Quickstart

Get Hydra running locally in paper trading mode.

1. Install

Using Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rnwolfe/hydra/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Then add to your PATH:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.hydra/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

From Source

git clone https://github.com/rnwolfe/hydra.git
cd hydra
bun install

2. Configure

Copy the example config:

cp config.example.yaml config.yaml

Or use a preset from configs/:

• configs/conservative.yaml - Lower risk settings
• configs/aggressive.yaml - Higher risk settings
• configs/paper-testing.yaml - For development/testing

export BOT_CONFIG=configs/conservative.yaml

3. Start Paper Trading

# Using binary
hydra run

# From source
bun run paper

# With verbose logging
hydra run --verbose

4. View Dashboard

Open a second terminal and launch the TUI:

# From source (TUI not available as binary)
bun run tui

5. Check Latency (Before Live Trading)

Before going live, measure your network latency to exchanges:

# Using binary
hydra latency

# From source
bun run latency

Example output:

Binance:
  REST API: 45ms (avg)
  WebSocket: 38ms (avg)

Polymarket:
  REST API: 120ms (avg)

✅ Binance WebSocket latency is excellent (38ms)

Deployment Recommendations

For latency arbitrage, your location relative to Binance matters most:

Region	Binance Latency	Recommendation
AWS ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo)	~1-5ms	Best - Binance matching engine location
AWS ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)	~20-30ms	Good alternative
US/Europe	~150-200ms	Not recommended for latency arb

Run hydra latency from your production server before deploying live.

Next Steps

• Configuration Guide - Tune risk limits and strategy parameters
• Live Trading - Prerequisites for real trading
• TUI Dashboard - Monitor positions and P&L