To open a margin position, go to the Nolus app. You need a non-custodial wallet, Solflare or Phantom, to confirm it. A Solana wallet signs everything on Nolus for you, so you do not need a second wallet. Before you connect anything, the app shows the Solana catalog.
You do not have to connect first. The Long form is fully browsable without a wallet, with a live quote, and when you reach it from the left-hand navigation the app asks for a wallet only at the final Open Position click.
There are two ways to reach the form:
Open My Positions in the left-hand navigation (the page itself is still titled Margin), then click Open Position.
On Home, pick a market on the Margin Markets board and click its Long button, which names the market's asset and opens the form with that asset already selected. With no wallet connected, that button asks you to connect first. A matching Short button appears only where that side is offered.
Configuring the position
You are taken to a form where you set up the position.
Choose the position type. Long (Buy) is for an asset you expect to rise. Short positions are currently available on Solana for cbBTC, SOL and wETH.
Select the asset you are putting up as Collateral, your down payment. For a long on Solana that is SOL or USDC, except that cbBTC, JLP, wETH and ZEC open with USDC only. Your available balance is shown, and you enter the amount you want to commit.
Choose the asset you want exposure to in the Buy field. On Solana you can go long on cbBTC, HYPE, JLP, SOL, wETH and ZEC.
Adjust the Leverage slider to set how much you borrow on top of your collateral. It offers the available steps and starts at the maximum, up to 5x.
The Details panel on the right of the form (below it on a narrow screen) previews the position. It refreshes a moment after you stop typing or dragging, not on every keystroke. It shows the total Size, a Liquidations rail, and four figures: Collateral, Borrow, Monthly Interest and Swap Fees, the last one in dollars.
The Liquidations rail shows where the position would be liquidated. Its first row is the live price, tagged Price Now. Under it on a long position, and above it on a short one, sit up to three trigger prices, each with the move it would take to reach it. If a full liquidation falls inside those three, the last rung carries the tag Full. The levels are computed at the position's current debt, and accruing interest and liquidation slippage are not included. If the app cannot compute them, the cell shows a dash instead of numbers.
Every position also has a minimum and a maximum down payment: on Solana the minimum is $40 and the maximum depends on the asset you are buying. If your amount falls outside the range, the form shows you the live limits before you can continue.
Clicking the balance line under the amount field fills in the largest amount you can commit. When the network fee is charged in that same asset, the figure it fills is a little below the balance printed above it, because the fee is left behind.
If the lending pool for the pair you picked has nothing to lend, the quote is refused and the amount field carries the reason: Not enough available liquidity in the LP to borrow from. Please check back later. That is the state of the pool, not a fault in the app, so pick another pair or come back later.
Confirming
If everything looks right, click Open Position and confirm the transaction in your wallet. The transaction you are asked to sign is prepared by Nolus for you, and the app checks it against what you asked for before handing it over. If you arrived through someone's referral link, the prompt also carries a memo reading ref:NLS- followed by the code, which changes nothing about the position. Opening usually takes less than a minute. On Solana a position is typically live in about 20 to 25 seconds.
What happens behind the scenes
Your collateral and the borrowed funds buy the asset you chose through an integrated exchange aggregator on Solana. The funds first move between your Nolus account and Solana over the protocol's transfer channel. Once the transaction confirms, your position is live and visible under My Positions.
If a step cannot complete, the position is never left half open. The app shows Position Opening Failed and confirms that the protocol has refunded your funds to your wallet: your down payment comes back and the borrowed amount is returned to the pool in the same transaction, so you can simply try again.