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Vela

Place Your First Order

A step-by-step walkthrough of placing a limit order on Vela.

Prerequisites

  • A connected Ethereum-compatible wallet (see Connect Your Wallet)
  • A funded account balance (see Deposit Funds)

Step-by-Step

  1. Navigate to a market. From the Markets page, click on any market, for example ETH-USDC. You will see the live order book, recent trades, and the order entry panel.
  2. Connect your wallet. If not already connected, click Connect Wallet in the navigation bar and complete the connection flow.
  3. Select Buy or Sell. The order entry panel has two tabs — Buy (bid side) and Sell (ask side). Select the direction you want to trade.
  4. Select Limit or Market. For a limit order, you set the price. For a market order, the engine fills at the best available price immediately. Most traders start with a limit order.
  5. Enter the price. For a limit order, enter the price you are willing to pay (buy) or accept (sell). Prices are in the quote asset (e.g. USDC for ETH-USDC).
  6. Enter the size. Enter the quantity of the base asset you want to buy or sell (e.g. 1.5 ETH).
  7. Select Time in Force. Choose GTC (rests until filled or cancelled), IOC (fill what you can immediately, cancel the rest), or FOK (fill all or cancel). For most traders, GTC is the right choice.
  8. Click Submit. Your wallet will prompt you to sign the order. The signature commits to all order parameters: market, side, price, quantity, order type, time in force, your address, and a nonce.
  9. Order is accepted. After signing, the order is sent to the engine. If accepted, it appears in the order book (for limit GTC orders that do not immediately match) or produces an immediate fill.
  10. Monitor your order. Open orders appear in the My Orders panel on the market page. When a match occurs, a fill appears in the Trade History panel and your balance updates.

Order Signing

Every order placed on Vela is signed by your wallet. This is not optional — the matching engine verifies every signature before accepting any order. You cannot place an order on behalf of another account, and the engine will reject any order whose signature does not recover to the user address in the request body.

The order parameters are serialized to a canonical byte string (see the API Reference for the exact format) and passed to personal_sign. The resulting 65-byte signature is included in the request body. Latency-sensitive traders using the API directly should pre-serialize the signing payload to minimize round-trip time.

Use GTC limit orders when you are not in a hurry and want price certainty. Use market orders only when you need immediate execution and are comfortable accepting the current spread.

Cancelling an Order

Open orders can be cancelled from the My Orders panel by clicking the cancel icon. Cancellation also requires a wallet signature. Once cancelled, the reserved balance is released back to your available balance immediately.