Education · Using YOLO

Paper first: brokers, demo vs live & kill switches

YOLO defaults to demo and paper trading — and that is a deliberate safety choice, not a limitation. New accounts start in demo mode. This guide explains why, what the brokers are, what it actually takes to go live, and the kill switches and opt-ins that keep you in control the whole way.

Why default to paper

Overleverage and one-bad-trade wipeouts (reason R3) are a leading cause of retail loss. The cheapest way to learn the process — how a signal becomes a trade, how to read a payoff, how it feels to approve and manage a position — is to do it with no real money on the line. Paper trading lets you build the discipline and prove the workflow works for you before a single real pound is at risk. Mistakes made on paper are free.

IG demo and Alpaca paper

YOLO executes approved trades on real broker sandboxes, so the experience mirrors the real thing:

IG demo — a demo account on IG, used for IG-native options and daily-funded-bet style structures.
Alpaca paper — a paper-trading account on Alpaca, used for options on US instruments.

These use live-like prices and order handling, but the money is not real. You see fills, positions and P&L exactly as you would on a funded account — the perfect place to practise.

Per-broker venue controls

You decide which venues are active. You can enable or disable each broker yourself, and choose paper or live mode where it is offered. Operator master-switches remain the final gate on top of your choices — so a venue can never be live for you unless both you and the platform allow it.

What going live actually requires

Live trading is off by default. Turning it on is never an accident — it requires an explicit live-mode configuration and a final, explicit confirmation from you on the order itself. There is no hidden toggle that quietly starts spending real money, and even with live enabled, the two-step approval still stands on every trade. Only move to live when the process has earned your trust on paper, and only with money you can afford to lose.

Auto-trade is opt-in and revocable

Auto-trade — letting an expert’s approved-style setups execute without you tapping each one — is off by default. You enable it per expert, deliberately, and you can revoke it at any time. It is a convenience you grant, never a default you have to discover and switch off.

Kill switches

When you want to stop, you can stop — instantly. YOLO has kill switches at multiple levels:

Platform — an operator-level halt.
Follower (you) — stop all of your own activity.
Expert — stop following one expert’s auto-trades.
Broker — disable a specific venue.
Strategy — stop a specific strategy type.

You are never locked into a position flow you cannot interrupt. If something feels wrong, the off switch is always within reach.

Demo and paper results do not reflect the costs, slippage and emotions of live trading, and no mode guarantees a profit. When you do go live, you can lose the full stated maximum on any trade. Never trade with money you cannot afford to lose. See the full Risk Disclosure.

Next: How a signal becomes your trade · Trading Basics · Back to all guides