Questions, answered.
Honestly.

Onyx-Algo is a non-custodial automation service that runs two engines on your own exchange account. The first is a market-neutral carry engine — it doesn’t bet on price; it holds a coin and short-sells that coin’s perpetual future in equal size, so price moves cancel out and it collects the “funding” that derivatives markets pay to the short side. The second is a directional momentum bot — this one does take a side, entering only confirmed trends under a strict, cost-aware checklist; it’s the newer engine, currently proving itself in shadow, with promising results so far. Alongside the engines, your dashboard includes a news desk that surfaces filtered crypto and breaking-news coverage from every region of the world, so you can see the market context the bots are trading into. When live, you connect with trade-only keys — they can place orders but can never withdraw — so your capital never leaves your control. You run two accounts: a trading subaccount the engine operates on one of the supported exchanges — Bybit, KuCoin, OKX or Coinbase — and a separate vault where realised profit is set aside, kept safe apart from the working float. The vault can be a subaccount of that same exchange, or an account on any of the others — it’s your savings system. Today everything runs in a free paper phase — fully simulated, on live prices — while we work toward FCA authorisation. It’s not a fund, not a deposit, and not a “yield product”.

Fair question — and the honest answer is to show you the catch rather than hide it. Neither engine is lending, a “yield product”, or a pool of borrowed deposits. The carry engine earns funding-rate carry — a small, structural spread the derivatives market pays. The directional bot instead trades confirmed trends and takes a real side, so it carries directional risk the carry engine doesn’t — it’s the newer part, currently proving itself in shadow with promising results, though its edge is measured only at small size and could thin as it scales or in an unfavourable market. Because it’s all non-custodial, we can’t take your money — trade-only keys can’t withdraw, and your funds sit on your own account where you can watch every position. What we can’t remove is the real risk — carry’s spread is thin, so trading costs can eat much of it, and funding can turn negative; both engines use leverage that can be liquidated in a violent move; and an exchange can fail. It’s deliberately a consistency play, not a high-yield one — and right now it’s all paper, so no real money is at stake while we prove it out.

Two engines, two different ways. The carry engine trades a pair — it buys the coin on spot and short-sells that coin’s perpetual future in equal size, so price moves cancel out; what’s left is the “funding rate”, a small recurring payment perpetuals make to track spot, which (because crypto skews long) usually flows from longs to shorts. The engine holds the short and collects that funding, settlement after settlement — a thin spread, so the round-trip cost of trading has to be earned back before a position nets anything. The directional bot does the opposite: it bets on direction, but only on trends already established, entering a coin only when a strict cost-aware checklist and a statistical edge-test both pass, riding the move to a set take-profit and cutting it if it turns. It earns nothing from funding — its edge is selectivity and discipline, and so far, at small size in shadow, that has paid. Both make money slowly and in small amounts by design, and neither is guaranteed: carry stalls when funding compresses or turns negative, and the directional edge can thin as it scales or when trends stop trending.

In your own exchange account — always. When live, you connect Onyx-Algo with trade-only API keys: they let the engine place and close orders, but they can’t withdraw your funds or send them anywhere outside your own accounts. You set up two accounts: a trading subaccount the engine operates, and a separate vault where realised profit is swept and held apart from the working float — the vault can be a subaccount of the same exchange or an account on another supported one (Bybit, KuCoin, OKX or Coinbase). Onyx-Algo never holds, pools, or takes custody of your money, and there’s no platform balance sheet between you and your funds. Right now it’s all paper, so no real account or money is connected at all.

Yes — this isn’t risk-free, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Market-neutral only means the carry engine is direction-neutral, not that it can’t lose: funding can turn negative, the hedged short runs on leverage and can be liquidated in a violent move, spreads and costs can outrun the funding earned, and a venue can fail while your positions sit on it. The directional bot takes a deliberate side, so it can simply be wrong — a trend it enters can reverse, and it books the loss when it does (it cuts losers quickly, but small losses still add up). Both are capped and disciplined by design, not risk-free. Capital is at risk whenever it’s live. Right now, in paper, no real money is involved at all — the whole point of the shadow phase is to show how it behaves, losses included, before anyone risks a penny.

This is one of the most important risks to understand, so here’s the plain version. When you trade, your money lives on an exchange — not with us — so if that exchange goes under, freezes withdrawals, or gets hacked, the money and positions you hold there are exposed, like everyone else’s on that venue; no strategy removes that. What we can do, we do: the carry engine watches for trouble and, when a market freezes or a coin loses its peg, it shrinks the position, exits, or halts the book rather than sitting there hoping; the directional bot keeps tight stops so no single trade runs away, though it can’t hedge an exchange simply failing. But here’s the part most people miss — your biggest risk usually isn’t the strategy, it’s where your money sits, which is exactly why the setup is built to limit it: you keep custody (trade-only keys can trade but never withdraw), you split your money between a working trading account and a separate vault — and that vault can sit on a different exchange, so one failure can’t take everything — and nothing is ever pooled with other members or with us. The single most protective choice is yours: pick a strong, reputable exchange. We’ll tell you plainly which we support and why, but the account is yours.

Because there’s nothing to charge for yet — and that’s deliberate. In the paper phase both engines run on a fully simulated book: no real funds, no exchange connection, no payment. Two reasons it’s free. First, we’re pre-authorisation: until the FCA clears us, we can’t take anyone’s money or run live trades, full stop. Second, and more to the point, we’d rather earn your trust than your subscription — the free shadow phase exists to build a real, honest record of how the engines behave, wins and losses, before a penny is at stake. When it does go live it’s a flat membership with no performance fee — we never take a cut of your profits — and even then, the paper book stays free to watch.

Only after two conditions are met, and we won’t commit to a date we can’t guarantee. The first is regulatory: no client capital is traded until Onyx-Algo is authorised by the FCA. The UK’s cryptoasset regime is still being implemented — primary legislation was enacted in 2026, with further regulated activities phasing in through 2027 — so the responsible answer on timing is “once authorised,” not a fixed date. The second condition is internal: each engine must clear its pre-registered validation gate on the live-shadow record before it manages real capital, and the directional bot, as the newer strategy, carries an additional gate beyond the carry engine’s. Live deployment follows regulatory clearance and the evidence — never a timetable.

Certified or self-certified sophisticated investors, high-net-worth investors, and professional investors only. This isn’t exclusivity for its own sake: cryptoasset derivatives and other high-risk investments can’t lawfully be marketed to UK retail consumers, so admission is restricted to the investor categories the rules permit. Before we admit anyone, we verify that you qualify — the category, the certification, and the risk acknowledgement that goes with it. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, we can’t accept you, and we won’t pretend otherwise.

During the paper phase we don’t publish performance figures — under our own rule, numbers wait until the live record is mature and we’re FCA-authorised, so that anything we show is real and verifiable rather than a marketing headline. What we can say: the carry engine has a validated out-of-sample result and is running in shadow on live prices; the directional bot is newer, also in shadow, and its early results are promising, though measured only at small size. Both records are being built honestly — wins and losses included — and both will be published in full once we’re authorised. Past simulated performance is never a promise of future returns.

Nothing during the paper phase — the simulated books are free, and no card or payment is involved. When the service goes live, the model is a flat membership subscription, billed per tier, and that is the whole of it: there is no performance fee, and we never take a share of your profits. Tiers differ by service and access — analytics depth, support, capacity — not by the quality of the trading, which is the same for everyone. Exact prices are set only after authorisation and aren’t shown until then. Your exchange’s own trading fees are separate and always yours, since you trade on your own account.

Request an invite, and we’ll verify your investor category — the checks the rules require before anyone can be admitted. Once you’re verified, we email a single-use code that opens onboarding, where your free paper book is provisioned automatically: your own simulated account, running the same engines the house does, on live prices. There’s nothing to configure and no funds to deposit — the paper phase is entirely simulated. When the service is authorised and you choose to go live, that’s the point where you’d connect your own exchange accounts with trade-only keys; until then, you simply watch it work.