I decided to put together a guide for those who are thinking about buying bitcoin with debit card.
Check it out here.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
About the 211 songs
Hello RBI subredditors!
Before the "Before I begin" message, I just want to say I am indeed new here and very much unsure if this the right place to even post this. If not, just kindly tell me and I will bring down this post.
Before I begin, I just want to make sure I clear something up, I am not making this post as a mean for an update on the original post https://www.reddit.com/r/DirtySnapchat/comments/c0nsa2/21_f4m_first_time_i_post_a_nude_online_give_me/
Furthermore, in the contents of the original was of the OP asking as to why the songs they mentioned in the post are being seen in their Repeat playlist.
However, while looking up these artist I began to find a few unnatural coincidences.
My basic Findings (I'm compiling a collection of pics, or maybe even better a collection of videos to show my point):
In regards with:
Justin Oliver - The few songs on his most played list are Rap such as Clean, Gospel(?) in Daydreaming, and Pop-esque (reminds me a lot of some Andrew H. style) in Open Window. Now keep in mind that Mr. Oliver has some well produced, professionally recorded material, yet on Nov. 6 2019, he uploaded a very basic melody loop with different instruments playing the same line and a 4 on the floor kick. I should note, most of this dude's stuff is blues based on way or another.
Furthermore, his bio explains that he is a professional having performed/being featured on commercials as well as being on American Idol (supposedly season 11, can't find video on it, but can find other performances). Alabama based according to bio page.
**Henry Harris: Education Tremble Paper IS AN UPLOAD.
Judy Wright: Similar to Mr Oliver, Judy Wright has professionally recorded tracks. Her focus seems to be along the lines of Modern Folk and Country. A quick search brought her up on CDBaby and showed an Option to search for other artists from Tennessee.
Louis Tucker: Offbeat Rifle Cat is the only upload, Upload date: 2019
James Rogers: Another blues based musician/songwriter. A little too corny for me, but it gets the idea across. An interesting note, his Spotify page also lists an album, very different with the artist name under Forward Thought, I don't know the relevance of this and decided against pursuing the name as I type this. Mr Rogers last album that seems to be his was last update on 2008, with 2019 having the weird 211 song and the Forward Thought album. This artist is Ontario based.
Jason Wells: A signed rock guitarist with notable local performances as well as headlining performance events and festivals. Music is enjoyable rock, bluesy tone similar to a Rob and The Captain style when reviewing a new guitar. Not really relevant to the post, but once again it is merely a way to get the point across of what type of music they play without you guys having to look it up.
Melissa Phillips: Feebly Witty Pancake is the only upload, Upload Date: 2019
**So about Henry Harris, the weird thing about his Spotify account is that there is an album with 2 songs on it. The album is called Virginia Traditions and is old style country blues, kinda reminds me of what would play inside of a Popeye's fast food store. For those not familiar, just look up On the Bayou, I hate this song with a passion since it played like every 2 hours in the store (ex-employee pre-Chik-fil-A war). Anyways, The Spotify page that this person appears in two songs and shows the only two songs that this person is associated with, the rest of the album is not listed.
I feel like a TL;DR shouldn't be included since this is RBI and all info is necessary, but something tells me that others that are passing by don't want to read something this long.
Therefore, I present TL;DR:
These people are all artists that have recorded their music above an amatuer level, well actually maybe Jason Wells might be an exception, but all songwriting is solid and doesn't sound amateur-ish. In contrast, all 211(adequately named after the fact that they are all 2:11 in length) tracks sound like the default FL Studio patches were used and some compression slapped on top, maybe some reverb as well. Almost all artists are located or associated with the Southern states witht he exception of the Ontario duded who lives in Ontario. All artists have a blues connection.
Now I feel like a few questions may or may not pop up. In order to be prepared with some answers I will provided some questions that I have come up with, as well as TRY to address some questions or hypothesis formed in the comments when browsing the post.
Questions I thought up:
Why the sudden change in genre for these artists?
-I ask myself this and yet I can't bring myself to give a legitamite answer. I've rarely seen artist completely change genres. I've many artist evolve, such as Tool (Their most recent album definately shows this, with less aggressive sections and a more mellow approach) and Megadeth (how they went from straight speed metal to a more Thrash approach when thrash became popular). For non metal references I can think of Beirut. They were a folk group, consting of ukelele, guitars, horns and an accordion, however now they use more modern instruments such as keyboards. however their style is still the same, identical song composure and the like. This makes me think that they didn't change, maybe something else?
Could this be something similar/linked to the Youtube Channel Hijacking?
-Maybe, some people seem to be targeting Youtube accounts with established audiences and been taken over. I heard of this through SOG, and some Foundation Etherium organization. (Doesn't seem to be the Etherium bitcoin people though, more like someone else in their (Etherium's) stead and without their consent either.)
Why are so many similar sounding tracks appearing on different artist pages?
-Your guess is as good as mine. All have that similar, "Hey guys, I just bought FL Studio Pro, Ima post a few songs!" kind of vibe and using default sound profiles of all VSTs.
Who is uploading all of these tracks?
-As of Jan 2020, we have to assume that this somethign the artists are doing. Even if that doesn't sound right, we have to accept the fact that these artists uploaded this since we have no concrete evidence of this not being the case. These uploads must be taken as gospel from the uploader (whoever's name is on that account profile).
Who is producing these tracks?
-That is the question. For all we know some third party is uploading the files to these accounts, but not actually producing them. Above all else, assuming that this becomes as interesting as some other internet cases that are covered online, the most interesting bit is uncovering who is behind the creation of the music and why.
Some points brought up by other redditors:
ooda706: it's you case similar to this one?, linking to a post about random songs popping up in their recently played. Even though it was answered by OP (flamingo-hoarder) I will address something else outside of original posting means.
-As originally stated by OP, they were wondering about these weird songs and why they were popping up in their recommended, however I want to ask, why are so many similar sounding tracks appearing under different artists? I'm not asking if this is a case of hacked accounts or not, I am asking if this is too much of a coninsidence in order to NOT turn a blind eye.
asdfasdafas: "Sounds like you account go hacked....."
-Once again, OP has answered this and stated that they are sure that a hacker hasn't hacked into their account. -I have to agree with flamingo-hoarder, why would a hacker falsely add random songs to their history? Maybe it would make more sense if the artists accounts were hacked. But then again, why would there be so many accounts hacked and only one song uploaded on them. These are the few that were mentioned, I think there were a few more songs posted, I just never bothered to check them out, I feel like I would get similar findings. -Also why would one put one song onto many accounts instead of taking over one account and uploading all to them? Is it for a lower profile, to avoid connecting the dots easily and getting a hold of the user? All questions that I have no answer to, and hopefully someone can shed some light on the situation.
Now in the beginning, I said that I am making a collection that highlights my findings and will be posted as a comment on this post.
I will once again reiterate, that if the mods say that this is not RBI material, I will remove it as per their demands.
Edit: Removed a question, and numbering of a few questions as well as extraneous symbols, specifically '\' or was it '/'; it was a few slashes to put it simply
The Evolution of Bitcoins Technology Stack (current BTC/USD price is $8,619.42)
Latest Bitcoin News:
The Evolution of Bitcoins Technology Stack
Other Related Bitcoin Topics:
Bitcoin Price | Bitcoin Mining | Blockchain
The latest Bitcoin news has been sourced from the CoinSalad.com Bitcoin Price and News Events page. CoinSalad is a web service that provides real-time Bitcoin market info, charts, data and tools. Follow us on Twitter @CoinSalad.
[Daily Discussion] Thursday, January 23, 2020
Thread topics include, but are not limited to:
- General discussion related to the day's events
- Technical analysis, trading ideas & strategies
- Quick questions that do not warrant a separate post
Thread guidelines:
- Be excellent to each other.
- Do not make posts outside of the daily thread for the topics mentioned above.
Other ways to interact:
- Get an invite to live chat on our Slack group
- Set your flair to trade pretend money in the Flair Game
- Weekly threads: Newbie Mondays and Fundamentals Fridays
- Altcoins Discussion: Altcoin Discussion
[Altcoin Discussion] Thursday, January 23, 2020
Thread topics include, but are not limited to:
- Discussion related to recent events
- Technical analysis, trading ideas & strategies
- General questions about altcoins
Thread guidelines:
- Be excellent to each other.
- All regular rules for this subreddit apply, except for number 2. This, and only this, thread is exempt from the requirement that all discussion must relate to bitcoin trading.
- This is for high quality discussion of altcoins. All shilling or obvious pumping/dumping behavior will result in an immediate one day ban. This is your only warning.
- No discussion about specific ICOs. Established coins only.
If you're not sure what kind of discussion belongs in this thread, here are some example posts. News, TA, and sentiment analysis are great, too.
Other ways to interact:
- Get an invite to live chat on our Slack group and check out the #altcoins channel
- Daily Discussion for bitcoin only: Daily Discussion
- Prior Altcoin Discussion: Altcoin Discussion
I probably have malware but I'm not sure and nothing thus far has removed it if it is there
Hello. I am not very tech savvy at all so I apologize ahead of time for any stupid that may occur.
I believe I have some kind of malware, as my new gaming laptop (an MSI GL65 9SEK running Windows 10) has started running slowly in some specific ways (a few games lag on startup when they didn't before) and when I open my task manager I see my cpu at 100% briefly before it jumps back down to normal usage. I have googled the problem and it seems like this is usually caused by some sort of bitcoin mining malware.
I have followed the pinned malware removal guide to the letter but the problem still occurs. In addition, none of my other programs that have a cpu monitor (Dragon Center, Malwarebytes, Norton to name some) seem to even recognize the high usage. I have seen a couple suggestions to use Process Monitor to find the offending process but I am too dumb to figure out how to use it to that effect.
Am I just paranoid or is this a real issue? Does task manager just do that? It's not really affecting me yet but of course if there is something actually wrong I'd like to know so I can take more steps to fix it without wondering if I'm wasting my time. And also any advice on actually fixing it would be appreciated.
Taxation in the US
How's taxation going for everyone? I am kicking myself for buying and selling bitcoin and a few other coins on Coinbase as well as using bitcoin for a could small purchases of things and creating taxable events. Will I get a 1099 from Coinbase or do I need to go through all the activities manually and figure out if I have a gain?
Millennials should invest in bitcoin, billionaire investor says (current BTC/USD price is $8,660.43)
Latest Bitcoin News:
Millennials should invest in bitcoin, billionaire investor says
Other Related Bitcoin Topics:
Bitcoin Price | Bitcoin Mining | Blockchain
The latest Bitcoin news has been sourced from the CoinSalad.com Bitcoin Price and News Events page. CoinSalad is a web service that provides real-time Bitcoin market info, charts, data and tools. Follow us on Twitter @CoinSalad.
How to securely split Bitcoin SV from Bitcoin cash that was held on TREZOR at time of fork?
TREZOR wiki answered it here. However, that guide is broken! :(
There are no SV servers available anymore in the Bitcoin Cash Electron client. I try to stay away installing anything from SV (like their software client).
I'm looking for a secure and replay safe way. Entering my seed phrase/private key as many guides suggesting on an internet connected machine is simply not an option. That's why I use Trezor in the first place.
https://wiki.trezor.io/How_to_split_and_send_your_Bitcoin_Cash_forks
How to securely split Bitcoin SV from Bitcoin cash in Cash Electron client
There are no SV servers available anymore in the Bitcoin Cash Electron client. I try to stay away installing anything from SV (like the ElectronSV software client).
I'm looking for a secure and replay safe way. Entering my seed phrase/private key as many guides suggesting on an internet connected machine is simply not an option. That's why I use Trezor in the first place.
TREZOR Wiki answered it here. However, that guide is broken. It refers to find SV servers within the Electron Cash client:
https://wiki.trezor.io/How_to_split_and_send_your_Bitcoin_Cash_forks
@AlphaexCapital : Forex Trader: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners In 2019 https://t.co/yxp93x93qw #forex #investing #bitcoin #crypto #xrp #btc #eth #forexsignals
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https://mobile.twitter.com/AlphaexCapital/status/1220015757972725760
Why Bitcoin Price Could Hit $100000 in 2021? (current BTC/USD price is $8,651.47)
Latest Bitcoin News:
Why Bitcoin Price Could Hit $100000 in 2021?
Other Related Bitcoin Topics:
Bitcoin Price | Bitcoin Mining | Blockchain
The latest Bitcoin news has been sourced from the CoinSalad.com Bitcoin Price and News Events page. CoinSalad is a web service that provides real-time Bitcoin market info, charts, data and tools. Follow us on Twitter @CoinSalad.
Amazing Bitcoin event the The Unconfiscatable “Bitcoin Not Blockchain” Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada February, 20th-23rd 2020
Only one month to go for a truly unique Bitcoin conference featuring bitcoin-related workshops, games, and parties in Las Vegas, Nevada February, 20th-23rd 2020.
The Unconfiscatable “Bitcoin Not Blockchain” Conference is back for its second year! Taking over downtown Las Vegas for a weekend of fun, networking, and love for everything bitcoin. Our one day conference will be dedicated to Bitcoin, finance, economics, and technology. Our festivities will continue with an incredibly fun and entertaining weekend including a Bitcoin Carnivory Dinner, Texas Holdem’ Poker Tournament, Pinball Tournament, and multiple workshops.
There will be no promotions of altcoins, ICOs, banks, and other blockchain-based nonsense. Unconfiscatable is dedicated to Bitcoin for Bitcoin lovers.
We will feature high-profile speakers from all around the world with different backgrounds and expertise. Technical engineers, analysts, traders, venture capitalists, cybersecurity professionals, business owners, bestselling authors and other Bitcoin evangelists who will be featured in our informative talks and illuminating panels.
This year’s Unconfiscatable speaker lineup includes Adam Back, Saifedean Ammous, Max Keiser, Stacy Herbert, Peter Todd, Jimmy Song, Giacomo Zucco, Trace Mayer, Murad Mahmudov, Peter McCormack, Tone Vays, Willy Woo, Dan Held, Jack Mallers, Leah Wald, MIR, Dan Held, Colleen Sullivan, Jon Najarian, Johnny Dilley, Adella Toulon, Jack Mallers, Ugly Old Goat, NVK, Alex Mascioli, Jan Capek, and more.
Our full-day conference will be on Saturday, Feb 22nd and will conclude with a killer after-party featuring the “Tone Vays’ Scammy Awards.” Our other events include a Pinball Tournament at the Pinball Hall of Fame on Thursday, Feb 20th, a Carnivory Dinner on Friday, Feb 21st and a Texas Holdem’ Poker Tournament at high noon on Sunday, Feb 23rd. There will also be various workshops during the day on Thursday and Friday. Tickets can be bought with Bitcoin or fiat on the official site: https://www.unconfiscatable.com/
Important Update
We are moving forward and will be releasing the KFX wallet, and starting to conduct the swap on February 10th. A final snapshot will be taken just before the release of the wallet.
The process is very simple, and will NOT require a complicated series of events. We have streamlined the process to make it as easy as possible for everyone involved.
This will also allow everyone to swap their coins at their leisure. There is no cutoff time for the swap. So even if you're out of town, busy with work/family, or just lazy, you can do this whenever you have the time.
We hope to have the MAC wallet ready for relase on the 10th as well.
Here are the 7 simple steps to perform the AEG - KFX swap:
Remember, this will start on the 10th.
- Make a copy of your AEG wallet.dat file.
- Download the KFX wallet.
- Install the KFX wallet to your computer.
- Open the KFX wallet and let sync.
- Once the wallet is synced, close the wallet.
- Insert your AEG wallet.dat copy into your KFX wallet install directory.
- Start KFX wallet and let sync again.
That's it! All of your AEG is now KFX!
We are also announcing that we will be conducting a community bounty program for everyone to earn some extra KFX! This will involve Twitter, BitcoinTalk, and article writing.
Rules and how to perform each of these bounties will be added to their respective channels here on Discord in the next day or 2. The goal of the bounty is to help spread awareness about Knox File Secure and get new investors to jump on board.
With slow sales, we need to be more active in getting the word out. With sales, we will be able to get KFX listed on exchanges, as well as get paid advertising on sites like masternodes.online.
Thank you all for your continued support of AEG/KFX. Here's to a bright future!
Project Specific Podcasts
I often find that listening to a podcast that wraps up the news around a certain project is the best way for me to stay on top of things. What are some podcasts you enjoy?
All descriptions are from the link or podcast's web page.
Bitcoin
-
The What Bitcoin Did Podcast - Against many challenges, Bitcoin, the worlds first true cryptocurrency has survived for over a decade. With What Bitcoin Did, podcast host Peter McCormack talks to experts in the world of Bitcoin.
-
Tales from the Crypt - Tales from the Crypt is a podcast hosted by Marty Bent about Bitcoin. Join Marty, Editor in Chief of "the best newsletter in crypto", as he sits down to discuss Bitcoin with interesting people.
-
Bitcoin-Only List - Bitcoin specific podcasts from /u/TheGreatMuffin
Cardano
- The Cardano Effect - The Cardano Effect is a podcast that breaks down higher level information and projects that Cardano and others in the crypto sphere are working on into bite size pieces of consumable information that every day people can use.
IOTA
- Untangled - Untangled is a podcast exploring the IOTA Ecosystem and beyond. Every other week we talk to experts within their fields about how distributed ledger technology can benefit in real world use cases.
Monero
- Monero Talk - Monero Talk broadcasts weekly conversations with topical guests to understand what the Monero cryptocurrency is today and what it hopes to become.
Neo
- The NEO News Today Podcast - News and interviews on all things related to the NEO blockchain ecosystem.
Stellar
- Inside Stellar with Brian Goldberg - Stellar People talking about Stellar Projects
Vechain
- Vetcast - A conversation about the VeChain Ecosystem. Hosts Ben Yorke and Kenneth Ashley discuss the latest technical news, third-party dApps, and business development on the public blockchain platform.
There are also many Non-Project Specific podcasts I like, any recommendations I am missing are welcome.
- Abra Money 3.0 - Your guide to the future of all things money. The way money works — everything from the technology behind money to the way people are using it — is changing.
- Blockchain Insider Podcast by 11:FS - A dedicated weekly podcast catering for all your bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency needs.
- Crypto 101 - Award-winning Podcast, new source, and community of Crypto Crusaders on a mission to take control of their future.
- Crypto Bobby - An average Joe (or Bob) who loves talking about cryptocurrency investing on a daily basis, the latest Bitcoin, Ethereum & altcoin news and what's happening in this crazy, crazy crypto world.
- Crypto Waves: The Crypto Lark Podcast - The Crypto Lark podcast covers cryptocurrency news, reviews, analysis, interviews with developers and more!
- Epicenter - Epicenter is the OG of crypto podcasts, making sense of cryptocurrencies and blockchain since before they were cool. Through interviews with founders and buidlers, we explore the technical, economic and social implications of this game-changing industry.
- Flippening - Flippening is for cryptocurrency investors. Each week we discuss the cryptocurrency economy, new investment strategies for maximizing returns, and stories from the front lines of financial disruption.
- Lets Talk Bitcoin Network - The Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network (LTBN) is a publishing platform giving voice to the influencers in cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology sector.
- The Bitcoin Podcast Network - Reddit link to /u/PettyHoe (Dr. Corey Petty) breakdown of all of the podcasts on the network.
- Unchained - This weekly, hour-long podcast dives deep into the people building the decentralized internet, the details of this technology that could underpin our future, and some of the thorniest topics in crypto, such as regulation, security and privacy.
- Unconfirmed - This weekly, 20-minute-long podcast reveals how the marquee names in crypto are reacting to the week’s top headlines and gets the inside scoop on what they see on the horizon.
Beginner’s Guide to BitMEX
Founded by HDR Global Trading Limited (which in turn was founded by former bankers Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Ben Delo) in 2014, BitMEX is a trading platform operating around the world and registered in the Seychelles.
Meaning Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, BitMEX is one of the largest Bitcoin trading platforms currently operating, with a daily trading volume of over 35,000 BTC and over 540,000 accesses monthly and a trading history of over $34 billion worth of Bitcoin since its inception.
Unlike many other trading exchanges, BitMEX only accepts deposits through Bitcoin, which can then be used to purchase a variety of other cryptocurrencies. BitMEX specialises in sophisticated financial operations such as margin trading, which is trading with leverage. Like many of the exchanges that operate through cryptocurrencies, BitMEX is currently unregulated in any jurisdiction.
How to Sign Up to BitMEX
In order to create an account on BitMEX, users first have to register with the website. Registration only requires an email address, the email address must be a genuine address as users will receive an email to confirm registration in order to verify the account. Once users are registered, there are no trading limits. Traders must be at least 18 years of age to sign up.
However, it should be noted that BitMEX does not accept any US-based traders and will use IP checks to verify that users are not in the US. While some US users have bypassed this with the use of a VPN, it is not recommended that US individuals sign up to the BitMEX service, especially given the fact that alternative exchanges are available to service US customers that function within the US legal framework.
How to Use BitMEX
BitMEX allows users to trade cryptocurrencies against a number of fiat currencies, namely the US Dollar, the Japanese Yen and the Chinese Yuan. BitMEX allows users to trade a number of different cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, Tezos and Zcash.
The trading platform on BitMEX is very intuitive and easy to use for those familiar with similar markets. However, it is not for the beginner. The interface does look a little dated when compared to newer exchanges like Binance and Kucoin’s.
Once users have signed up to the platform, they should click on Trade, and all the trading instruments will be displayed beneath.
Clicking on the particular instrument opens the orderbook, recent trades, and the order slip on the left. The order book shows three columns – the bid value for the underlying asset, the quantity of the order, and the total USD value of all orders, both short and long.
The widgets on the trading platform can be changed according to the user’s viewing preferences, allowing users to have full control on what is displayed. It also has a built in feature that provides for TradingView charting. This offers a wide range of charting tool and is considered to be an improvement on many of the offering available from many of its competitors.
Once trades are made, all orders can be easily viewed in the trading platform interface. There are tabs where users can select their Active Orders, see the Stops that are in place, check the Orders Filled (total or partially) and the trade history. On the Active Orders and Stops tabs, traders can cancel any order, by clicking the “Cancel” button. Users also see all currently open positions, with an analysis if it is in the black or red.
BitMEX uses a method called auto-deleveraging which BitMEX uses to ensure that liquidated positions are able to be closed even in a volatile market. Auto-deleveraging means that if a position bankrupts without available liquidity, the positive side of the position deleverages, in order of profitability and leverage, the highest leveraged position first in queue. Traders are always shown where they sit in the auto-deleveraging queue, if such is needed.
Although the BitMEX platform is optimized for mobile, it only has an Android app (which is not official). There is no iOS app available at present. However, it is recommended that users use it on the desktop if possible.
BitMEX offers a variety of order types for users:
- Limit Order (the order is fulfilled if the given price is achieved);
- Market Order (the order is executed at current market price);
- Stop Limit Order (like a stop order, but allows users to set the price of the Order once the Stop Price is triggered);
- Stop Market Order (this is a stop order that does not enter the order book, remain unseen until the market reaches the trigger);
- Trailing Stop Order (it is similar to a Stop Market order, but here users set a trailing value that is used to place the market order);
- Take Profit Limit Order (this can be used, similarly to a Stop Order, to set a target price on a position. In this case, it is in respect of making gains, rather than cutting losses);
- Take Profit Market Order (same as the previous type, but in this case, the order triggered will be a market order, and not a limit one)
The exchange offers margin trading in all of the cryptocurrencies displayed on the website. It also offers to trade with futures and derivatives – swaps.
Futures and Swaps
A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a given asset in the future at a predetermined price. On BitMEX, users can leverage up to 100x on certain contracts.
Perpetual swaps are similar to futures, except that there is no expiry date for them and no settlement. Additionally, they trade close to the underlying reference Index Price, unlike futures, which may diverge substantially from the Index Price.
BitMEX also offers Binary series contracts, which are prediction-based contracts which can only settle at either 0 or 100. In essence, the Binary series contracts are a more complicated way of making a bet on a given event.
The only Binary series betting instrument currently available is related to the next 1mb block on the Bitcoin blockchain. Binary series contracts are traded with no leverage, a 0% maker fee, a 0.25% taker fee and 0.25% settlement fee.
Bitmex Leverage
BitMEX allows its traders to leverage their position on the platform. Leverage is the ability to place orders that are bigger than the users’ existing balance. This could lead to a higher profit in comparison when placing an order with only the wallet balance. Trading in such conditions is called “Margin Trading.”
There are two types of Margin Trading: Isolated and Cross-Margin. The former allows the user to select the amount of money in their wallet that should be used to hold their position after an order is placed. However, the latter provides that all of the money in the users’ wallet can be used to hold their position, and therefore should be treated with extreme caution.
The BitMEX platform allows users to set their leverage level by using the leverage slider. A maximum leverage of 1:100 is available (on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash). This is quite a high level of leverage for cryptocurrencies, with the average offered by other exchanges rarely exceeding 1:20.
BitMEX Fees
For traditional futures trading, BitMEX has a straightforward fee schedule. As noted, in terms of leverage offered, BitMEX offers up to 100% leverage, with the amount off leverage varying from product to product.
However, it should be noted that trading at the highest leverages is sophisticated and is intended for professional investors that are familiar with speculative trading. The fees and leverage are as follows:
However, there are additional fees for hidden / iceberg orders. A hidden order pays the taker fee until the entire hidden quantity is completely executed. Then, the order will become normal, and the user will receive the maker rebate for the non-hidden amount.
Deposits and Withdrawals
BitMEX does not charge fees on deposits or withdrawals. However, when withdrawing Bitcoin, the minimum Network fee is based on blockchain load. The only costs therefore are those of the banks or the cryptocurrency networks.
As noted previously, BitMEX only accepts deposits in Bitcoin and therefore Bitcoin serves as collateral on trading contracts, regardless of whether or not the trade involves Bitcoin.
The minimum deposit is 0.001 BTC. There are no limits on withdrawals, but withdrawals can also be in Bitcoin only. To make a withdrawal, all that users need to do is insert the amount to withdraw and the wallet address to complete the transfer.
Deposits can be made 24/7 but withdrawals are processed by hand at a recurring time once per day. The hand processed withdrawals are intended to increase the security levels of users’ funds by providing extra time (and email notice) to cancel any fraudulent withdrawal requests, as well as bypassing the use of automated systems & hot wallets which may be more prone to compromise.
Supported Currencies
BitMEX operates as a crypto to crypto exchange and makes use of a Bitcoin-in/Bitcoin-out structure. Therefore, platform users are currently unable to use fiat currencies for any payments or transfers, however, a plus side of this is that there are no limits for trading and the exchange incorporates trading pairs linked to the US Dollar (XBT), Japanese Yen (XBJ), and Chinese Yuan (XBC).
BitMEX supports the following cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin (XBT)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple Token (XRP)
- Monero (XMR)
- Dash (DASH)
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Tron (TRX)
- EOS Token (EOS)
BitMEX also offers leverage options on the following coins:
- 5x: Zcash (ZEC)
- 20x : Ripple (XRP),Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), EOS Token (EOS), Tron (TRX)
- 25x: Monero (XMR)
- 33x: Litecoin (LTC)
- 50x: Ethereum (ETH)
- 100x: Bitcoin (XBT), Bitcoin / Yen (XBJ), Bitcoin / Yuan (XBC)
Trading Technologies International Partnership
HDR Global Trading, the company which owns BitMEX, has recently announced a partnership with Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a leading international high-performance trading software provider.
The TT platform is designed specifically for professional traders, brokers, and market-access providers, and incorporates a wide variety of trading tools and analytical indicators that allow even the most advanced traders to customize the software to suit their unique trading styles. The TT platform also provides traders with global market access and trade execution through its privately managed infrastructure and the partnership will see BitMEX users gaining access to the trading tools on all BitMEX products, including the popular XBT/USD Perpetual Swap pairing.
The BitMEX Insurance Fund
The ability to trade on leverage is one of the exchange’s main selling points and offering leverage and providing the opportunity for traders to trade against each other may result in a situation where the winners do not receive all of their expected profits. As a result of the amounts of leverage involved, it’s possible that the losers may not have enough margin in their positions to pay the winners.
Traditional exchanges like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) offset this problem by utilizing multiple layers of protection and cryptocurrency trading platforms offering leverage cannot currently match the levels of protection provided to winning traders.
In addition, cryptocurrency exchanges offering leveraged trades propose a capped downside and unlimited upside on a highly volatile asset with the caveat being that on occasion, there may not be enough funds in the system to pay out the winners.
To help solve this problem, BitMEX has developed an insurance fund system, and when a trader has an open leveraged position, their position is forcefully closed or liquidated when their maintenance margin is too low.
Here, a trader’s profit and loss does not reflect the actual price their position was closed on the market, and with BitMEX when a trader is liquidated, their equity associated with the position drops down to zero.
In the following example, the trader has taken a 100x long position. In the event that the mark price of Bitcoin falls to $3,980 (by 0.5%), then the position gets liquidated with the 100 Bitcoin position needing to be sold on the market.
This means that it does not matter what price this trade executes at, namely if it’s $3,995 or $3,000, as from the view of the liquidated trader, regardless of the price, they lose all the equity they had in their position, and lose the entire one Bitcoin.
Assuming there is a fully liquid market, the bid/ask spread should be tighter than the maintenance margin. Here, liquidations manifest as contributions to the insurance fund (e.g. if the maintenance margin is 50bps, but the market is 1bp wide), and the insurance fund should rise by close to the same amount as the maintenance margin when a position is liquidated. In this scenario, as long as healthy liquid markets persist, the insurance fund should continue its steady growth.
The following graphs further illustrate the example, and in the first chart, market conditions are healthy with a narrow bid/ask spread (just $2) at the time of liquidation. Here, the closing trade occurs at a higher price than the bankruptcy price (the price where the margin balance is zero) and the insurance fund benefits.
Illustrative example of an insurance contribution – Long 100x with 1 BTC collateral
(Note: The above illustration is based on opening a 100x long position at $4,000 per BTC and 1 Bitcoin of collateral. The illustration is an oversimplification and ignores factors such as fees and other adjustments.
The bid and offer prices represent the state of the order book at the time of liquidation. The closing trade price is $3,978, representing $1 of slippage compared to the $3,979 bid price at the time of liquidation.)
The second chart shows a wide bid/ask spread at the time of liquidation, here, the closing trade takes place at a lower price than the bankruptcy price, and the insurance fund is used to make sure that winning traders receive their expected profits.
This works to stabilize the potential for returns as there is no guarantee that healthy market conditions can continue, especially during periods of heightened price volatility. During these periods, it’s actually possible that the insurance fund can be used up than it is built up.
Illustrative example of an insurance depletion – Long 100x with 1 BTC collateral
(Notes: The above illustration is based on opening a 100x long position at $4,000 per BTC and 1 Bitcoin of collateral. The illustration is an oversimplification and ignores factors such as fees and other adjustments.
The bid and offer prices represent the state of the order book at the time of liquidation. The closing trade price is $3,800, representing $20 of slippage compared to the $3,820 bid price at the time of liquidation.)
The exchange declared in February 2019, that the BitMEX insurance fund retained close to 21,000 Bitcoin (around $70 million based on Bitcoin spot prices at the time).
This figure represents just 0.007% of BitMEX’s notional annual trading volume, which has been quoted as being approximately $1 trillion. This is higher than the insurance funds as a proportion of trading volume of the CME, and therefore, winning traders on BitMEX are exposed to much larger risks than CME traders as:
- BitMEX does not have clearing members with large balance sheets and traders are directly exposed to each other.
- BitMEX does not demand payments from traders with negative account balances.
- The underlying instruments on BitMEX are more volatile than the more traditional instruments available on CME.
Therefore, with the insurance fund remaining capitalized, the system effectively with participants who get liquidated paying for liquidations, or a losers pay for losers mechanism.
This system may appear controversial as first, though some may argue that there is a degree of uniformity to it. It’s also worth noting that the exchange also makes use of Auto Deleveraging which means that on occasion, leveraged positions in profit can still be reduced during certain time periods if a liquidated order cannot be executed in the market.
More adventurous traders should note that while the insurance fund holds 21,000 Bitcoin, worth approximately 0.1% of the total Bitcoin supply, BitMEX still doesn’t offer the same level of guarantees to winning traders that are provided by more traditional leveraged trading platforms.
Given the inherent volatility of the cryptocurrency market, there remains some possibility that the fund gets drained down to zero despite its current size. This may result in more successful traders lacking confidence in the platform and choosing to limit their exposure in the event of BitMEX being unable to compensate winning traders.
How suitable is BitMEX for Beginners?
BitMEX generates high Bitcoin trading levels, and also attracts good levels of volume across other crypto-to-crypto transfers. This helps to maintain a buzz around the exchange, and BitMEX also employs relatively low trading fees, and is available round the world (except to US inhabitants).
This helps to attract the attention of people new to the process of trading on leverage and when getting started on the platform there are 5 main navigation Tabs to get used to:
- **Trade:**The trading dashboard of BitMEX. This tab allows you to select your preferred trading instrument, and choose leverage, as well as place and cancel orders. You can also see your position information and view key information in the contract details.
- **Account:**Here, all your account information is displayed including available Bitcoin margin balances, deposits and withdrawals, and trade history.
- **Contracts:**This tab covers further instrument information including funding history, contract sizes; leverage offered expiry, underlying reference Price Index data, and other key features.
- **References:**This resource centre allows you to learn about futures, perpetual contracts, position marking, and liquidation.
- **API:**From here you can set up an API connection with BitMEX, and utilize the REST API and WebSocket API.
BitMEX also employs 24/7 customer support and the team can also be contacted on their Twitter and Reddit accounts.
In addition, BitMEX provides a variety of educational resources including an FAQ section, Futures guides, Perpetual Contracts guides, and further resources in the “References” account tab.
For users looking for more in depth analysis, the BitMEX blog produces high level descriptions of a number of subjects and has garnered a good reputation among the cryptocurrency community.
Most importantly, the exchange also maintains a testnet platform, built on top of testnet Bitcoin, which allows anyone to try out programs and strategies before moving on to the live exchange.
This is crucial as despite the wealth of resources available, BitMEX is not really suitable for beginners, and margin trading, futures contracts and swaps are best left to experienced, professional or institutional traders.
Margin trading and choosing to engage in leveraged activity are risky processes and even more advanced traders can describe the process as a high risk and high reward “game”. New entrants to the sector should spend a considerable amount of time learning about margin trading and testing out strategies before considering whether to open a live account.
Is BitMEX Safe?
BitMEX is widely considered to have strong levels of security. The platform uses multi-signature deposits and withdrawal schemes which can only be used by BitMEX partners. BitMEX also utilises Amazon Web Services to protect the servers with text messages and two-factor authentication, as well as hardware tokens.
BitMEX also has a system for risk checks, which requires that the sum of all account holdings on the website must be zero. If it’s not, all trading is immediately halted. As noted previously, withdrawals are all individually hand-checked by employees, and private keys are never stored in the cloud. Deposit addresses are externally verified to make sure that they contain matching keys. If they do not, there is an immediate system shutdown.
In addition, the BitMEX trading platform is written in kdb+, a database and toolset popular amongst major banks in high frequency trading applications. The BitMEX engine appears to be faster and more reliable than some of its competitors, such as Poloniex and Bittrex.
They have email notifications, and PGP encryption is used for all communication.
The exchange hasn’t been hacked in the past.
How Secure is the platform?
As previously mentioned, BitMEX is considered to be a safe exchange and incorporates a number of security protocols that are becoming standard among the sector’s leading exchanges. In addition to making use of Amazon Web Services’ cloud security, all the exchange’s systems can only be accessed after passing through multiple forms of authentication, and individual systems are only able to communicate with each other across approved and monitored channels.
Communication is also further secured as the exchange provides optional PGP encryption for all automated emails, and users can insert their PGP public key into the form inside their accounts.
Once set up, BitMEX will encrypt and sign all the automated emails sent by you or to your account by the [support@bitmex.com](mailto:support@bitmex.com) email address. Users can also initiate secure conversations with the support team by using the email address and public key on the Technical Contact, and the team have made their automated system’s PGP key available for verification in their Security Section.
The platform’s trading engine is written in kdb+, a database and toolset used by leading financial institutions in high-frequency trading applications, and the speed and reliability of the engine is also used to perform a full risk check after every order placement, trade, settlement, deposit, and withdrawal.
All accounts in the system must consistently sum to zero, and if this does not happen then trading on the platform is immediately halted for all users.
With regards to wallet security, BitMEX makes use of a multisignature deposit and withdrawal scheme, and all exchange addresses are multisignature by default with all storage being kept offline. Private keys are not stored on any cloud servers and deep cold storage is used for the majority of funds.
Furthermore, all deposit addresses sent by the BitMEX system are verified by an external service that works to ensure that they contain the keys controlled by the founders, and in the event that the public keys differ, the system is immediately shut down and trading halted. The exchange’s security practices also see that every withdrawal is audited by hand by a minimum of two employees before being sent out.
BitMEX Customer Support
The trading platform has a 24/7 support on multiple channels, including email, ticket systems and social media. The typical response time from the customer support team is about one hour, and feedback on the customer support generally suggest that the customer service responses are helpful and are not restricted to automated responses.
The BitMEX also offers a knowledge base and FAQs which, although they are not necessarily always helpful, may assist and direct users towards the necessary channels to obtain assistance.
BitMEX also offers trading guides which can be accessed here
Conclusion
There would appear to be few complaints online about BitMEX, with most issues relating to technical matters or about the complexities of using the website. Older complaints also appeared to include issues relating to low liquidity, but this no longer appears to be an issue.
BitMEX is clearly not a platform that is not intended for the amateur investor. The interface is complex and therefore it can be very difficult for users to get used to the platform and to even navigate the website.
However, the platform does provide a wide range of tools and once users have experience of the platform they will appreciate the wide range of information that the platform provides.
Beginner’s Guide to BitMEX
Founded by HDR Global Trading Limited (which in turn was founded by former bankers Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Ben Delo) in 2014, BitMEX is a trading platform operating around the world and registered in the Seychelles.
Meaning Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, BitMEX is one of the largest Bitcoin trading platforms currently operating, with a daily trading volume of over 35,000 BTC and over 540,000 accesses monthly and a trading history of over $34 billion worth of Bitcoin since its inception.
Unlike many other trading exchanges, BitMEX only accepts deposits through Bitcoin, which can then be used to purchase a variety of other cryptocurrencies. BitMEX specialises in sophisticated financial operations such as margin trading, which is trading with leverage. Like many of the exchanges that operate through cryptocurrencies, BitMEX is currently unregulated in any jurisdiction.
How to Sign Up to BitMEX
In order to create an account on BitMEX, users first have to register with the website. Registration only requires an email address, the email address must be a genuine address as users will receive an email to confirm registration in order to verify the account. Once users are registered, there are no trading limits. Traders must be at least 18 years of age to sign up.
However, it should be noted that BitMEX does not accept any US-based traders and will use IP checks to verify that users are not in the US. While some US users have bypassed this with the use of a VPN, it is not recommended that US individuals sign up to the BitMEX service, especially given the fact that alternative exchanges are available to service US customers that function within the US legal framework.
How to Use BitMEX
BitMEX allows users to trade cryptocurrencies against a number of fiat currencies, namely the US Dollar, the Japanese Yen and the Chinese Yuan. BitMEX allows users to trade a number of different cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, Tezos and Zcash.
The trading platform on BitMEX is very intuitive and easy to use for those familiar with similar markets. However, it is not for the beginner. The interface does look a little dated when compared to newer exchanges like Binance and Kucoin’s.
Once users have signed up to the platform, they should click on Trade, and all the trading instruments will be displayed beneath.
Clicking on the particular instrument opens the orderbook, recent trades, and the order slip on the left. The order book shows three columns – the bid value for the underlying asset, the quantity of the order, and the total USD value of all orders, both short and long.
The widgets on the trading platform can be changed according to the user’s viewing preferences, allowing users to have full control on what is displayed. It also has a built in feature that provides for TradingView charting. This offers a wide range of charting tool and is considered to be an improvement on many of the offering available from many of its competitors.
Once trades are made, all orders can be easily viewed in the trading platform interface. There are tabs where users can select their Active Orders, see the Stops that are in place, check the Orders Filled (total or partially) and the trade history. On the Active Orders and Stops tabs, traders can cancel any order, by clicking the “Cancel” button. Users also see all currently open positions, with an analysis if it is in the black or red.
BitMEX uses a method called auto-deleveraging which BitMEX uses to ensure that liquidated positions are able to be closed even in a volatile market. Auto-deleveraging means that if a position bankrupts without available liquidity, the positive side of the position deleverages, in order of profitability and leverage, the highest leveraged position first in queue. Traders are always shown where they sit in the auto-deleveraging queue, if such is needed.
Although the BitMEX platform is optimized for mobile, it only has an Android app (which is not official). There is no iOS app available at present. However, it is recommended that users use it on the desktop if possible.
BitMEX offers a variety of order types for users:
- Limit Order (the order is fulfilled if the given price is achieved);
- Market Order (the order is executed at current market price);
- Stop Limit Order (like a stop order, but allows users to set the price of the Order once the Stop Price is triggered);
- Stop Market Order (this is a stop order that does not enter the order book, remain unseen until the market reaches the trigger);
- Trailing Stop Order (it is similar to a Stop Market order, but here users set a trailing value that is used to place the market order);
- Take Profit Limit Order (this can be used, similarly to a Stop Order, to set a target price on a position. In this case, it is in respect of making gains, rather than cutting losses);
- Take Profit Market Order (same as the previous type, but in this case, the order triggered will be a market order, and not a limit one)
The exchange offers margin trading in all of the cryptocurrencies displayed on the website. It also offers to trade with futures and derivatives – swaps.
Futures and Swaps
A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a given asset in the future at a predetermined price. On BitMEX, users can leverage up to 100x on certain contracts.
Perpetual swaps are similar to futures, except that there is no expiry date for them and no settlement. Additionally, they trade close to the underlying reference Index Price, unlike futures, which may diverge substantially from the Index Price.
BitMEX also offers Binary series contracts, which are prediction-based contracts which can only settle at either 0 or 100. In essence, the Binary series contracts are a more complicated way of making a bet on a given event.
The only Binary series betting instrument currently available is related to the next 1mb block on the Bitcoin blockchain. Binary series contracts are traded with no leverage, a 0% maker fee, a 0.25% taker fee and 0.25% settlement fee.
Bitmex Leverage
BitMEX allows its traders to leverage their position on the platform. Leverage is the ability to place orders that are bigger than the users’ existing balance. This could lead to a higher profit in comparison when placing an order with only the wallet balance. Trading in such conditions is called “Margin Trading.”
There are two types of Margin Trading: Isolated and Cross-Margin. The former allows the user to select the amount of money in their wallet that should be used to hold their position after an order is placed. However, the latter provides that all of the money in the users’ wallet can be used to hold their position, and therefore should be treated with extreme caution.
The BitMEX platform allows users to set their leverage level by using the leverage slider. A maximum leverage of 1:100 is available (on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash). This is quite a high level of leverage for cryptocurrencies, with the average offered by other exchanges rarely exceeding 1:20.
BitMEX Fees
For traditional futures trading, BitMEX has a straightforward fee schedule. As noted, in terms of leverage offered, BitMEX offers up to 100% leverage, with the amount off leverage varying from product to product.
However, it should be noted that trading at the highest leverages is sophisticated and is intended for professional investors that are familiar with speculative trading. The fees and leverage are as follows:
However, there are additional fees for hidden / iceberg orders. A hidden order pays the taker fee until the entire hidden quantity is completely executed. Then, the order will become normal, and the user will receive the maker rebate for the non-hidden amount.
Deposits and Withdrawals
BitMEX does not charge fees on deposits or withdrawals. However, when withdrawing Bitcoin, the minimum Network fee is based on blockchain load. The only costs therefore are those of the banks or the cryptocurrency networks.
As noted previously, BitMEX only accepts deposits in Bitcoin and therefore Bitcoin serves as collateral on trading contracts, regardless of whether or not the trade involves Bitcoin.
The minimum deposit is 0.001 BTC. There are no limits on withdrawals, but withdrawals can also be in Bitcoin only. To make a withdrawal, all that users need to do is insert the amount to withdraw and the wallet address to complete the transfer.
Deposits can be made 24/7 but withdrawals are processed by hand at a recurring time once per day. The hand processed withdrawals are intended to increase the security levels of users’ funds by providing extra time (and email notice) to cancel any fraudulent withdrawal requests, as well as bypassing the use of automated systems & hot wallets which may be more prone to compromise.
Supported Currencies
BitMEX operates as a crypto to crypto exchange and makes use of a Bitcoin-in/Bitcoin-out structure. Therefore, platform users are currently unable to use fiat currencies for any payments or transfers, however, a plus side of this is that there are no limits for trading and the exchange incorporates trading pairs linked to the US Dollar (XBT), Japanese Yen (XBJ), and Chinese Yuan (XBC).
BitMEX supports the following cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin (XBT)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple Token (XRP)
- Monero (XMR)
- Dash (DASH)
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Tron (TRX)
- EOS Token (EOS)
BitMEX also offers leverage options on the following coins:
- 5x: Zcash (ZEC)
- 20x : Ripple (XRP),Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), EOS Token (EOS), Tron (TRX)
- 25x: Monero (XMR)
- 33x: Litecoin (LTC)
- 50x: Ethereum (ETH)
- 100x: Bitcoin (XBT), Bitcoin / Yen (XBJ), Bitcoin / Yuan (XBC)
Trading Technologies International Partnership
HDR Global Trading, the company which owns BitMEX, has recently announced a partnership with Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a leading international high-performance trading software provider.
The TT platform is designed specifically for professional traders, brokers, and market-access providers, and incorporates a wide variety of trading tools and analytical indicators that allow even the most advanced traders to customize the software to suit their unique trading styles. The TT platform also provides traders with global market access and trade execution through its privately managed infrastructure and the partnership will see BitMEX users gaining access to the trading tools on all BitMEX products, including the popular XBT/USD Perpetual Swap pairing.
The BitMEX Insurance Fund
The ability to trade on leverage is one of the exchange’s main selling points and offering leverage and providing the opportunity for traders to trade against each other may result in a situation where the winners do not receive all of their expected profits. As a result of the amounts of leverage involved, it’s possible that the losers may not have enough margin in their positions to pay the winners.
Traditional exchanges like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) offset this problem by utilizing multiple layers of protection and cryptocurrency trading platforms offering leverage cannot currently match the levels of protection provided to winning traders.
In addition, cryptocurrency exchanges offering leveraged trades propose a capped downside and unlimited upside on a highly volatile asset with the caveat being that on occasion, there may not be enough funds in the system to pay out the winners.
To help solve this problem, BitMEX has developed an insurance fund system, and when a trader has an open leveraged position, their position is forcefully closed or liquidated when their maintenance margin is too low.
Here, a trader’s profit and loss does not reflect the actual price their position was closed on the market, and with BitMEX when a trader is liquidated, their equity associated with the position drops down to zero.
In the following example, the trader has taken a 100x long position. In the event that the mark price of Bitcoin falls to $3,980 (by 0.5%), then the position gets liquidated with the 100 Bitcoin position needing to be sold on the market.
This means that it does not matter what price this trade executes at, namely if it’s $3,995 or $3,000, as from the view of the liquidated trader, regardless of the price, they lose all the equity they had in their position, and lose the entire one Bitcoin.
Assuming there is a fully liquid market, the bid/ask spread should be tighter than the maintenance margin. Here, liquidations manifest as contributions to the insurance fund (e.g. if the maintenance margin is 50bps, but the market is 1bp wide), and the insurance fund should rise by close to the same amount as the maintenance margin when a position is liquidated. In this scenario, as long as healthy liquid markets persist, the insurance fund should continue its steady growth.
The following graphs further illustrate the example, and in the first chart, market conditions are healthy with a narrow bid/ask spread (just $2) at the time of liquidation. Here, the closing trade occurs at a higher price than the bankruptcy price (the price where the margin balance is zero) and the insurance fund benefits.
Illustrative example of an insurance contribution – Long 100x with 1 BTC collateral
(Note: The above illustration is based on opening a 100x long position at $4,000 per BTC and 1 Bitcoin of collateral. The illustration is an oversimplification and ignores factors such as fees and other adjustments.
The bid and offer prices represent the state of the order book at the time of liquidation. The closing trade price is $3,978, representing $1 of slippage compared to the $3,979 bid price at the time of liquidation.)
The second chart shows a wide bid/ask spread at the time of liquidation, here, the closing trade takes place at a lower price than the bankruptcy price, and the insurance fund is used to make sure that winning traders receive their expected profits.
This works to stabilize the potential for returns as there is no guarantee that healthy market conditions can continue, especially during periods of heightened price volatility. During these periods, it’s actually possible that the insurance fund can be used up than it is built up.
Illustrative example of an insurance depletion – Long 100x with 1 BTC collateral
(Notes: The above illustration is based on opening a 100x long position at $4,000 per BTC and 1 Bitcoin of collateral. The illustration is an oversimplification and ignores factors such as fees and other adjustments.
The bid and offer prices represent the state of the order book at the time of liquidation. The closing trade price is $3,800, representing $20 of slippage compared to the $3,820 bid price at the time of liquidation.)
The exchange declared in February 2019, that the BitMEX insurance fund retained close to 21,000 Bitcoin (around $70 million based on Bitcoin spot prices at the time).
This figure represents just 0.007% of BitMEX’s notional annual trading volume, which has been quoted as being approximately $1 trillion. This is higher than the insurance funds as a proportion of trading volume of the CME, and therefore, winning traders on BitMEX are exposed to much larger risks than CME traders as:
- BitMEX does not have clearing members with large balance sheets and traders are directly exposed to each other.
- BitMEX does not demand payments from traders with negative account balances.
- The underlying instruments on BitMEX are more volatile than the more traditional instruments available on CME.
Therefore, with the insurance fund remaining capitalized, the system effectively with participants who get liquidated paying for liquidations, or a losers pay for losers mechanism.
This system may appear controversial as first, though some may argue that there is a degree of uniformity to it. It’s also worth noting that the exchange also makes use of Auto Deleveraging which means that on occasion, leveraged positions in profit can still be reduced during certain time periods if a liquidated order cannot be executed in the market.
More adventurous traders should note that while the insurance fund holds 21,000 Bitcoin, worth approximately 0.1% of the total Bitcoin supply, BitMEX still doesn’t offer the same level of guarantees to winning traders that are provided by more traditional leveraged trading platforms.
Given the inherent volatility of the cryptocurrency market, there remains some possibility that the fund gets drained down to zero despite its current size. This may result in more successful traders lacking confidence in the platform and choosing to limit their exposure in the event of BitMEX being unable to compensate winning traders.
How suitable is BitMEX for Beginners?
BitMEX generates high Bitcoin trading levels, and also attracts good levels of volume across other crypto-to-crypto transfers. This helps to maintain a buzz around the exchange, and BitMEX also employs relatively low trading fees, and is available round the world (except to US inhabitants).
This helps to attract the attention of people new to the process of trading on leverage and when getting started on the platform there are 5 main navigation Tabs to get used to:
- **Trade:**The trading dashboard of BitMEX. This tab allows you to select your preferred trading instrument, and choose leverage, as well as place and cancel orders. You can also see your position information and view key information in the contract details.
- **Account:**Here, all your account information is displayed including available Bitcoin margin balances, deposits and withdrawals, and trade history.
- **Contracts:**This tab covers further instrument information including funding history, contract sizes; leverage offered expiry, underlying reference Price Index data, and other key features.
- **References:**This resource centre allows you to learn about futures, perpetual contracts, position marking, and liquidation.
- **API:**From here you can set up an API connection with BitMEX, and utilize the REST API and WebSocket API.
BitMEX also employs 24/7 customer support and the team can also be contacted on their Twitter and Reddit accounts.
In addition, BitMEX provides a variety of educational resources including an FAQ section, Futures guides, Perpetual Contracts guides, and further resources in the “References” account tab.
For users looking for more in depth analysis, the BitMEX blog produces high level descriptions of a number of subjects and has garnered a good reputation among the cryptocurrency community.
Most importantly, the exchange also maintains a testnet platform, built on top of testnet Bitcoin, which allows anyone to try out programs and strategies before moving on to the live exchange.
This is crucial as despite the wealth of resources available, BitMEX is not really suitable for beginners, and margin trading, futures contracts and swaps are best left to experienced, professional or institutional traders.
Margin trading and choosing to engage in leveraged activity are risky processes and even more advanced traders can describe the process as a high risk and high reward “game”. New entrants to the sector should spend a considerable amount of time learning about margin trading and testing out strategies before considering whether to open a live account.
Is BitMEX Safe?
BitMEX is widely considered to have strong levels of security. The platform uses multi-signature deposits and withdrawal schemes which can only be used by BitMEX partners. BitMEX also utilises Amazon Web Services to protect the servers with text messages and two-factor authentication, as well as hardware tokens.
BitMEX also has a system for risk checks, which requires that the sum of all account holdings on the website must be zero. If it’s not, all trading is immediately halted. As noted previously, withdrawals are all individually hand-checked by employees, and private keys are never stored in the cloud. Deposit addresses are externally verified to make sure that they contain matching keys. If they do not, there is an immediate system shutdown.
In addition, the BitMEX trading platform is written in kdb+, a database and toolset popular amongst major banks in high frequency trading applications. The BitMEX engine appears to be faster and more reliable than some of its competitors, such as Poloniex and Bittrex.
They have email notifications, and PGP encryption is used for all communication.
The exchange hasn’t been hacked in the past.
How Secure is the platform?
As previously mentioned, BitMEX is considered to be a safe exchange and incorporates a number of security protocols that are becoming standard among the sector’s leading exchanges. In addition to making use of Amazon Web Services’ cloud security, all the exchange’s systems can only be accessed after passing through multiple forms of authentication, and individual systems are only able to communicate with each other across approved and monitored channels.
Communication is also further secured as the exchange provides optional PGP encryption for all automated emails, and users can insert their PGP public key into the form inside their accounts.
Once set up, BitMEX will encrypt and sign all the automated emails sent by you or to your account by the [support@bitmex.com](mailto:support@bitmex.com) email address. Users can also initiate secure conversations with the support team by using the email address and public key on the Technical Contact, and the team have made their automated system’s PGP key available for verification in their Security Section.
The platform’s trading engine is written in kdb+, a database and toolset used by leading financial institutions in high-frequency trading applications, and the speed and reliability of the engine is also used to perform a full risk check after every order placement, trade, settlement, deposit, and withdrawal.
All accounts in the system must consistently sum to zero, and if this does not happen then trading on the platform is immediately halted for all users.
With regards to wallet security, BitMEX makes use of a multisignature deposit and withdrawal scheme, and all exchange addresses are multisignature by default with all storage being kept offline. Private keys are not stored on any cloud servers and deep cold storage is used for the majority of funds.
Furthermore, all deposit addresses sent by the BitMEX system are verified by an external service that works to ensure that they contain the keys controlled by the founders, and in the event that the public keys differ, the system is immediately shut down and trading halted. The exchange’s security practices also see that every withdrawal is audited by hand by a minimum of two employees before being sent out.
BitMEX Customer Support
The trading platform has a 24/7 support on multiple channels, including email, ticket systems and social media. The typical response time from the customer support team is about one hour, and feedback on the customer support generally suggest that the customer service responses are helpful and are not restricted to automated responses.
The BitMEX also offers a knowledge base and FAQs which, although they are not necessarily always helpful, may assist and direct users towards the necessary channels to obtain assistance.
BitMEX also offers trading guides which can be accessed here
Conclusion
There would appear to be few complaints online about BitMEX, with most issues relating to technical matters or about the complexities of using the website. Older complaints also appeared to include issues relating to low liquidity, but this no longer appears to be an issue.
BitMEX is clearly not a platform that is not intended for the amateur investor. The interface is complex and therefore it can be very difficult for users to get used to the platform and to even navigate the website.
However, the platform does provide a wide range of tools and once users have experience of the platform they will appreciate the wide range of information that the platform provides.
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[uncensored-r/BitcoinMarkets] [Daily Discussion] Wednesday, January 22, 2020
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Thread topics include, but are not limited to:
- General discussion related to the day's events
- Technical analysis, trading ideas & strategies
- Quick questions that do not warrant a separate post
Thread guidelines:
- Be excellent to each other.
- Do not make posts outside of the daily thread for the topics mentioned above.
Other ways to interact:
- Get an invite to live chat on our Slack group
- Set your flair to trade pretend money in the Flair Game
- Weekly threads: Newbie Mondays and Fundamentals Fridays
- Altcoins Discussion: Altcoin Discussion
[January 22, 2020] Weekly Electra Discussion Thread!
Welcome to the /r/Electra_Currency Weekly Discussion Thread
Current important posts
- ECA Officially Listed on Cryptopia! Read our announcement post here!
- Check out Ruanne (ruru) and Ivan's interview with Nick Hellman on all things Electra here!
- ECA to be Featured at Bitcoin and Blockchain Fair, check it out [here!]https://www.reddit.com/r/Electra_Currency/comments/8a0zly/electra_will_be_featured_at_bitcoin_and/)
- Check out /u/chrispancakes51's review on Electra here! Thanks for taking the time in reviewing us, /u/chrispancakes51!
Thread Guidelines:
- Be familiar with the subreddit rules..
- Please be helpful and friendly.
- DON'T DISCUSS YOUR HOLDINGS WITH OTHERS!
Daily discussions will be used for:
- Quick questions that do not warrant a separate post.
- General discussion related to the week's events.
How to Shop with Bitcoin | The Ultimate Buyers Guide - 2020 | JOJOvo |
https://jojovo.com/shop-with-bitcoin/
Filing my cryptocurrency transactions with my taxes
I'm filling out my tax return and I'm confused about whether or not I should include my Bitcoin transactions. Every time I purchased Bitcoin I've immediately sent it to the place I'm buying something from. I've never held it for long enough time to induce a gain or loss from the share. I read all the guides saying that I absolutely have to file them if I had any gains or losses. I never held it for profit, only used it immediately afterwards for transaction.
Why is the government forcing us in to filing cryptocurrency transactions? And the end wouldn't this just take off money from your tax return? That's really what I want to know.
Bitcoin Price Tightens as Traders Prepare for a Second Shot at $9.2K (current BTC/USD price is $8,738.65)
Latest Bitcoin News:
Bitcoin Price Tightens as Traders Prepare for a Second Shot at $9.2K
Other Related Bitcoin Topics:
Bitcoin Price | Bitcoin Mining | Blockchain
The latest Bitcoin news has been sourced from the CoinSalad.com Bitcoin Price and News Events page. CoinSalad is a web service that provides real-time Bitcoin market info, charts, data and tools. Follow us on Twitter @CoinSalad.
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