App builder

Run a crypto trading simulator
with virtual cash and real market prices.

Describe your class, club or community and Netiva’s AI builds a paper trading web app — virtual balances, orders filled at prices from your market-data API, competitions, a leaderboard and short lessons.

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Starter prompt

Build a crypto paper trading web app for a university investment club. Organizers create competitions with start and end dates, a starting balance of 100,000 virtual dollars, allowed coins and a 0.1% fee per fill. Members sign in and join a round with a code. Market orders fill at the latest market-data API price, moved 0.05% against the player, with the fee taken from virtual cash. Limit orders wait for a scheduled check and never fill worse than the limit. Reject orders that exceed the member’s virtual cash or coins. Show a leaderboard ranked by return and a lessons page with videos and practice tasks.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this trading simulator is for

Explaining a limit order or a trading fee lands better when people can place one without risking money. Most teachers and club organizers end up with a shared spreadsheet where players type in trades and someone checks prices by hand, or a free game whose coins, rules and schedule they can’t change. A crypto trading simulator built with Netiva gives every player a virtual balance, fills their orders at prices from a market-data API and ranks the group on a leaderboard, with short lessons between trading days.

Key features

What your trading simulator can do

  • Simulated market and limit orders

    Players trade from an order ticket with your market-data API’s latest price. Market orders fill at that price moved against them by a slippage allowance — above on a buy, below on a sell — and the round’s fee comes out of virtual cash.

    • Buy limits fill at or below the limit, sell limits at or above it
    • Orders rejected when virtual cash or holdings fall short, with the reason shown
    • Open limit orders checked against fresh prices on a schedule
    • Holdings per coin added up from each player’s filled orders

  • Competitions with join codes

    Set up each round in the collection grid with its dates, starting balance, allowed coins and fee. Members sign in, enter the round’s code and pick the nickname that appears on the board.

    • Draft, open, running and finished stages
    • Orders accepted only between a round’s start and end
    • One entry per signed-in member in each competition
    • A public page for every round with its coins, dates and fee

  • Leaderboards and final standings

    A scheduled job values every entry at virtual cash plus holdings at the latest prices, then ranks players by return on the starting balance. Standings pages render straight from the entries collection.

    • Rank, nickname, portfolio value, return and trade count
    • Saved views for each class period or club division
    • Standings locked when a round ends
    • Real names kept off the public board

  • Short lessons with practice trades

    Each lesson pairs a short video and a few paragraphs with a task to try in the simulator, such as placing a buy limit below the current price. Players can see which lessons they’ve finished.

    • Lessons ordered into a unit, from order types to position sizing
    • A task marked done once the player places the matching order
    • Lesson outlines drafted by the collection assistant for your review
    • Finished lessons counted on each player’s entry
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Competitions

Each trading round, with the rules every entrant plays by.

  • Name (required) Text
  • Starts at (required) Date & time
  • Ends at (required) Orders are refused after this time and standings lock Date & time
  • Starting balance (required) Virtual dollars each entrant begins with, such as 100,000 Number
  • Allowed coins (required) Symbols such as BTC, ETH and SOL, matched to your provider’s coin IDs Text
  • Fee rate Percent of each fill’s value charged to the player’s virtual cash, such as 0.1 Number
  • Stage (required) Draft, open for entries, running or finished Text
  • Join code (required) Shared with the class or club; a new one each round Text

Entries

One player’s virtual account in one competition.

  • Competition (required) Relation to Competitions
  • Nickname (required) Shown on the leaderboard instead of a real name Text
  • Player (required) Filled in from the signed-in member; visible to organizers only Text
  • Virtual cash (required) Starts at the round’s starting balance and changes with every fill and fee Number
  • Portfolio value Cash plus holdings at the latest prices, set by the scheduled job Number
  • Return Percent gain or loss on the starting balance Number
  • Rank Number
  • Lessons finished Goes up when a practice task is completed Number

Orders

Every simulated buy and sell, from the moment it’s placed to its fill or cancellation.

  • Entry (required) Relation to Entries
  • Coin (required) One of the round’s allowed coins Text
  • Side (required) Buy or sell Text
  • Quantity (required) Units of the coin; fractions allowed Number
  • Limit price Leave blank for a market order Number
  • Status (required) Open, filled, canceled or rejected Text
  • Fill price Market fills: provider price moved against the player; limit fills: the limit or better Number
  • Reason Why an order was rejected or canceled: cash short, coin not allowed or round closed Text

Lessons

Short lessons that each end with something to try in the simulator.

  • Title (required) Text
  • Position (required) Order within the unit Number
  • Summary One or two sentences for the lesson list Paragraph
  • Video Video
  • Lesson text (required) HTML
  • Practice task For example, “Place a buy limit 5% under the current price” Text
  • Completing order The order that marks the task done: market buy, limit buy, limit sell… Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Competitions

    Open and running rounds with their dates, starting balance and allowed coins, plus a join button that asks players to sign in.

    Public

  • Round page

    The rules, the coins in play, the time left and the leaderboard by nickname, switching to final standings once the round ends.

    Public

  • Order ticket

    The player’s virtual cash and holdings, the latest price of each allowed coin and a market or limit order form that shows the fee before submitting.

    Signed-in users

  • Order history

    Filled, open, canceled and rejected orders with fill prices, the fee charged and the reason an order was rejected, plus a cancel button on open limit orders.

    Signed-in users

  • Lesson

    A short video and text, the practice task and a done mark that appears once the player places the matching order.

    Signed-in users

  • Organizer console

    Create and schedule rounds, see each entry with the player behind the nickname, remove an entrant and lock final standings.

    Your team
How it works

From prompt to a live trading simulator

  1. Describe your group and your rounds

    Tell Netiva who plays, how long a round runs, the starting balance, which coins are allowed and what a fill costs. The agent drafts collections for competitions, entries, orders and lessons.

  2. Connect prices and write lessons

    Add your market-data provider’s API key, which is stored securely, and ask for a scheduled price refresh. Write the first lessons in the collection grid or let the collection assistant outline them for you to review.

  3. Play a test round in the preview

    Place market and limit orders as a test player in the live preview and check the cash, fee and ranking math. Annotate the order ticket or the round page to change anything.

  4. Publish and share the join code

    Publish in one click, share the round page and its code, and switch on the Friday recap email. Every edit is checkpointed, so you can compare this season’s rules with last season’s and roll back.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a trading simulator with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Running a trading contest Players join with a code and a scheduled job ranks everyone from their simulated fills Trades reported on a form and returns worked out from screenshots in a spreadsheet
Teaching order types Short lessons that end with a practice order placed in the simulator Slides that explain a limit order with nowhere safe to try one
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • A high school personal finance class

    A teacher runs a four-week round for each class period with the same starting balance. Students trade under nicknames and work through the fee and limit order lessons between trading days, so class discussion starts from orders they actually placed.

  • A university investment club

    The club runs a semester-long league next to its weekly meetings. Members get a Friday recap of their rank, and the board walks through the top entrants’ order histories to talk about position sizing and timing.

  • An online crypto community

    Moderators host a monthly round for members, with a public leaderboard that newcomers can browse before they sign up. Bragging rights stand in for prizes, which keeps the contest simple to run.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Simulated fills flatter results

    Writing about stocks, FINRA notes that a market order fills at or near the current bid or ask, not always the price you saw — crypto venues promise less. Simulated fills skip spreads; a limit that dips and rebounds between checks never fills. Set a fee and slippage allowance.

  • Your price feed and its terms

    Choose a market-data provider, add its API key and check its terms for display, attribution and rate limits. Refresh prices on a schedule and reuse them for fills. Crypto trades around the clock and the CFTC warns of sharp swings, so standings can change overnight.

  • Students and personal data

    In a classroom, sign players in with a school email, show only nicknames and collect nothing else. In the US, COPPA covers whoever runs the app when under-13s sign up, and a school can consent for you only in limited educational cases — check its policy and your own duties.

  • Keep the money virtual

    Netiva doesn’t hold funds or place real trades, and the simulator shouldn’t either: virtual balances should never be redeemable for cash or coins. Entry fees and prizes can bring contest or gambling rules into play, so get legal advice before adding either.

Compliance note

Netiva builds the web app only. Balances and trades in the simulator are virtual: Netiva doesn’t mine, hold or move funds, execute real trades or give investment advice, and prices come from the market-data provider you choose. Label the app as an educational simulation, and get legal review in your jurisdiction before adding prizes, entry fees or any link to a real trading account.

FAQ

Questions about building a trading simulator

How does a crypto trading simulator fill paper orders?

A market order fills at the latest price from your market-data API, moved against the player by the slippage allowance you set, with the round’s fee charged on the fill value. A limit order stays open until a scheduled price check finds the market at or below a buy limit, or at or above a sell limit, and never fills worse than the limit. Orders that need more virtual cash or coins than the player holds are rejected with a reason.

Can I run a cryptocurrency demo trading app for my class under nicknames?

Yes. Students sign in with their own accounts, join the round with a code and choose the nickname the leaderboard shows. Only the organizer console links nicknames to the players behind them. Collect nothing beyond what sign-in needs, and if any of your students in the US are under 13, check how your school handles COPPA before they join.

How does the simulator rank players on the leaderboard?

By return on the starting balance. A scheduled job values each entry as virtual cash plus every holding at the latest price, then subtracts the starting balance, divides by it and multiplies by 100. Because everyone starts with the same balance, the ranking compares like with like. When a round ends, the app stops accepting orders and locks the final standings.

Can members open the cryptocurrency practice app on their phones?

Yes. Netiva builds web apps that run in the browser, so players open the order ticket on a phone, tablet or laptop without installing anything. It isn’t an installed iPhone or Android app. Share the round page link with your group, and players sign in to place orders and check the leaderboard from whichever device they have.

Can the simulator move players on to real trading later?

Keep the two apart. Netiva doesn’t execute trades or hold funds, and an app that mixes virtual and real balances confuses players. If an experienced member wants to log real trades placed through their own licensed exchange account, that’s a separate build, such as a trading journal. The simulator can link to it, but its balances should stay virtual.

Which Netiva plan do I need to host a trading simulator for my group?

You can build and test the simulator on the free plan, and calling a market-data API works on every plan, including Free. Custom domains are available from the Starter plan, and paid plans add capacity and features. Your price provider may charge separately for its API, so check its tiers too. Compare Netiva’s current plans on the pricing page before you publish.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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