HTX (formerly Huobi) Futures Copy Trading automatically mirrors a lead trader's opens and closes on USDT-M perpetuals. Each trader you follow gets a separate copy account, the minimum investment is 10 USDT, and you can follow up to 10 traders at once. There are two modes: Smart Copy (sized by the trader's capital usage) and Custom Copy (fixed amount or fixed ratio). Lead traders can only pick a 10%, 15%, 20% or 25% profit share, settled every Monday at 00:00 (UTC+8), and losing trades are not charged (HTX help-center guides and announcements, checked 2026-10-17).
This guide covers setup, how each mode sizes positions, per-order and total margin limits, how KYC level caps leverage, how profit share is pre-deducted and refunded, how to read trader stats, and a one-week example of fees, profit share and rebates. Every copied open and close pays a futures fee: sign up for HTX with code FEEOTTER and link your UID on Fee Otter for a 50% futures rebate (30% automatic rebate from the exchange + 20% extra rebate), 2.5 times a typical 20% code.
Key points
- You copy USDT-M futures: HTX also has spot copy trading with the same profit-share rules.
- Two modes: Smart Copy follows the share of capital the trader commits; Custom Copy uses a fixed amount or fixed ratio, with per-order margin of 10 to 500 USDT (higher caps on BTC, ETH and a few others).
- Investment: at least 10 USDT per trader; the July 2025 announcement put the total copy amount cap at 25,000 USDT; up to 10 traders at once.
- Profit share: 10% to 25%, pre-deducted when a profitable trade closes, with any excess refunded at the weekly settlement. Losses are not charged.
- KYC limits leverage: new users below KYC Level 2 have capped leverage and may fail to copy high-leverage trades.
Getting started
From Futures Copy Trading Guide for Followers (Web) (November 26, 2025; checked 2026-10-17):
- Top navigation "Futures" → "Copy Trading".
- Click View More or All Traders and use the leaderboards or filters to find a trader.
- Click Follow. Smart Copy is the default; enter the investment amount (minimum 10 USDT), funded from your futures or spot account.
- Optionally open Advanced: TP ratio, SL ratio, leverage, which pairs to copy, slippage protection and maximum loss per copy trade.
- Read and accept the Copy Trading User Agreement, then click Follow.
From the copy trading "Me" page you can add or remove investment, edit parameters or unfollow. When reducing, leave at least 10 USDT in the account to keep copying.
Two modes: how positions are sized
| Mode | How size is set | Leverage and margin mode |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Copy | Same share of capital as the trader: if the trader commits 100 of 1,000 USDT (10%), your 100 USDT investment uses 10 USDT of margin | Defaults to the trader's (cross or isolated) |
| Custom Copy: fixed amount | The same margin on every order, whatever the trader uses | Customisable |
| Custom Copy: fixed ratio | A fixed multiple of the trader's position | Customisable |
Per Introduction to Custom Copy, if a fixed ratio produces per-order margin outside 10 to 500 USDT, the system moves it to the nearest limit. HTX's example: the trader opens 9,000 USDT at 100x, you pick 1x ratio and 15x leverage, the theoretical margin of 600 USDT exceeds the cap, so 500 USDT is used and your position is 500 × 15 = 7,500 USDT. Below 10 USDT it is raised to 10 USDT, and small margin with high leverage can give you a much bigger position than you expected: in the same article, a 200 USDT trader position becomes 2,000 USDT for a follower at 200x whose margin was raised to 10 USDT.
Per-order limits come from the July 2025 copy trading margin limit announcement: 10 to 500 USDT for most pairs, 10 to 3,000 USDT for BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT, 10 to 1,000 USDT for DOGE, SOL, XRP, TRX and ADA; total copy amount 20 to 25,000 USDT. The later Custom Copy introduction only mentions 10 to 500 USDT, so trust the settings page.
Copying the trader's existing positions or not
- Copy ongoing positions at market price: copies what the trader already holds at today's price, so your average entry will differ.
- Copy increased and new positions: skips old positions and copies later adds and new opens.
- Copy new positions only: the option HTX says to choose if you want the trader's average entry price (minus small slippage).
When your maximum loss is hit you can choose close all at market, follow the trader to close, or close manually.
KYC level and leverage caps
HTX published two 2026 rules for newly registered users, and they do not quite match:
- Futures leverage limits and API permissions for new users (March 30, 2026): new users below KYC Level 2 are capped at 5x on futures, including Futures Copy Trading. If the trader goes above 5x and you chose "Sync with Lead Trader", the system uses your 5x maximum, and the copy may fail.
- Leverage rules for Futures Copy Trading (April 22, 2026): new followers who are unverified or at KYC Level 1 are capped at 20x, Levels 2 and 3 have no extra cap; new lead traders below Level 2 are capped at 20x; API lead traders need Level 2 and are capped at 20x.
One says 5x and the other 20x for users below Level 2, and HTX does not say which replaces which. The trading page shows your real cap. To copy a trader's leverage in full, finish KYC Level 2 first; steps are in the HTX KYC guide.
How profit share works and when it settles
From HTX Futures Copy Trading Profit Sharing Rules (November 26, 2025):
- Rate: the lead trader picks 10%, 15%, 20% or 25% when enabling lead trading (lead trader guide); followers cannot change it.
- Cycle: Monday 00:00:00 to Sunday 23:59:59 (UTC+8), regular settlement Monday 00:00; unfollowing triggers an immediate special settlement.
- Pre-deduction: each profitable close has the share pre-deducted; losing closes are not charged.
- Open positions delay settlement: if you still hold positions copied from that trader, the cycle is not settled until all are closed.
- Refund: at settlement the actual share is the cycle's net PnL times the rate, and any excess pre-deduction comes back to you.
HTX's example: 10% share, a follower's closes in one week are +100, +200, −100, −100 and +100 USDT (the table says after fees), and 40 USDT is pre-deducted from the winners. Net profit for the week is 200 USDT, so the actual share is 20 USDT and 20 USDT is refunded. Profit share is charged on the cycle's net result, not once per winning trade.
One week of copying: fees, profit share and rebate
Say you invest 1,000 USDT with a trader who charges 20%, and in one week you copy 10 trades of 5,000 USDT each, so 100,000 USDT of volume counting opens and closes. HTX does not say whether copy orders fill as maker or taker, so we use Prime 0 taker at 0.06%. Net profit after fees for the week is 200 USDT:
| Item | Calculation | USDT |
|---|---|---|
| Futures fees | 100,000 × 0.06% | 60 |
| Profit share to trader | 200 × 20% | 40 |
| Typical 20% code refunds | 60 × 20% | 12 |
| Fee Otter 50% rebate refunds | 60 × 50% (18 automatic from HTX + 12 Fee Otter) | 30 |
Fees exceed the profit share here. The more often the trader opens and closes, the more you pay in fees, and you pay them in losing weeks too. This is our own example using HTX's published fees; your fills and rebate statement are final. HTX's copy trading guides mention no separate copy trading service fee.
Reading trader stats
From the guides and the June 2026 leaderboard and data rules upgrade:
- Data refreshes every 15 minutes.
- PnL% = PnL ÷ [initial assets + max net transfers in during the period], so money the trader moved in is included in the denominator.
- Followers' PnL: total profit from all followers' profitable orders. Losing orders are not netted, so it is not followers' net result.
- Max drawdown = (peak − trough) ÷ peak; win rate = profitable positions ÷ total historical positions.
- AUM: combined futures margin of the trader and followers. A trader's lead account needs more than 10 USDT to be found.
Check max drawdown and average holding time before PnL%. High-frequency traders also mean high fees for followers. Short-term returns swing a lot, and past results are not future results.
Trial bonuses and promotions
HTX runs copy trading promotions often, such as first-trade loss protection from April 24 to May 8, 2026 (up to 50 USDT in copy trading trial bonus, first copy ≥ 100 USDT, trader max drawdown < 60%), which has ended. Rewards are usually trial bonuses, and withdrawing funds voids them. Under HTX's referral rules, fees on trades made with futures trial bonuses do not count toward rebates.
Becoming a lead trader
- Click "Become a Trader" on the copy trading page and submit the form; you cannot resubmit while under review.
- Once approved, enable Trader Mode, pick a 10% to 25% share and accept the trader agreement.
- Your lead account needs more than 10 USDT to appear to followers.
- API lead trading uses the new copy trading API (
/v6/copyTrading/, header-based signing), requires KYC Level 2 and caps leverage at 20x. API setup is in HTX API trading setup.
Where HTX is available
Clause 1.2 of the HTX User Agreement (updated September 2026, checked 2026-10-17) bars all services in mainland China, the US, Hong Kong, the UK, Singapore, Russia, every EU member state and other listed places. Users from Israel, Iraq, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan and New Zealand cannot trade derivatives, which includes futures copy trading. HTX also offers spot copy trading (spot copy trading profit sharing rules, April 10, 2026) with the same settlement method. In May 2026 the UK government added Huobi Global S.A., which operates HTX, to its Russia sanctions list (UK government notice). Licensing by country is in crypto exchange licenses by country.
Risks
Copy trading hands the trading decisions to someone else while you carry the losses. The trader's leverage, your KYC cap and adjusted per-order margin all make your results differ from the trader's. The maximum loss setting is the one brake you control, so set it before you start. HTX upgraded and migrated the copy trading system in November 2025 and again in May 2026; when the November 2025 upgrade began, the system cancelled unfilled orders and closed all copy positions, so act on upgrade notices before they take effect.
Ignore groups or private messages promising "guaranteed" copy trading profits. Official copy trading runs only inside the HTX app and website, and you never need to hand funds or an API key to anyone.
Copy trading and rebates
Rebates cover trading fees only. Profit share is a cut of profit paid to the trader, not a fee, so no rebate applies to it; the same goes for funding. Under Rules for HTX's Referral Program, commission is paid on invitees' net spot and futures fees, with no separate mention of copy trading. Copy trading is futures trading, and HTX's SmartEarn Trading Boost announcement counts copy trading as futures volume. Check your rebate statement to confirm.
Sign up for HTX with code FEEOTTER and submit your UID on Fee Otter, and 50% of your futures fees come back: 30% refunded by HTX into your account and 20% settled daily by Fee Otter. Screenshots are on the rebate rates page. Fee Otter calculates rebates by UID only, never asks for API keys, and never trades or copies for you. Sign-up steps are in how to register on HTX. An HTX referral code cannot be changed once bound; if you used someone else's code, see the HTX rebind guide. Futures rules are in the HTX futures guide. If you are already a VIP at an exchange and want to switch or open an account elsewhere, contact support and we can request special trading benefits or a higher rebate rate for you.
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