FAQ
Frequently asked questions
General
What is DojiPad?
DojiPad is an AI system that helps traders improve their P&L and helps firms monitor trading risk before orders are placed. It runs inside your firm's own cloud account, and risk and compliance get a record of every decision. Traders talk their plans through with DJ, DojiPad's AI coach.
Who is it for?
Any desk where a person states, sizes or overrides a decision: discretionary, rules based or algorithmic. Fully automated strategies with no human decision are not what it is for.
How is it different from what we already run?
Your order system checks orders, surveillance reviews trades, and behavioral analytics review decisions after the fact. DojiPad checks the decision at the plan, before the order, against your limits. It replaces none of them.
Is the data in the walkthrough real?
No. The walkthrough runs the real product on Aurora Capital, a simulated trading firm we use for demonstrations.
Why doesn't DojiPad block or cancel trades?
It's a deliberate choice, not a missing feature. A tool that can block or cancel orders has to sit inside your order flow. It needs a connection to your order systems, it becomes a point of failure at the worst moment, and traders learn to work around it. DojiPad works earlier, at the plan. The trader sees the problem while the decision can still change, and the firm has the record either way. Your order system keeps its own hard limits.
Paper IV sets out the full reasoning: “We built a system that could block trades. It never will.”
How quickly can we deploy DojiPad?
Setup takes one to two weeks after your firm's approvals. Your administrator deploys DojiPad, fully locked down, into your firm's own cloud account while we guide them on a call. Then we run two workshops with your risk or compliance owner to set up your limits. Nothing is installed on traders' computers, and nothing connects to your order systems. The 30-day pilot starts at go-live.
Is DojiPad available in my region?
DojiPad runs inside your firm's own Microsoft cloud account (Azure), in the region your firm chooses. The Microsoft AI service it uses isn't offered in every region, so we confirm your options in the briefing.
What is a limit breach?
When a trader commits a plan, they confirm it as the plan of record. DojiPad then checks the plan against each of your firm's limits and records the result. If the plan goes past a limit, that record is a limit breach. Drafts are coaching notes on the trader's side. They never reach the list of limit breaches.
Can ARQNXS see our trades or data?
No. Nothing in DojiPad sends data to us, and we never hold your keys, passwords or access. Your administrator runs the setup with your own accounts while we guide them on a call.
What if ARQNXS stops operating?
Your deployment, data and records live in your firm's own cloud account, not with us. Nothing in your deployment calls back to ARQNXS. If we stopped operating, your data and records would stay in your own database.
Who is behind DojiPad?
ARQNXS was founded in 2017 by Nigel van der Laan and is based in Amsterdam and Barcelona. ARQNXS is founder-led and backed by private angel investors.
Directors
What does it cost?
$40,000 a year per environment, for a private copy of DojiPad in your own cloud account, plus $10,000 per trader seat per year. One environment is one firm's deployment. Oversight seats are unlimited. A six-trader desk is $100,000 a year. Running costs are extra, paid to Microsoft: about $200 a month on your Microsoft cloud bill, plus the AI service's usage, which depends on how much the desk uses DJ.
Will it pay for itself?
It depends on how much capital each trader manages. Unmanaged bias is estimated to cost discretionary managers 94 bps a year.¹ If DojiPad helped a trader recover all of that, a trader managing about $1.1m would cover their own seat; at a quarter of it, about $4.3m. For a six-trader desk, including the platform fee, the full figure needs about $1.8m per trader. This is illustrative arithmetic, not a promised return.
¹ Essentia Analytics client research, 2020. Full sourcing in Exhibit A.
How does the pilot work?
$10,000 · 30 days from go-live · one desk, up to six traders, unlimited oversight seats · credited in full against year one if you continue. It runs in your own cloud account. Setting up your firm's limits in DojiPad is included. Setup happens before the pilot and is not counted in it. Setup takes one to two weeks after your firm's approvals.
What do we measure in the pilot?
Five things:
- coverage: how many plans the desk stated;
- limit breaches flagged at the plan;
- whether traders changed those plans before committing;
- how quickly risk and compliance reviewed them;
- how the breach predictions compared with traders' next committed plans.
You set the thresholds with us at kickoff.
Can a smaller desk run a pilot?
Yes. Pilot terms can be sized to the desk; we agree them in the briefing.
What happens after the pilot?
You decide against the criteria agreed at kickoff. If you continue, the $10,000 is credited in full against year one.
Can we end the contract?
Yes. After the pilot, the contract is annual. In year one, you have a 90-day termination right.
Who supports it?
Your administrator sets up DojiPad with our guidance, and we set up your firm's limits with your risk or compliance owner in two workshops. ARQNXS also supports the platform. The platform fee covers updates and support.
Support comes directly from the founder, at any hour, with a response within one hour.
Traders
Is this surveillance?
It doesn't watch your screen, read your email or messaging apps, or see your orders. It works only on the plans you state to DJ. When you commit a plan, the firm sees it with any limit breaches. Over time, it also sees your breach history and a breach prediction for your next plan.
Who can see my conversations with DJ?
No screen or report in DojiPad shows the firm your conversation, your personal rules or what DJ learns about you, and the firm's side of the system can't retrieve them. That separation is tested at go-live. They are stored in your firm's own database, so, as with any system your firm hosts, its database administrators could read them there. The firm sees your committed plans and their written reasoning, any limit breaches and your breach history, and a breach prediction for your next plan. ARQNXS, the company behind DojiPad, has no access to your firm's environment.
What do I get from it?
A second look while the decision can still change. It covers size, timing and reasoning, based on your own patterns rather than generic advice, with the limits your firm shows you in plain sight before you commit. Unmanaged bias costs discretionary managers an estimated 94 bps a year.¹ That cost is made one decision at a time, and that is where DojiPad sits.
Does it slow me down?
It adds a conversation before the trade, not a step in the order. Nothing sits between you and execution.
Does it work for systematic desks?
Yes, wherever a person states, sizes or overrides a decision: discretionary, rules based or algorithmic.
¹ Essentia Analytics client research, 2020. Full sourcing in Exhibit A.
What does the firm see?
Your committed plans and their written reasoning, and how each one was checked against the firm's limits. Any limit breaches, and your breach history. A breach prediction for your next plan. The briefs you send.
What does DJ do?
DJ checks your plan against the firm's limits while it is still a plan. It coaches you using your own trading record. You can change the plan or commit it. The choice stays yours.
What is a brief?
A note to the desk. You write it yourself, or send DJ's draft without changes. Sending it is your decision. Nothing is sent unless you send it.
What do I see of the breach prediction?
Your own number and how it is trending. Nothing about anyone else.
Risk
What if the AI gets something wrong?
Every breach shows the figure and the record behind it. The limit checks are rules written from your documents. If DojiPad can't map an instrument, it says so rather than guessing. Breach predictions stay hidden until there is enough history to judge them.
What about limits that can't be written as rules?
They are listed as not monitored, in plain sight, rather than skipped.
What if a trader doesn't state a plan?
DojiPad sees the plans traders state, so your desk sets the policy, for example every new position or anything above a set size. During a pilot, your team checks coverage against its own order log. Once the execution feed is connected, orders without a stated plan will show on the desk overview.
What can't it do yet?
Today DojiPad checks plans, not executed trades. It doesn't yet read market data or your executed trades (the execution feed). Both are on the roadmap, as one-way connections into DojiPad.
What that means today:
- DojiPad sees the plans traders state. Your desk decides which decisions need a stated plan, for example every new position or anything above a set size. Until the execution feed is connected, your team checks coverage against its own order log.
- Limits are checked on the plan as stated, using the plan's own price and your capital figures (NAV, firm book or desk book, as each limit specifies).
- Comparing what was planned with what was executed starts when the execution feed is connected.
- Each breach prediction is checked against the trader's next committed plan. Checking predictions against executed trades arrives with the feed.
- The product says so on screen: “Session monitoring is not active — no execution feed is connected. Silence here is not a clean bill.”
What does acknowledged mean?
An officer has reviewed it, on the record. Each acknowledgement is added to the acknowledgement record. It shows the officer's name, the time, and the limit breaches it covers. Entries can only be added, never changed. Acknowledging a breach does not delete it.
What happens on a day nobody trades?
The daily check still runs and writes the daily sign-offs. There is one for every active limit and every trader. Each says the trader was measured and within the limit, went over it, or could not be measured (and says so). A quiet day still leaves a record that it was quiet.
Compliance
Does it add to our compliance obligations?
We never hold your trade data: DojiPad runs in your firm's own cloud account. Nothing in your deployment calls back to ARQNXS. It doesn't sit in your execution path. The trader's conversation with DJ is kept off the firm's screens by design. It is stored in your firm's own database, so, as with any system your firm hosts, its database administrators could read it there. It does add a record of each decision that you can show.
How does it relate to the EU AI Act and recordkeeping rules?
Since the AI Omnibus entered into force in July 2026, high-risk obligations for standalone systems apply from 2 December 2027. Status as of October 2026. The Compliance page sets out what each rule asks and what DojiPad does, and you can request our regulatory memo.
Can we run due diligence on you?
Yes:
- we complete operational due diligence questionnaires;
- security reviews run live with your security team, under NDA;
- your auditors can inspect DojiPad where it runs, in your firm's own cloud account;
- the list of findings from our own deployment rehearsal is available on request.
Company details are on the About page.
Do you hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001?
No. DojiPad doesn't run on our systems: it runs in your firm's own cloud account, and we hold none of your trading data. The deployment produces its own evidence there, reviewed live with your security team under NDA, and we complete your security and due diligence questionnaires.
Can anything be deleted?
Not in the audit log or the acknowledgement record. Limit breaches, acknowledgements, and daily sign-offs are kept in your firm's own storage. The audit log and acknowledgements are append-only: DojiPad can add to them but can't change them. Plans and their limit checks can still be edited, and anyone with the database password can change any record, so database access belongs under your firm's controls. How long you keep records is your firm's policy.
What does the stamp on each PDF show?
The time the view was taken (the as-of time) and the officer who generated it. The filters the view was set to: desk, name filter, and status. And a monitoring line that names any limits that are not being monitored.
Technology
Where does it run?
In your firm's own cloud account, used by your firm alone. Nothing is hosted by the vendor.
Where does our data go?
It stays in your firm's own Azure account, where DojiPad runs fully locked down: nothing in it can send data out except to the Microsoft services it runs on. Its AI model is your own Azure OpenAI resource, whose data-handling settings your security team should review with Microsoft. Nothing in the deployment sends data to ARQNXS.
Which AI model does it use, and where?
The AI model runs in your firm's own cloud account. DojiPad uses it but never creates or holds it. Your firm can see which model it is set to use.
How do roles work?
Each person's role comes from your firm's own staff directory. The roles are trader, desk manager, risk, compliance, auditor, and strategy. People only see the screens their role allows. Someone without access cannot even tell that a screen exists. Being an administrator does not give access to the oversight screens.
Who holds the records, and for how long?
Your firm does, in its own storage, for as long as your own retention policy says. Every oversight screen can print a stamped PDF for the audit file at any time.
Why does it need Azure, and what if we don't use it?
DojiPad's AI model runs in your own Microsoft cloud account (Azure), so plans and conversations go to your model, not ours. That is why it needs Azure. If your firm uses Microsoft 365, you already have the Microsoft sign-in service DojiPad uses. If you run on another cloud or on your own servers, your firm can open an Azure account just for DojiPad, in your firm's name and on your bill. Other clouds aren't supported today.
What do we need to provide?
An Azure account for DojiPad, your Microsoft sign-in with a group for each role, the Microsoft AI service (Azure OpenAI) in your account, and your limit documents and capital figures. DojiPad doesn't touch your order and execution systems, your market data or your traders' computers. There is nothing to install: everyone uses DojiPad in the browser.
Does it connect to our order system or market data?
Not today, and it needs neither to work. Market data and the execution feed are on the roadmap, as one-way connections into DojiPad.
What does it cost to run?
For one environment, about $200 a month on your Microsoft cloud bill, plus the AI service's usage, which depends on how much the desk uses DJ. You pay it to Microsoft.
How are updates delivered?
We publish each new version with upgrade steps and release notes; your administrator installs it. We never need access to your environment.
Glossary
Product terms and what they mean
These are the words the product shows on its screens, with the meaning each has there. Each entry leads with the word this site uses, then the label the product shows, as you see it in the walkthrough.
- Limit breach
- In the product: observation (exceeded). An observation whose committed plan goes past the limit. An observation is the record made when a committed plan is checked against one of your firm's limits.
- Plan that can't be checked
- In the product: unevaluable. A committed plan the product recorded as not checkable against a limit, for example because it can't map the instrument. It does not guess.
- Limit not yet entered
- In the product: unencoded. A limit that has been proposed but not yet entered as a check the product can run. It is named on the list of limits. Once your firm's limits are active, it is also named on the monitoring line of every audit stamp.
- Daily sign-off
- In the product: attestation. One record per active limit, per trader, per day. It says the trader was measured and within the limit, went over it, or was not measured (and says so). A limit that could not be measured is listed as not a pass.
- Daily check
- In the product: settlement pass. The daily run that writes the attestations.
- Commit the plan
- In the product: committed plan. A plan the trader has committed, or confirmed as the plan of record, in conversation with DJ. Committed plans, and any limit breaches found with them, are what pass to the firm plane.
- Plan
- In the product: intent. What the trader states before the order. It becomes the plan of record when the trader commits it.
- Draft
- In the product: draft. A plan not yet committed. It is a coaching record on the trader plane. It never reaches the register.
- Brief
- In the product: brief. A note to the desk. The trader writes it, or sends DJ's draft without changes. Only the trader can send it.
- The trader's side and the firm's side
- In the product: plane (trader, firm). The two halves of the system, kept apart by how it is built. The trader plane holds the conversation with DJ. The firm plane holds plans, the limit breaches found with them (observations), and the record.
- List of limit breaches
- In the product: register. The Observations screen. It lists exceeded observations grouped by trader and by limit, with repeat offenders first. Each group shows its worst multiple.
- Acknowledgement record
- In the product: ledger. The acknowledgement record, listed in the Audit screen. Entries can only be added, never changed.
- Acknowledge
- In the product: acknowledge. An officer puts observations on the record as reviewed. This adds an entry with the officer's name and the time. Entries can only be added, never changed. Acknowledging does not delete anything.
- Unreviewed by you
- In the product: unreviewed by you. A marker for each officer: what has come in since that officer last looked. It is different from open, which is the state for the whole firm.
- Open limit breach
- In the product: open flag. An exceeded observation that no one has acknowledged yet. It means the same on every screen. The register, the Desk sheet, and Analytics show the same number.
- Desk overview
- In the product: Desk sheet. The screen for desk heads: open breaches and the worst breach per trader, by desk.
- Breach prediction
- In the product: forecast (plan horizon, execution horizon). The probability that a trader's next committed plan produces an exceeded observation. The plan horizon is live. It is scored against the trader's next committed plan. The execution horizon is calibrated on the execution feed. It is on the roadmap.
- Prediction accuracy
- In the product: calibration. The forecast compared with the rate that actually happened, over settled plans. It is shown per trader. A reader can see whether the number claims too much.
- Tiers withheld
- In the product: tiers withheld. The board does not sort traders into tiers when fewer than five traders are scored. It does not show a figure based on fewer than three earlier plans. The header says so.
- A limit, named by type (such as a concentration limit)
- In the product: mandate clause. One limit from your firm's mandate document, entered into the product. Its limit and its denominator (what the limit is measured against) must come from the document's own words. If not, it arrives marked as not expressible. The mandate is your firm's limits.
- Audit trail
- In the product: evidence chain. The record of each decision: what was planned, what was flagged, who reviewed it and when.
- Contract multiplier
- In the product: multiplier. The verified contract multiplier used to state the size of futures plans in money. A plan whose size cannot be stated this way is refused.
- Stamp
- In the product: audit stamp. The box on every printed PDF. It shows the as-of time, the officer who generated it, and the scope (desk, name filter, status). It also has the monitoring line, which names any limits that are not monitored.
Further reading
Papers
Four short papers on the thinking behind the system. All four are published, each on its own page. The full list, with each paper's page as it is published, is on the papers hub.
The paper series
Subscribe to receive each paper when it is released.
Resources
More to read and watch
WALKTHROUGH
The walkthrough: fifteen minutes, recorded on the live product. It uses a simulated firm, Aurora Capital Management (Simulated).
Open →REGULATORY MEMO
How DojiPad maps to the regulatory requirements. You can have it before a briefing.
Open →OUR APPROACH
We build instruments, not autopilots. The trader stays in charge, like a pilot flying the plane.
Open →