FAQ

General

What is Flash Terminal?

A command-line tool for trading perpetual futures on Flash Trade, a Solana derivatives protocol. 100+ commands covering trading, earn, analytics, and protocol inspection.

Is this safe?

Yes. 10 independent safety layers protect every live trade — trade confirmation, signing guard, rate limiter, circuit breaker, kill switch, exposure control, pre-flight simulation, program whitelist, instruction freeze, and trade mutex. See Risk & Safety.

Do I need money to try it?

No. Simulation mode (the default) uses virtual USDC with real market prices. No wallet, no funds, no account.

What network does it support?

Solana mainnet-beta only. Flash Trade operates exclusively on Solana.

What assets can I trade?

32+ assets: crypto (SOL, BTC, ETH), equities (NVDA, TSLA, SPY), commodities (Gold, Oil), forex (EUR, GBP), governance tokens (JUP, PYTH), and memecoins (BONK, WIF). Run markets to see the full list.

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Setup

Do I need a wallet for simulation?

No. Just install and run flash.

What wallet format is supported?

Solana keypair JSON file — an array of numbers like [45,12,198,...]. Standard format from solana-keygen new.

Can I use a Ledger hardware wallet?

Not currently. Flash Terminal requires a file-based keypair.

Which RPC should I use?

• Simulation: Default public RPC is fine
• Live trading: Use a paid provider like Helius or Triton

How do I update?

npm update -g flash-terminal
# or inside the terminal:
update

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Trading

What's the minimum trade size?

~$10 USDC collateral, depending on the market.

How much SOL do I need for fees?

~0.005-0.01 SOL per trade. Keep at least 0.1 SOL.

Can I have two positions on the same asset?

One long and one short — yes. Two longs or two shorts on the same market — no. Flash Trade rejects duplicates.

What happens if I get liquidated?

Your position is closed and its collateral is lost. Other positions are unaffected. See Trading Guide.

Are TP/SL orders on-chain?

In live mode, yes. They're placed on the Flash Trade protocol and survive terminal shutdown.

What happens to positions if I close the terminal?

Live positions and on-chain orders (TP/SL, limits) persist. Manage them from flash.trade or restart the terminal.

What is degen mode?

degen on unlocks higher per-market leverage limits (e.g., 200x on SOL instead of 100x). Use degen off to restore defaults. Markets must support degen mode for this to have effect.

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Simulation

Are simulation prices real?

Yes. Same Pyth oracle feeds used for live Flash Trade execution.

Can I switch from sim to live mid-session?

No. Mode is locked at startup. Exit, change SIMULATION_MODE=false, restart.

Where is simulation data stored?

In memory. Terminal crash = state lost.

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Security

Is my private key safe?

Flash Terminal reads the keypair file locally and never sends it over the network. On wallet disconnect, the key is zeroed from memory. API keys are scrubbed from all log files.

Does Flash Terminal phone home?

No. It only communicates with:

• Your configured Solana RPC endpoint
• Pyth Hermes (oracle prices)
• Flash Trade fstats API (analytics)
• CoinGecko (market data)
• Your AI provider (if configured, for NL queries only — never trades)

Where are logs?

• Signing audit: ~/.flash/signing-audit.log — every trade attempt, no keys
• Application: configured via LOG_FILE env var

Both rotate at 10MB.

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Platform

Does it work on Windows?

Yes — via WSL, native Node.js, or Docker.

Does it work on Linux?

Yes. Any system with Node.js v20+.

Is there a GUI?

No. Flash Terminal is CLI-only. For a web UI, use flash.trade.

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Still Have Questions?

• Run help inside Flash Terminal
• Check Troubleshooting
• Run doctor for diagnostics
• Open a GitHub issue