Setup walkthrough

Onboarding has four steps: System, Brokerage, Leverage, Plan. Budget about twenty minutes, most of it spent on the exchange creating API keys. If you have not read Before you begin, do that first: it covers the two decisions that are awkward to change later.

Step 1: Choose a trading system

A trading system is a named strategy configuration: which model, which leverage range, and which risk overlays are enabled. Selecting one creates a subscription, deliberately inactive. Nothing trades until you have connected an exchange and completed payment.

You can skip this step

“Skip for now” leaves you to choose a system later from Systems. The leverage step is then skipped too, because leverage attaches to a system subscription and there would be none.

Step 2: Connect your exchange

The longest step, and the only one with work outside AlphaHouse.

1. Pick your exchange from the dropdown.

2. Create an API key on the exchange. Each venue has a prerequisite the others do not:

   • Bitget, which needs a passphrase and requires One-Way position mode
   • Gate
   • Hyperliquid, which uses a wallet address plus a separate API wallet key

3. Grant trade permissions and nothing more. Enable reading and trading, leave withdrawal permission off, so the capability to move your funds does not exist on our side.

4. Paste the credentials into AlphaHouse. Bitget asks for three values, Gate for two, Hyperliquid for a wallet address and an API wallet private key.

5. Click Test Connection. Mandatory. Continue stays disabled until it passes.

A failed test during onboarding discards the credentials

The connection record and the stored credentials are deleted, and you start the step again. This differs from the Exchanges page later on, where a failed test keeps the connection so you can retest it. Do not assume the keys are saved. They are not.

Troubleshooting lists the causes per venue. Most frequent: a mistyped Bitget passphrase, a Bitget account left in Hedge rather than One-Way position mode, an IP allowlist that excludes our servers, and a Hyperliquid main wallet key used where the API wallet key is required.

What happens to your credentials

They are encrypted and held in a secrets vault rather than an ordinary database column, and read only to sign requests to your exchange. You can revoke them at the exchange at any time without telling us, and trading stops immediately.

Step 3: Set your leverage

A slider between the minimum and maximum your chosen system allows, in steps of 0.25, labelled Conservative, Moderate, Aggressive.

This is your sizing leverage, which determines position sizes. It differs from the margin leverage your exchange displays, see Leverage, and you can change it whenever you like from Systems.

If you skipped step 1 there is no subscription to attach leverage to, so this step is skipped.

Step 4: Choose a plan

Plans are billed monthly or yearly, defaulting to yearly because it is cheaper. Pick the tier whose account equity band contains your actual equity. The bands exist because a plan’s headline cap is on leveraged capital, meaning gross exposure, which you cannot compare to your balance directly. See Plan limits. The top tier is not sold through the app. Arrange it by contacting us.

Get Started sends you to Stripe. On success you return to your dashboard and your system activates once payment confirms, a few seconds later, so it may briefly still show as inactive.

You can skip payment too

“Skip for now” completes onboarding with your system left inactive. Everything is saved, and you can pay later from Settings, Billing.

After onboarding

On the Dashboard, confirm three things:

1. No alert banners. The dashboard says plainly if a system is inactive or an exchange is not connected.
2. Your system shows as active on Systems.
3. Your equity looks right on Portfolio. If it is far below what you deposited, your funds are probably still in spot.

Then wait. Your first rebalance happens at the next scheduled run, with a countdown on the dashboard. Your first week covers what to expect from there.