My position", or the market resolves, when the exchange cancels it itself. Nothing is charged for the unfilled part.
- Take fee
- Polymarket returns part of it; see "Fee rebate".
06Pro mode and hotkeys
In Pro the order form has two tabs. "New order" is your own price and order type. "Quick actions" holds the Maker L1 and Taker buttons for buying and closing on a preset amount, with hotkeys for them.
Hotkeys
Quick actions work on the market page and only in live mode. It is switched on with the mouse on the panel and switches off on Esc, when you leave the page, when you move to a neighbouring window in the series, and after five minutes of inactivity. The keys are bound to key positions, so the keyboard layout does not matter.
While the cursor is in an input field, order keys do nothing: Esc takes focus out of it.
The keys act on the active row of the panel: the account whose name you clicked (it is marked ●). ⇧C cancels the market's orders for all accounts in the set.
| Q | buy the top outcome: Maker L1 |
| W | buy the top outcome: Taker |
| A | buy the bottom outcome: Maker L1 |
| S | buy the bottom outcome: Taker |
| ⇧Q | sell the top outcome (the selected share): Maker L1 |
| ⇧W | sell the top outcome: Taker |
| ⇧A | sell the bottom outcome: Maker L1 |
| ⇧S | sell the bottom outcome: Taker |
| Esc | turn off live mode; from an input field, remove focus |
| ? | show this help |
| Shift+C | cancel all orders on the market for all accounts (immediately, no confirmation) |
| 1…9 | select a size preset |
The top row of keys (Q W) is the top outcome on the panel (UP), the bottom row (A S) is DOWN. Left is Maker L1 (join the order book at the best price, GTC), right is Taker (cross the spread, FAK). The rows follow the same order as the market's outcomes and the ladder. Shift picks the side: without it a buy, with it closing the selected share of the position, and only when there is a position.
Amount presets are yours to set; the default is $5, $10, $25, $50. Keys 1-9 pick the preset with that number.
There is no key to switch the outcome: the top key row is the top outcome, the bottom row is the bottom one.
Order types
A maker joins the book and waits; a taker takes resting orders at once.
- GTC
- maker
- rests on the order book until it is filled or cancelled · You receive the spread instead of paying it. There is no expiry: the order survives price moves and leaving the page, so you have to cancel it by hand or with “cancel all on the market”.
- GTD
- maker
- same as GTC, but expires on its own at the chosen time · The same maker, but with a timer: on a five-minute market an order that outlives the window is no longer wanted. The exchange cancels GTD one minute before the stated time, and the presets account for it.
- FOK
- taker
- fill the WHOLE order immediately or cancel it entirely · All or nothing. Against an aggregated level whose size keeps changing this is most often “nothing”: not enough volume means no fill at all, and the exchange will not say why. That is why quick actions use FAK, not FOK.
- FAK
- taker
- fill as much as possible immediately, cancel the rest · A partial fill instead of a rejection: it takes what the level had and cancels the remainder. This is the type the Taker button sends. If there were no opposing orders at all, the exchange answers “no orders found to match”: that is not a fault, the price simply moved away.
Taker lifts the ask with a cushion of 2 price ticks so it does not miss on a moving book. The all-in amount is computed at that limit, not at the ask, so you get slightly fewer shares than at the ask. A custom amount is kept in the browser and filled in next time.
07The bottom dock
In Pro mode, three tabs sit under the order book. They explain who and what is behind the window's move. Each has states: data can be fresh, late or missing. Pick a tab and a state to see how it looks on screen and what to do.
Which wallets accumulated how much in the window, and how: by aggression, taking other people's orders, or by resting in the book while theirs were taken.
visible to: everyone: 5 wallets · Trader: all · Pro: statisticsHow to read it
Outcome and net — where the wallet accumulated and how many shares: "Down 1,530" means it accumulated Down.
As taker and as maker — how much of that came from aggression and how much from resting in the book.
Avg. price — the average price at which the wallet bought its outcome.
Result — the wallet's win or loss in this window at settlement, net of fees; a dash until the outcome is confirmed.
On short markets (Pro) — bets, average size per window, PnL, ROI and exchange payouts for today, 3, 7, 30 days or "all". "All" is the whole depth we have accumulated, not the wallet's whole history: days older than the retention period are dropped.
Checkboxes and "Total" — tick several wallets and "Total" adds them up and shows where this group is leaning and at what price it came in.
Where the data comes from — the Polymarket indexer; it lags by minutes, so the age of the data is always in view.
States · 12
304 wallets · 494 trades · latest trade in the data 4s ago
The snapshot is fresh and complete: every column can be trusted.
what to doLook for a large net position against your side.
open the terminal →08My trades
Everything you have already done: the result by window, what to redeem, who you traded with and the full history. It shows fills, not placed orders. The account and the period are chosen in the screen header.
How the account trades
P&L is the result of windows with a confirmed outcome, fees included. Next to it: the share of winning windows, the average result per window, the number of windows, turnover, fees paid and the share of trades where you rested in the book as a maker.
By window and series
A strip of windows: green ones made money, red ones lost, grey ones are waiting for the outcome. By series (BTC and ETH, 5 and 15 minutes): result, wins, turnover, fees. The best and worst windows lead straight to the window.
To redeem
Resolved windows: "redeem" collects the payout. A full Up + Down set can be "merged into pUSD" before the outcome. For a Deposit Wallet the service pays the gas and your wallet only signs the batch; with a Safe, redeeming is done on polymarket.com.
Counterparties and history
Who you met: whose orders you took, who took yours, and the result with each. "History" is every trade: role, side, price, size, fee, status. "Review" on a counterparty filters the history to them.
- Window P&L is empty
- the exchange has not confirmed the outcome yet; the result appears once it does
- Fee shows "—"
- you were the maker: in maker trades the counterparty pays the fee
- A window is not in the summary
- the summary covers only the BTC and ETH 5 and 15 minute series; bets on other markets are in the history
09Fee rebates
Polymarket returns part of the fee you pay as a taker. How much depends on your tier in the program. The screen shows which tier you are on, how far the next one is and whether you will keep the current one.
- Weighted volume
- each taker trade adds volume: amount × (1 − entry price) × category weight. Crypto markets weigh 2.3. The cheap side earns volume faster: a dollar spent at 20¢ gives four times the volume of one spent at 80¢.
- 30-day window
- the tier is computed over a rolling 30 days and recalculated every day at 00:00 UTC. A new rate applies going forward only.
- Payout
- every day around midnight UTC, from $1; reaching a tier for the first time adds a one-off bonus.
The key numbers on the screen
- your tier and its rebate rate;
- the window's weighted volume and the tier threshold;
- fees paid and the daily pace;
- the margin over the threshold and how much drops out of the window tomorrow.
Hold and take
The threshold must be met continuously: stop trading and the tier goes away. A tier makes the fee cheaper, it does not pay for volume. Chasing the next tier only makes sense if that trading is profitable on its own.
"Collected" compares actual transfers with the model's expectation; "By day" shows volume and fees for each day. Numbers are flagged when part of a day has not been covered yet.
open "Rebates" →10Profile and plan
Polymarket account
Your trading account (Deposit Wallet or Safe). Linking gives the terminal the exchange API key for trading, not the right to withdraw. You can link several accounts, rename and unlink them.
An account in the "draining" state cannot buy: you can still sell and cancel orders.
Risk limits
Your own ceilings, stricter than the venue's: order size and amount, number of open orders, daily turnover. A new value applies within half a minute. The venue's ceiling cannot be lifted from here.
Ways to sign in
You sign in with a wallet: the sign-in methods in your profile are your wallets, and each opens the same profile. They have nothing to do with trading: the Polymarket account is linked separately.
Journal
The last 50 actions: sign-ins, links, orders and payments, with time, account and IP.
Plan and paying for Pro
The price is in your profile after you sign in.
- From a Polymarket wallet
- pUSD, no gas: only the account owner's signature is needed.
- By USDC signature
- native USDC on Polygon, no gas: the service pays the network fee.
- By transfer
- USDC.e or USDC from your own wallet; you need a little POL for gas. Pro opens after 30 network confirmations. Already paid? Paste the transaction hash.
Pro is paid in USDC only, does not renew by itself and has no refunds: money cannot be taken without your signature. Pay again before it ends and the time is added to what is left. Next to your level is the progress to "Trader" ("Volume through the terminal in 30 days: $120 of $500") and to Pro by volume: from $3,000 in 30 days Pro unlocks without payment, with Take counting in full and Make L1 at half.
open the profile →11Tiers
Watching is free. The more you trade, the more you see. Levels only affect analytics: you can trade on any of them once Polymarket is linked. Pick a level and the table highlights its column, and below you will see what it opens.
Guest· open 5
- ✓Window, countdown, who leads, order book, trade tape
- ✓Index against the strike, index over 30 s, reversal chance
- ✓Exchange top of book and book density
- ✓Accumulated on the market: the five largest wallets
- ✓A finished window — as Trader
Closed · 10
- —Trading: Take, Make L1, orders, position — after sign-in and linking Polymarket
- —My trades and fee rebate — after sign-in and linking Polymarket
- —All wallets in the window, window result, wallet trades
- —Model against the market and the taker threshold
- —Deviation from the strike and cushion
- —Takers against makers through the window
- —Wallet statistics on short markets
- —Auto-groups and holders
- —Our index forecast ahead of Polymarket
- —The whole exchange panel
What the Trader level opens
All wallets in the window with their positions, the window result and the model price. This is how the screen looks; the real numbers appear on your window page.
There are no past windows in the catalog yet.
Past windows are one step up
A finished window is opened one level higher: a guest and a basic user see it as a trader, a trader sees it as Pro. The seconds no longer decide anything there, and real data shows what the next level gives you. The exchange panel is not tied to a window, so it has no preview.
12Money and keys
Your funds sit in your wallet on Polymarket: a Deposit Wallet or a Safe. The Strikepit server holds no key that can withdraw money: your wallet signs the order, and the exchange trading key is stored encrypted and cannot withdraw.
Which keys the server has
- Holds
- the encrypted L2 API key of the exchange: it can trade and cancel orders, but cannot withdraw money; only the trading service decrypts it. And the builder code, a public tag by which Polymarket sees that the order came through Strikepit.
- Does not hold
- any key that can withdraw money: not your wallet key, not a seed phrase, not the owner key of a Deposit Wallet or Safe.
What the server can do
- pass an order you signed to the exchange;
- cancel your order;
- pay gas for the wallet, approvals, redeem and merge;
- show window data and your trades.
What the server cannot do
- withdraw your money;
- place an order without your signature; in the current version your wallet signs every order;
- charge for Pro without your signature.
Session key
In the current version your wallet signs every order, and the server holds no session keys. When they arrive, a session key will be a separate key that may only trade on the exchange: it cannot withdraw money, works for a limited time, and the account owner can revoke it with a signature. We promise no dates: the exchange enables the feature.
If the terminal is unavailable
Orders rest in the Polymarket book and positions stay in your wallet. You can cancel an order or close a position on polymarket.com at any time.
Risk under control
The limits in your profile are stricter than the exchange's. The "Stop trading" button blocks new orders; resting ones can still be cancelled during a stop. Every action is written to the journal.
Builder code and markup
- Builder code
- every order carries the Strikepit builder code in its signed data. It gives no access to money: it is the tag by which Polymarket credits our markup.
- Markup
- 1% of the trade amount if you are a taker and 0.5% if you are a maker (Make L1). It is added on top, together with the Polymarket fee, and the terminal shows it wherever it shows a fee.
We never write first and never ask for keys, seed phrases or signatures outside the interface. Any such message is not from us.
13Fees
- Watching a market
- free
- Strikepit markup
- a builder fee on top of the Polymarket fee: 1% of the trade amount on Take and 0.5% on Make L1. Example on $10: Take is $0.10, Make L1 is $0.05. The owner can change the rate no more than once in 7 days, and a new rate takes effect after 3 days.
- Polymarket fee
- paid by the taker, the Take button; the maker, the Make L1 button, does not pay. How much: 7% of the amount x (1 - price), for example $10 at 0.35 gives $0.455 ($0.46 on the button). Part of the taker fee comes back through the rebate program.
- Trader level
- free
- Strikepit Pro
- price: in your profile after sign-in
- Gas
- the service pays for wallet creation, approvals, redemption and merging; paying for Pro by transfer needs a little POL.
14Glossary and FAQ
Watching a market is free. When you trade, you pay Polymarket's fee (charged by the venue, not by us) and our markup: 1% of the trade amount on Take and 0.5% on Make L1. Part of Polymarket's taker fee comes back through the rebate program. The Trader tier is free; Strikepit Pro is sold in periods. Gas for creating the wallet, approvals, redeeming and merging is paid by the service.
Link your Polymarket account and a 3-day trial opens right away. After that the tier holds as long as at least $500 of volume goes through the terminal over the last 30 days. Linking again does not give a second trial.
That is how the key stays only with you: in the current version every order is signed by your wallet. A fast mode without a wallet prompt on every order is waiting on Polymarket to enable it.
It rests in the book until a seller shows up. Cancel it with the cross in My position, or press Take if you cannot wait. If you leave it, the order keeps resting, and the exchange removes it itself when the market resolves.
Yes. Take either fills at once or does not (FAK): if the price moved, or the opposing orders covered only part of the size, what filled stays with you and the exchange cancels the rest. No money is spent on the unfilled part.
Once Polymarket confirms the window's outcome. You collect winnings with the redeem button in My trades. With a Deposit Wallet the service pays the gas and your wallet only signs; with a Safe, redeeming is done on polymarket.com.
No. Pro is sold in periods: money cannot be taken without your signature. Pay again before it ends and the period is added to what is left. Pro also unlocks without payment: from $3,000 of volume through the terminal over 30 days (Take counts in full, Make L1 at half).
Your money sits in your own Polymarket wallet (Deposit Wallet or Safe). The Strikepit server holds no key that can withdraw funds: your wallet signs the order, and the exchange trading credentials are stored encrypted and cannot move money.
Yes. You pick the account in Bet, with the menu next to the title, and in My trades, in the screen header.
The Stop trading button blocks new orders; resting ones can still be cancelled while stopped. Every action is written to the log.
Your orders rest in the Polymarket book and your positions are in your wallet. You can cancel an order or close a position on polymarket.com at any time.
No. You sign in with a wallet, and the service creates the Deposit Wallet for trading itself. If you already have a Polymarket wallet, you can use it. Polymarket is not available in every country; the venue's rules apply here too, and we add no restrictions of our own on top.
Glossary
- Window
- a Polymarket "up or down" market for 5 or 15 minutes on BTC or ETH
- Strike, K
- the index price when the window opens; it has to be beaten
- Index, S
- the asset price on the index Polymarket resolves the window by (Chainlink data)
- Up and Down
- the two outcomes of a window: Up wins if S is not below K at the end, otherwise Down
- Share
- the unit of an outcome: after the window a winning share is worth $1 and a losing one 0
- Outcome price
- from 1¢ to 99¢: how the market rates the chance of the outcome (near the edges the price step is finer, 0.001)
- Order book
- all buy orders (bids) and sell orders (asks) by price
- Bid and ask
- the best buy price and the best sell price
- Taker
- whoever takes someone else's order from the book; pays the fee
- Maker
- whoever's order rests in the book and waits; pays no Polymarket fee
- Take
- the "buy now" button: takes the best ask, the remainder is cancelled (FAK)
- Make L1
- the "join the queue at the best bid" button: the order rests as a maker until a seller shows up
- Basis point, bp
- 0.01% of the price
- Liquidation
- the forced closing of a leveraged position on an exchange
- Open interest, OI
- how many contracts are currently open on an exchange
- Funding
- a payment between longs and shorts of a perpetual: "+" means longs pay
- Redeem
- exchanging shares of the winning outcome for pUSD after the window resolves
- Merge
- exchanging a full Up + Down set for pUSD before the window resolves
- pUSD
- money on Polymarket; lives on the Polygon network
- Indexer
- a Polymarket service that collects trade history; it lags by minutes
15Legal
Strikepit is an independent interface of the Polymarket Builders program and is not affiliated with Polymarket. Trading prediction markets carries a risk of losing money. Polymarket is not available in every country, and the venue's rules apply here too.