Getting started on Trenches: your first ten minutes

New to Trenches? This guide walks you through your first ten minutes, on a computer or a phone. After it, you can make your free account, finish your first lesson and find your way around.

Trenches is a trading simulator. You learn in short lessons, then practice trades at live prices with paper cash. Paper cash is practice money with no real value.

Make your free account

Go to trenches.academy. The next steps depend on your screen.

On a computer:

Click Start learning free. A pop-up opens: "Create a free account or log in to start learning."
Pick Continue with Apple, Continue with Google or Continue with email. Apple and Google show when available. With email, you pick your course first, then sign up on Create your free account. Your password needs 6 characters or more.
Have an account already? Click Log in at the foot of the pop-up.

Want a look first? On a computer, Try one lesson first lets you play one lesson as a guest. Pages like Trade, and the next lesson after it, ask for a free account. Your progress comes with you.

On a phone:

Tap Start learning free. It opens trenches.academy/app.
Tap Get started, or I already have an account.
Answer the setup's short questions, starting with what you want to learn.
One page asks "How do you want to get started?" Pick Learn for free, which has every lesson, then Continue. Elite Trenches is the paid membership.
Tap Create profile, then sign up with Apple, Google or email.
- Opened this from Instagram or Facebook? Their built-in browser shows no Apple or Google button. The page says instead: "In this browser, sign up with email. Google sign in works in Safari or Chrome."

Every free account starts with $10,000 in paper cash. Making an account confirms you are 13 or older.

Pick what to learn first

The app asks: "What would you like to learn first?" On a computer, it comes right after the pop-up. On a phone, it is the setup's first question.

Crypto: Bitcoin, wallets, memecoins and DeFi
Stocks: Shares, funds, market hours and charts
Forex: Currency pairs, quotes, orders and global news
Economics: Supply, spreads, crowds and auctions
Macro: Growth, inflation, rates and central banks
Personal finance: Budgets, credit, saving and your money plan

Pick one, then Continue. Your road opens on that course: its path of short lessons, called levels, in order. You can switch or add courses later.

Came for memecoins? A memecoin is a crypto asset tied to a meme, character or cultural theme. The Memecoin starter link (trenches.academy/app?starter=memecoins on a phone) skips the questions and opens your first memecoin lesson. On a phone, you make your free profile first.

The starter lines up seven units, groups of levels from the Crypto road, in a beginner's order. Read The Memecoin starter, unit by unit and What a memecoin is, and why attention is the market.

Finish your first lesson

A level takes "about 5 minutes," in the app's words.

Click the level marked START HERE on your road (tap it on a phone). For Crypto, it is What are crypto and Bitcoin?.
Click Start.
Read the story cards, short cards that teach one idea each. Next moves on, and the last card says Start the check.
Pick an answer, then Check answer, then Continue. A miss comes back at the end of the check, and the retry uses no energy.
The last question's button is Finish level.

Energy is your daily allowance for new questions. Each uses 1, and you get 30 a day on the website, full again at midnight. Answers in your course's first unit, and in the Memecoin starter, use none. Elite, the paid membership, has no limit.

The finish shows three tiles:

Paper cash: what the level paid
First try: how many you got right the first time
Day streak: the days in a row you have learned

Continue opens the next level, and Back to the road (Back to the map on a phone) goes back. A level pays paper cash only the first time you finish it.

Find your way around

On a computer, the left sidebar is the same on every page:

Learn: your road
Library: books
Hub: your home page, with your paper account, markets, learning and battles
Trade: paper trading in every market
Battles: timed head to head paper trading
Ranks: leaderboards and weekly leagues
Quests: small daily tasks that pay chests, rewards you open for paper cash
Shop: your energy and free rewards
Profile: your page, with your portfolio of everything you hold

Ask Toro and Settings sit at its foot.

The top strip shows the page's name and its tabs, then Search (press / to jump to it), then four small buttons called chips:

Rating: My courses, where you switch courses, and your Trading ELO, your battle rating
Day streak: your streak and a calendar of the days you learned
Paper cash: your practice money; a click opens the Shop
Energy: what is left today and when it refills

Your Trencher, your character at the end of the strip, opens the account menu.

On a phone, the dock is the row of icons at the bottom of the screen: Hub, Trade, Battles, Ranks and You. The tab you are on shows its name. Each area shows a short walkthrough the first time you open it.

Easy to mix up: the Hub tab in the dock opens your road, not the Hub page. At the top of the road, the house with your Day streak opens the Hub page. Your Rating opens your courses, Paper cash opens the Shop, and Energy shows your energy.

Your first look at Trade

No order reaches a real market. In a real trade, your coins come from a seller. A paper buy has no seller: the app writes a line in your paper account and buys nothing. Two lessons explain it, A paper trade uses real prices and virtual cash and What a paper trade does.

On a computer, click Trade in the sidebar. Its tabs are Trenches, Discover, Perps, Stocks (with Options inside), Forex and Track. The Trenches tab is the board of new memecoins, not the whole app.

On a phone, tap Trade in the dock. The row reads Memes, Crypto (Spot and Perps), Stocks (Shares and Options), FX and Track. The pie icon at the start of the row opens your portfolio.

Which guide next? Pick what you came for:

Memecoins: How to paper trade a memecoin on Trenches and Read the Trenches board and a coin page
Major coins such as Bitcoin, where you buy the coin itself (spot): Paper trading the major coins on Trenches
Perps, contracts with no end date where a long gains if the price rises and a short if it falls: Paper trading perps: leverage, margin and funding
Stocks and options, where an option is the right to buy or sell 100 shares at a set price until a set date: Paper trading stocks and options on Trenches
Forex, trading one currency for another, such as euros for dollars: Paper trading forex: pairs, lots and leverage
Real traders' trades, on Track: Track: watch real traders, practice on paper
Your cash, positions and profit: Your paper account: cash, positions and profit

Where to get help

Toro is the AI coach: "Ask Toro anything: how to trade, what a signal means, how this page works."

On a computer, Ask Toro sits at the foot of the sidebar and beside each question in a lesson. It opens beside the page and suggests three questions about that page. On a phone, tap Ranks, then Coach, to open Toro, and a lesson's Question button asks it.

Asking needs a free account, which gets 10 questions a month. Toro runs on Anthropic's Claude, so your first question shows what it shares with Anthropic, and its button reads Agree and send.

The Trenches Discord is where learners talk: "Talk, make friends, share paper trades, and say what the lessons need." Its card is on the Hub, at the foot of the right column on a computer and after Invite a friend on a phone. The Hub, Toro and the Trenches Discord has more.

Sharing a screenshot? On a computer, switch on Blur balances in the account menu or in Settings. It blurs your paper cash and your equity, your cash plus what you hold.

Found a bug, a problem or an idea? Email trading@trenches.academy.