Your First Steps on Arcus

Signing in

Arcus is self-custodial, so your account is a wallet. You can create one with an email address or an Apple sign-in, which sets up an embedded wallet through Privy, or connect a wallet you already use. Arcus's help center lists MetaMask, Rabby, Coinbase Wallet, Phantom and WalletConnect, with Ledger and Trezor working through MetaMask. After you connect, the app asks for an "Enable Trading" signature before you can place orders or add a referral code. Arcus describes no KYC step for trading itself.

Funding with USDG

Everything on Arcus is priced and settled in USDG, a dollar stablecoin issued by Paxos. You do not need to hold USDG first. Deposits run through Fun, which takes USDC, ETH, BTC and other assets from Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Solana, Bitcoin and other chains, connects a Coinbase account, or accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay and cards, then delivers USDG. Arcus charges no deposit or withdrawal fee of its own; third-party costs appear before you confirm. Your account has separate Spot and Perps balances, and a toggle moves USDG between them. The deposit and withdrawal guide covers minimums, card fees and the two-step withdrawal from perps.

Spot is open, perps need an invite

Stock Token spot trading is open to anyone in an eligible region with no code and no waitlist. Perpetuals are in beta, and since October 1, 2026 access comes from an invite code: traders earn one code per $1 million of qualifying perps volume, and each code works once. The waitlist is the other route. A referral link is neither. It attaches a referrer, and Arcus shows 5% off trading fees for referred users, but it does not unlock perps. The invite code and waitlist guide and the referral code guide explain each one.

Your first trade

The easiest first trade is a small Stock Token purchase. Spot orders run from $10 to $1,000,000, carry no Arcus fee, and fill against quotes from market makers, so the cost is the spread inside the quote. That spread is usually wider outside US market hours. Once you have perps access, the 24/7 stock trading guide explains how equity perps behave after the bell, when margin requirements rise and funding locks to a fixed rate.

Before you sign up

Arcus restricts the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and sanctioned regions, and blocks spot as well as perps there. Its terms prohibit using a VPN to get around that. The availability guide explains what the terms say. Phishing sites already copy Arcus on lookalike domains, so check the address before you connect a wallet: the scams guide lists the patterns.