Despite bad times for the financial markets, interest in cryptocurrencies does not weaken. New exchanges appear every week. However, not all of them will be a good option for trading. Most will turn into a scam, and close-down, taking the money of customers. Which category does BTCEX belong to? It is a fairly young cryptocurrency exchange, about which there are not so many reviews on the web yet. Let’s see if it’s safe to trade here.
- BTCEX General Information
- Registration and Client Portal Review
- BTCEX Trading Conditions
- BTCEX Account Types Review
- Trading Platform
- BTCEX — Deposit and Withdrawal of Funds
- Verification
- Additional Options
- Is BTCEX a Scam?
- Legal Information and License
- Btcex.com Domain Info
- Contacts Review
- More Details
- Pros and Cons
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
BTCEX General Information
Website | https://www.btcex.com/ |
Phone Number | — |
— | |
Address | 2164 Montreal Road. Unit 5, Ottawa ON K1J 1G4, Canada |
License | MSB |
Minimum Deposit | 100 USD/EUR |
Assets | Cryptocurrencies |
Leverage | 1:125 |
Trading Platform | TradingView |
Registration and Client Portal Review
The BTCEX web resource is pretty standard. The content is translated only into English, Spanish, Thai, and Chinese. The menu is typical. You can immediately go to the following sections:
- Buy cryptocurrency
- Trade
- Perpetual
- Portfolio margin;
- Copy Trade
- Rewards center
- Promotions.
Current issues are covered in the FAQ section. Here the visitor can learn how to register an account, buy cryptocurrency, withdraw earnings, etc.
You can install the BTCEX mobile app. The site has a QR code to download. The app is rather new. There is not even a review about it yet.
Of the disadvantages, it should be noted, self-promotion, of which there are a lot.
It seems that opening an account with BTCEX is not difficult. You need to enter an email address in a form and come up with a password. After that, you should open an email from the BTCEX. It contains a link to activate your account.
However, you will have to wait for the activation code for quite a long time. We waited for about an hour, and repeatedly asked the code several times, but nothing happened. Even contacting support remained unanswered.
BTCEX Trading Conditions
BTCEX offers cryptocurrency trading. You can open trades on the spot market, use margin trading, or trade perpetual contracts. Also, you can buy cryptocurrency on the exchange directly from a credit card. Currently, the platform accepts only EUR and USD.
BTCEX Account Types Review
The account on the exchange is single. There is a minimum amount to fund. Besides, depending on which market you are trading in, the commission will vary. Let’s consider these nuances in more detail.
Market | Maker/Taker Commission | Characteristics |
Spot | 0.1% for maker/taker | Settlement conditions under which payment for the transaction is made immediately |
Margin | 0.1% for maker/taker | Conducting trading operations using borrowed funds |
BTC Options ETH Options |
20 USDT per BTC 1.5 USDT per ETH |
Maximum profit |
Perpetual | 0.02% for maker;
0.05% for taker |
The calculation is carried out in US dollars. You can use leverage. |
Futures | 10 USDT per BTC for maker/17 USD per BTC for taker | BTC Futures Supply Contract |
Additional services of the exchange include copy-trading. That’s the automatic synchronization of the operations of professional traders to open and close their positions. Experienced traders can get up to 10% of subscribers’ profits, and increase the audience.
Besides, traders complain that the described commissions are not accurate. During trading, BTCEX can change them at its discretion.
BTCEX owners are confident that trading on their platform will be the safest. They offer 1,000 BTC as insurance funds. However, it is unclear to us whether this is an insurance fund for one trader or in general. In any case, it seems like a small amount.
Trading Platform
The BTCEX platform is a standard TradingView. It is quite convenient to trade. There are several indicators for technical and graphical analysis. Orders can be opened in a couple of clicks. Pending orders are supported also.
BTCEX — Deposit and Withdrawal of Funds
Depositing on the site is very inconvenient. Firstly, there are limitations. The minimum deposit amount is 100 euros or dollars. Moreover, that’s not even all. The maximum purchase amount has a limit too. So, you will not be able to purchase cryptocurrency for more than 1,000 dollars or euros. Among the payment methods, only credit and debit cards are supported, but only MasterCard. BTCEX does not accept Visa and Maestro.
Withdrawal of money is possible only in cryptocurrency. You could withdraw only coins or tokens to your wallet, not fiat money.
Verification
The verification process consists of two stages. Passing the first one will allow you to trade on the site and increase the withdrawal limit to 10 million USDT. To do this, you need to take a photo of your passport, ID card, or driver’s license, as well as a selfie, and send it to BTCEX. The second stage will help you increase the withdrawal limit to 20 million USDT. For this, you will have to allow the camera of your smartphone or PC to shoot you and pass video verification.
Additional Options
The exchange allows you to earn extra. You can participate in the affiliate program to do this. In this case, you will receive up to 50% of the trading commission of each referral. Additionally, you will be assigned a personal assistant who will help expand the referral network. And if you are a developer, you can contact the exchange with a request to add your token to the platform. However, the administration does not give exact dates. All requests will be considered in order of priority.Also, anyone can use the BTCEX API.
Is BTCEX a Scam?
Trade turnover on the BTCEX exchange is quite small. According to Coingecko, its reliability is only average. Let’s see if this is true.
Legal Information and License
When checking the registration data and license, we were perplexed. BTCEX says it is registered in Seychelles. However, it is not the only headquarters there. Another branch is registered in Canada. The company also received a license in Canada. Ok, but here’s the problem: there is no such legal entity in the registry of Seychelles.
At least the Canadian registry does have a BTCEX legal entity.
It is not very clear to us why the administration is lying about registration in Seychelles. In any case, the Canadian license is more authoritative than the usual certificate of incorporation, which is issued in Seychelles. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that only citizens of this country are served in the Canadian branch, whereas everyone else is in the offshore branch. Oh yes, we forgot, there is no offshore branch. It turns out that the rest of the traders are being served illegally, isn’t it? However, we doubt the availability of a Canadian license.
In the “About Us” section, BTCEX writes that it has received an MSB license for Forex, money transfer, and virtual-currency dealing. Moreover, it also allegedly received licenses in Lithuania and Estonia. The problem is that you can’t check for an MSB license unless you live in Canada. This register is closed to foreigners. And the licenses obtained in Lithuania and Estonia are absolute fakes. BTCEX is not registered as a legal entity in any of these countries. Therefore, it did not receive a license in these countries.
Btcex.com Domain Info
According to legend, BTCEX does not work for very long. It was established in 2021. However, while searching the information about it, we came across reviews written much earlier. We were very interested in this situation. That’s why we checked the domain information. According to WebArchive, it turns out that btcex.com was first created in 2010. Moreover, in 2010 it was a Russian exchange that offered to exchange rubles for Bitcoins.
This exchange worked for a short time. Then it was inactive for a long time and reopened only in 2016, but again for a short time. We don’t know if it’s a coincidence, or if it’s the same developers. However, such a story is alarming.
Contacts Review
Contact information is another weak point of BTCEX. You will be able to contact support only by using the feedback form. They do not specify any mail or phone number. We also have to wait a long time for a response from support. As we have already said, we waited an hour to resolve the issue with the activation code. However, two more hours passed and support did not consider our request.
More Details
Finally, the most important thing that should interest you is the trading process on the exchange. It seems to us that BTCEX is not the best place for your cryptocurrency. For example, Coin Market Cap does not even watch it. Coingecko assigned it the beta trust level. The trading volume in 24 hours is about 248 million dollars. At the same time, 170 million is the trading volume of Bitcoins only. Besides, there are 106 trading pairs on the site. We are leading to the fact that there is quite little liquidity here. That means that trading may not be as smooth as on larger exchanges. Moreover, BTCEX is quite young and has not yet managed to prove itself well.
Pros and Cons
- Officially registered in Canada.
- Short period of work.
- Small trading volume.
- Fake licenses.
- Lack of reviews.
- Issues with account opening.
- High minimum deposit.
- Lack of contacts.
- Long response from support.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
BTCEX Exchange Limited is located in Ottawa, Canada.
According to the terms and conditions, the minimum deposit is 100 EUR/USD.
It may be safe for residents of Canada to trade on this exchange. However, they need to make sure that BTCEX has actually received a license. The exchange is not regulated in other jurisdictions.
I lost money here and can't get an answer
I am faced with an unpleasant situation. I traded on this exchange for about a month, but realized that it does not suit me. I decided to withdraw USDT to my wallet. I checked the details, as always, but the money still hasn’t come. The support first told me that if there was a problem, it was only me who made a mistake. And now they have stopped responding to my messages altogether.
I prefer reliable exchanges
I did not understand the need to trade here. My friend invited me here. As I understand it, he needed referrals. I have been testing the trade for about a week. The volumes are small. It is inconvenient to trade. The commission is actually higher than it is written. I don’t think BTCEX deserves attention.
I am very upset by these scammers
I had problems registering on the site and contacted support. They helped create an account. And then the managers persuaded me for a long time to make not a minimum deposit, but to transfer a larger amount. They promised that I would earn a good profit. Two days later I found out that my account was blocked. No one is responding to my appeals anymore.