Welcome to Nolus! This guide takes you from an empty browser tab to your first position in four short steps.
1. Connect a wallet
Nolus is non-custodial, so your assets stay under your control at all times. You can open app.nolus.io and look around before connecting anything: the pages, the market board and the rates all render without a wallet. A wallet is needed for actions, not for reading, and every action button asks for one the moment you click it.
To connect, click Connect in the top right. The Select Wallet dialog lists Solflare and Phantom, the only wallets the app offers. Keplr is no longer offered in the app, and a Phantom or Solflare session is a separate Nolus account: assets in a Keplr-based Nolus account, including cosmos-era assets from the closed Osmosis markets, are not listed in the app; you see and move them in the Keplr extension itself, and NLS staked from a Keplr account is managed in the Keplr dashboard at wallet.keplr.app.
One Solana session also gives you a Nolus account, your Nolus Smart Account, derived from the same key, so you do not need a second wallet and you sign everything with your Solana extension.
On a phone, tapping Phantom or Solflare in an ordinary mobile browser opens that wallet’s own app and reopens Nolus inside it, and you finish connecting there.
If you don’t have a wallet yet, install one as a browser extension, create an account, and store your recovery phrase somewhere safe and offline. Nolus will never ask you for your recovery phrase.
Before you connect anything, the app shows the Solana catalog by default, so a first visit lands on Solana assets and the Solana Earn pool. The home page opens on live protocol content: the Margin Markets board and its price chart, the Yield rates in the Earnings card, and the Revenue Share card. Figures that would be personally yours show a dash rather than a zero until a wallet is connected.
The header holds Home, Earn and Activities, with Vote and Stats under More. On a phone or a narrow window, the menu button at the top left of the header opens the same list. Your positions are listed on the home page, under the Margin Markets chart.
2. Fund your account
Once connected, click the wallet button in the header to open the Account popover, then use Fund to move assets in.
Funding runs between your Solana wallet and your Nolus account with an estimated processing time of about 4 seconds. Keep some SOL in the wallet to cover the Solana network fee.
When it lands, the asset appears in the Balances list of that same popover, and on desktop the wallet button prints your account’s total value beside your shortened Nolus Smart Account.
For the full walkthrough, see Fund & Withdraw Assets.
3. Choose what to do
With funded balances you can:
Open a margin leverage position: put down a down payment and gain amplified exposure to an asset. On Solana this means long positions on cbBTC, HYPE, JLP, JUP, NVDAx, PUMP, RAY, SOL, wETH and ZEC, up to 5x, with a down payment of at least $40 in SOL or USDC, except that cbBTC, HYPE, JLP, wETH and ZEC open with USDC only. Pick a market in the home board’s market picker and the Long button next to the picker (under it on a phone), which names the asset, opens this form with the asset already chosen. Start with Open a Margin Leverage Position
Earn on idle assets: deposit liquidity and collect yield. See Earn on Idle Assets
Stake NLS: help secure the network and earn staking rewards. Staking lives on the Earn page, where NLS is the first row of the assets table: Deposit with NLS picked stakes it and Withdraw with NLS picked unstakes it. See Stake and Unstake NLS
Referring others takes no funds at all: the Revenue Share card on the home page registers your account as a referrer with one click on Get Referral Link, with no signature and no transaction, and then shows your link and what it has brought you.
To compare rates before you decide, the home page’s Yield list shows the NLS staking rate first and then each pool on the active network.
The transfer dialog has two tabs, Fund and Withdraw, and the app has no Swap: convert assets in your own Solana wallet, then bring them in with Fund.
4. Understand the risks before you size up
Margin leverage amplifies both gains and losses, and positions can be liquidated if the market moves against you. Before opening a larger position, read Understanding the Risks Involved. It is short and worth every minute.
Need help?
If anything is unclear or a transfer seems stuck, check the Troubleshooting & FAQ article in this collection, or reach out through the messenger in the bottom-right corner of this page.