FTX exchange is a digital trading platform that grants users access to the derivatives trading market. You’ll learn all about the supported marketplace, benefits like FTX products offered, and the different functionalities involved with this exchange.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll let you in on all you need to know about FTX; what it is, how it works, pros and cons.
As you’ll learn, there’s more to the platform than what the definition captures. By design, FTX is meant to revolutionize the cryptocurrency scene by offering users the opportunity to take control of and enjoy the trading experience to the fullest.
The exchange is quickly rising to popularity due to its unique features.
As one of the top five derivatives, you stand a chance of reaching the highest trade volume regardless of the time of the day.
What is FTX Exchange?
FTX entered the market in 2019 and was endorsed by one of the leading cryptocurrency research firms – Alameda Research.
Since its launch, FTX has made remarkable strides in enabling users access to industry-first derivatives and a good mix of volatility products.
In December 2019, the company secured funding from Binance, which propelled its position as one of the leading cryptocurrency firms.
Beginner crypto investors will find the platform intuitive and enjoyable while gurus will find it powerful and elegant.
How FTX Works
FTX is an all-in-one crypto exchange that enables you to sell, buy and trade cryptocurrency.
The exchange has two platforms—one outside the USA and the other available to all the U.S. states apart from New York. The one available outside the U.S. comes with more features and a more comprehensive selection of coins.
To start using the platform, you will need to sign up, then verify your identity. After that, you’ll need to deposit some funds into your account using a wire transfer or ACH bank transfer.
The initial transaction takes 24 hours to reflect in your FTX account. However, subsequent deposits reflect instantly. You can start trading on the FTX platform once your deposit has been reflected.
FTX also allows you to stake them and earn up to 8% bonuses and rewards to grow your holdings (from your account, you can view the available assets and their value).
FTX Pros and Cons
Pros
Easy swapping of currency and coins
The option to swap your cryptocurrency or fiat is available right on the homepage. At the click of a button, you’ll follow a few simple prompts, and you’ll have your desired currency.
After logging in, the conversion procedure is simple. Choose the coin and currency you want to convert, then select the number of coins you want to convert, and complete the transaction by clicking “Convert.”
Mobile app for iOS and Android
In its quest to provide its clientele with a seamless trading experience, the FTX crypto platform has a fully-featured app available on the Play Store. That means anyone with a functional smartphone, whether Android or iOS, can trade on the go.
The app has 500,000+ downloads and an impressive rating of 4.6 from over 6,000 reviews on Play Store, thanks to its simplicity. Most reviewers acknowledge that the app is easy to navigate and offers a variety of derivative markets.
Supports 130+ Different Cryptocurrencies
The exchange has over 130 coins, and they’re regularly adding more to allow investors to choose from a variety of options. If there’s a coin you haven’t spotted, the chances are that you might see it pop up sooner or later.
Staking Available
FTX allows you to earn interest on your crypto investment. To do so, you only need to lock up your crypto on the FTX exchange for a given period.
That means you can’t sell or transfer the staked coins, including RAY, SRM, and SOL. However, you’ll earn interest on the staked coins.
Benefit from Holding and staking FTX’s token (FTT)
FTX allows crypto enthusiasts to benefit from purchasing and staking their coin, FTT, available on the platform.
Some of the benefits include more airdrop rewards, trading fee discounts, and reduced blockchain fees.
Instead of staking, you can also opt to hold your FTT and receive discounted trading fees when you have a minimum of $100 in your account.
Buy And Sell Nfts on the Nft Marketplace
FTX offers NFT users a marketplace to come onboard and transact. You can do everything from minting, buying, selling, and storing the NFTs on their (FTX) platform.
FTX Donates 1% Of All Net Fees To Charities
Isn’t it wonderful working with a crypto exchange that exists for a more important purpose than just itself?
FTX aims at making the world a better place by donating 1% of its net fees to efficient and transparent charities.
When writing this, the amount donated already stands over $14 million to charities worldwide.
Get Paid In Fiat Or Crypto
FTX Pay is the exchange’s official payment platform that makes it easy for you to transact in fiat or crypto. It’s a fast, secure and affordable payment processor that gives you peace of mind to focus on the trade. You can also use FTX pay to send and receive money from family and friends.
Advanced Markets
FTX grants its users access to developed markets, including forex, volatility, futures, stocks and leveraged tokens, fiat, and predictions.
Cons
Not Available In the USA
The strict internal government policies have made it difficult for FTX, despite being a legitimate platform to operate in the USA. The exchange is available in the U.S. but in a basic form exclusive of the trading derivatives as it only offers spot trading.
Expensive USD Withdrawal Fees
The withdrawal fee for less than $10,000 is a steep $75. This is a ridiculous amount to charge for a single withdrawal.
No Live Chat Support
It’s quite unfortunate that FTX doesn’t provide live chat customer support. You’ll need to use the ticketed email support to reach out to their customer support representatives.
FTX Full Review
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FTX Fees
FTX uses a tiered fee system that most users trading in higher volumes finds convenient. If you’re a trader moving $35+ million, you’ll not incur a 0.045% taker fee and zero maker fee. But if you’re a low-volume trader, you might pay up to 0.07% in taker and 0.02% in maker fee.
Leverage tokens attract a 0.03% management fee and a 0.1 redemption charge. You can enjoy lower fees by holding FTT, which attracts a 33% trading discount.
FTX User Interface
All the derivatives with corresponding tabs are easily accessible on the market page. The navigation bar directs users to the most popular products.
Also, the trading charts come with TradingView integrations and other essential tools which guide professional derivative traders in making informed decisions.
The intuitive interface lets you market, stop market, limit, stop limit, and trail the stop orders.
FTX Tradable Products
Futures
Futures is an important instrument that enables you to trade an asset at a pre-arranged price and date.
This instrument also means you can take advantage of the benefits of leverage by applying to 101X of the derivatives contracts available on the platform. The good news here is that FTX has low market caps for futures and other lesser-known cryptos.
Additionally, most of these digital assets can’t be traded on other platforms, something that keeps on attracting unique speculators and traders to the FTX platform.
FTX currently supports 80+ digital currencies for futures contracts, which is impressive compared to BitMex (one of the leading platforms) that offers only 13 digital coins.
With FTX, you also have the freedom to trade in perceptual features (contracts that have no expiry). The prices of these contracts are updated on an hourly basis to reflect the current market position.
Options
Options work more or less like futures only that for their case, a trader isn’t mandated to purchase the asset in question upon expiry. In other words, the power to or not to purchase lies in the hands of the contract holder (you).
Plus, you’re at liberty to come up with your uniquely designed options contract and request a quote. After placing your request, you’ll receive your first offer in approximately 10 seconds.
Again, you can wait until you’ve got several offers so that you decide which one to take. The request for a quote disappears after five minutes in the event that you don’t accept any of the quotes.
Leveraged Tokens
These ERC20 assets are unique to FTX. They reflect the actual prices of the digital coin. FTX currently has four types of leveraged coins:
BEAR is -3x
HEGDE is -1x
HALF is +0.50x.
BULL is +3x
MOVE Contracts
These volatility contracts are also unique to FTX. The contracts show the movement in terms of the price of the assets within a given period.
But if you anticipate the asset to remain stable, you can opt to open a short position. For example, say ETH moves $50 in a single day.
Consequently, the MOVE contract will have a new value of $50. You’ve got the freedom of opening a long position on the contract if you speculate that assets will increase significantly in the near future.
These contracts come with three trading options:
Daily: These expire after a single day.
Weekly: They expire within a period of seven days
Quarterly: These operate on a 3-months basis.
Spot Markets
FTX is also home to OVER 70 crypto spot markets that deal in real assets and not financial instruments.
Prediction Markets
Prediction markets entail speculating on a possible outcome of actual events happening in the real world.
A perfect example of prediction markets is the FTX 2020 US Presidential election. FTX came up with trade contracts such as BIDEN or TRUMP. Those who staked on BIDEN won while those who predicted TRUMP lost their stakes.
BVOL Tokens
FTX also supports BVOL, a digital token based on Ethereum that monitors the volatility of Bitcoin. The token uses BTC perpetual contracts and the FTX MOVE contracts to determine price action.
Consider the following simple illustration:
A user intends to buy BVOL tokens worth $1,000
FTX buys FTX MOVE contracts worth $1,000 and simultaneously shorts BTC perpetual contracts worth the same amount.
Consequently, 1 BVOL is equivalent to “1x long FTX MOVE & 1x short BTC-PREP.
You can take advantage of BVOL tokens to predict the market’s movement in either direction. These tokens capture the daily returns for the 1x long BTC volatility.
FTX New Volatility Products
FTX is constantly coming up with new ways to make the platform more supportive to its clientele. Besides being a platform primarily meant for cryptocurrency derivatives, it diversifies into other areas, including oil futures and spot markets.
Recently, FTX embarked on the inclusion of the derivatives of Airbnb Inc. The goal of the exchange is to cater to as many users as possible by including tradable volatility products that capture the interests of many users.
FTT: FTX Native Token
The FTX Native token is the backbone of the entire FTX ecosystem. Despite being one of the newest in the market, the token is now ranked among the top 50 cryptocurrencies. Currently, the company is burning 50% of the token’s supply to increase its value.
FTT is also gaining increasing popularity as it’s listed on many crypto platforms, including CoinEX, Binance, and BitMEX. FTT is also tradable on spot markets like FTT/USDT, FTT/USD, and FTT/BTC.
Other benefits associated with FTT include socialisation gains, lower or discounted trading fees, and FTT as collateral when dealing with futures trading.
FTT Staking
Another benefit that FTX offers its members is that they can stake your FTT on the platform. Below are some of the advantages of FTT staking:
Better referral rebate rates: FTX rewards traders who stake FTT with higher referral fees through its referral program.
Bonus votes: Before launching a new financial instrument, FTX always seeks the opinion of its existing clientele. For instance, FTX could ask its traders to vote on the best-tokenized stock groups to be released. FTT traders always get more votes during such polls.
New maker fee schedule: A different maker fee schedule overrides the conventional rates in most cases.
More SRM airdrop rewards: SRM is the Serum ecosystem’s native token. FTX has a policy that commits it to disperse at least 5% of SRM’s total supply to FTT holders.
Note: Due to the stricter government regulations in the U.S., FTT isn’t available there and any other jurisdictions with similar restrictions. By implication, it is illegal for you to trade in FTX tokens if you reside in the U.S. or any other similar locations.
FTX OTC Desk
The OTC desk is an “over the counter” cryptocurrency exchange for institutional traders with the capacity to trade in huge volumes of digital assets. The difference with FTX’s OTC desk is that it’s simplified the entire procedure making it as less painstaking and cost-effective as possible, unlike other platforms.
You can access the FTX OTC portal at otc.ftx.com anytime of the day and in any location around the world. If you already have an FTX account, you won’t need to open a separate OTC portal. You can use the same account for all the OTC quotes on nearly all the available digital coins.
Better still, you have the flexibility of withdrawing and depositing in to your OTC account using your FTX wallet. The best news about this whole arrangement is that there are no extra charges involved apart from the spread costs.
FTX Quaint Zone
The zone is meant for FTX traders who want to share and build their strategies and ideas. To get the most out of it, you’ll need to come up with a predefined set of conditions popularly known as the ‘Quant Zone Rules,’ which work to issue orders on the user FTX account.
The zone lets you come up with your terms and conditions for your trading. FTX aids the entire process by adding several layers of options that you can customise to make your zone unique and flexible.
However, you can create, enable, and disable these rules as often as you like. For instance, you could design your own rules and conditions by indicating the action, trigger, and corresponding monitoring rules. You can also string together several actions for a single rule if you prefer.
The rules automatically check whether the trigger holds as accurate after every 15 seconds. If the trigger is true, the corresponding action is executed. If you wish to stop the rule, you’ll need to use the Pause rule to sleep the process for a specified period.
If you don’t disable them, all the rules will run continuously and simultaneously.
Safety
One of the reasons many crypto traders love FTX is its high safety and security standards. The platform has invested in impenetrable safety protocols that protect the users’ identity, personal data, and investment.
FTX uses 2FA or 2-factor authentication, which significantly minimises the chances of being hacked or your data finding itself in unauthorised hands. You can also use the Google Authenticator or Authy apps to ensure your activities are concealed and private. You can also require a separate password distinct from the rest for withdrawals.
You can further bolster your account by taking advantage of FTX’s wallet and IP address whitelisting. The system will alert you if there’s an attempted login or withdrawal from a crypto wallet that’s not whitelisted. Only the whitelisted wallets and IPs will be allowed to operate in such a case.
Can you Trade FTX’s Crypto Derivative Products in Australia?
The trade of crypto-assets is legal in Australia. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) allows investments in exchanges like the FTX and its cryptocurrency derivatives products.
However, ASIC requires that you only trade with recognised entities that hold the Australian Financial Services (AFS) license. AFS also forbids the operation of platforms that don’t adhere to the minimum requirements of onboarding Aussie crypto assets.
At times, some of the remedial actions that ASIC will take to ensure adherence to its standards include the following: (1) removing inappropriate references and links, (2) requiring disclosures on the relevant sites and apps, (3) giving warnings and imposing limitations on violators and (4) using geo-blocking (geographically-based IP blocking).
However, OTC binary options are forbidden for retail traders in Australia. In brief, FTX onboards Australian investors, although there are restrictions that bar trade with traders from the U.S., Japan, and Ontario. If you are a US resident and desire to follow the strict US regulations in trading, you can take advantage of FTX.US, a platform launched in 2020 for the U.S. market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does FTX Accept AUD Deposits?
Yes, it does. FTX supports both domestic AUD withdrawals and deposits that accommodate both Mastercard and Visa users. Other payment alternatives include crypto deposits, bank transfers PayID, Signature SIGNET deposits, and Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN).
Does FTX Have Withdrawal And Deposit Fees?
No. Besides the known blockchain fees, there are no charges associated with FTX deposits or withdrawals.
Is There An FTX Exchange Mobile Application?
Yes, the app is available for both Android and iOs users.
Is There An FTX Affiliate Program?
Yes. All new users get an affiliate link that earns 30% of their referrals.
Does FTX Have A Demo Account?
No. Due to the lack of a demo account, new users might find it a bit intimidating. But with time, they get used to the interface.
Conclusion
FTX exchange is the ultimate crypto trading platform for new and experienced traders alike.
The platform supports crypto trading derivatives while giving users access to various products and the security and freedom needed for a seamless trading experience. Alongside its groundbreaking tools, it promises to be the trading platform of the future.
You won’t find as many benefits with FTX competitors, including huge trade discounts that increase your withdrawals. It’s a digital trading platform made with the end-user in mind; FTX exchange could just be the perfect fit.
