Hives & copy-trading

See how each copy is sized for budget limits and version compatibility.

Hives

A Hive is a Captain's community. Every Hive is bound to one exchange, Polymarket or Kalshi, chosen by the Captain when the Hive is created, and you need your own account at that exchange to back it (see Exchanges). When you join one, you set two numbers:

• Per-call budget: how much to put behind a single call.
• Hive budget: the ceiling on how much of your money can be at work in this Hive at once. Funds up to this amount are reserved for copying while your budget is live, and released when you stop. On a Polymarket Hive the reserve is held against your Polymarket account balance; on a Kalshi Hive it is a budget HiveTrade tracks, and each copied order is also capped by the cash in your Kalshi account.

You can be active (copying new calls) or paused (still reserved, not copying). Both hold your budget. Stop backing ends new copies and releases the unused budget; to come back you simply set a budget again. Open positions stay open until they close or settle.

To pause, change or stop backing, on the web or in the iOS app, see Back a Hive.

How a call becomes your position

After a Captain publishes a Call, eligible Members with active copying can receive orders in their own exchange accounts. The starting requested copy amount is your full per-call budget:

starting requested amount = per-call budget

The request is capped at your remaining Hive budget and applicable tier limits. For example, a $20 per-call budget starts with a $20 request, or a $10 request if only $10 of Hive budget remains, before other applicable limits and execution checks. The Captain does not choose a percentage of your budget for a Call, and automated (bot) Hives follow the same sizing approach. Each account receives its own exchange execution. Fill prices and quantities can differ as the order book changes; an order can partly fill or not fill at all. When the market can't take everyone's full order inside the call's price band, the engine targets a common proportion, with exchange-minimum rounding; whether the rest keeps being bought, for up to 6 hours, is the Captain's choice on each call (see the trade lifecycle). On Kalshi, orders are placed in steps of 0.01 contract, so your copied size is expressed in contracts at the real filled price.

The order is placed in your own Polymarket or Kalshi account: on Polymarket from your Polymarket account on Polymarket's order book, on Kalshi in your Kalshi account using the API key you connected.

When the market resolves

The exchange resolves the market and pays out in your own account. On Polymarket, HiveTrade redeems the winning position into your Polymarket account; on Kalshi the exchange credits your cash automatically. Either way, your budget is updated:

• Win: your full payout is credited back to your budget, and the profit is added to your P&L.
• Loss: the stake was already placed when the Call was made, so nothing more is taken; your P&L reflects the loss.
• Cancelled/void: the remaining principal is refunded. Any profit or loss already realized by an earlier partial sale remains in your history.

You're not locked in

Pausing keeps your budget reserved but stops new copies. Stop backing releases the unused budget. Open positions still need to close or settle; stopping backing does not sell them.