1. Pick how you'll hold your coins
You can trade from your own wallet (Phantom, Solflare and others), where every trade pops up for you to approve, or from a trading wallet the terminal holds for you, where a trade is one tap. Trenchie offers both: connect your own wallet, or sign in with Google and get an instant Trenchie wallet you can deposit to, withdraw from and export the key of.
2. Understand the costs
- Pool fees are charged by the venue (pump.fun's curve, PumpSwap, Raydium, Meteora and so on).
- Price impact is how far your own buy moves the price; it's large on thin pools.
- Slippage is how far the price may move against you before the trade fails. Too low and trades fail on fast coins; too high and you can get a bad fill.
- Priority fees pay validators to include you sooner. Bribes (Jito tips) do the same through a block engine.
- The terminal's fee: Trenchie charges 1% a swap (0.5% for PRO, 0.75% for the week's top 10 traders).
3. Protect against MEV
Sandwich bots see your buy coming, buy just before you and sell just after, at your expense. Sending through a private route (Jito) cuts that risk. Trenchie's trading settings have MEV modes: off, reduced (also sent via Jito) and secure (Jito only).
4. Plan the exit before the entry
Most memecoin losses aren't bad entries, they're no exit. Before you buy, place a take profit and a stop loss. Trenchie supports any number of take profits and stop losses on one bag, trailing stops that follow the price up, and DCA orders that buy in legs.
5. Check the coin first
A third of the coins people look at rug within a day. Thirty seconds on a rug check removes most of them. On Trenchie the check and the buy button are on the same page, and buying a coin with a rug-class red flag asks you twice.
6. Practise with paper trading
Trenchie's paper trading lets you trade any coin at live prices with fake SOL, fills included, so you can learn a coin's behaviour and your own before risking money.
7. Speed tools when you're ready
Hotkeys (1-4 to buy a preset, Shift+1-4 to sell), Quick Buy buttons on every list, buying from several wallets in one tap, coin-to-coin swaps without going back to SOL, and a launch sniper for creators you follow.
Questions people ask
What is the best slippage for Solana memecoins?
There's no single answer: fast, thin coins need more, big coins need less. Many traders use 10-20% on new pump.fun coins and a few percent on established ones. Trenchie's presets let you save different slippage for buys and sells.
Do I need my own wallet to trade on Trenchie?
No. You can sign in with Google and get an instant Trenchie wallet, or connect Phantom, Solflare or another Solana wallet.
Can I practise without real money?
Yes. Paper trading on Trenchie uses live prices and real fills with fake SOL.