BitMex exchange for crypto margin trading, and also gives you the ability to short! If you do not know what shorting is please refer to our other guides. Its a good way to leverage in bear markets and down trends. Now that you know the basics to trading you can now try maximizing your profits by leveraging. Margin trading is not suitable for beginners in trading and should be done with careful caution and attention. Although the rewards are very high, so are the risks. It is important to note that margin or leveraged trading is considered very risky and speculative, so you should trade with caution. Always trade amounts you afford to completely lose. The biggest advantage of margin trading is that we can actually leverage a position without the need to hold the required bitcoin or crypto assets. In the crypto world, it is not recommended to hold a large amount of bitcoins on an exchange. Better to hold them only on cold storage (check our reviews for different types we prefer). Another advantage is that the exchange allows us to make short trades, it means profit when Bitcoin goes down.
In this review you’ll quickly get to know the site interface, what type of transactions can be made on the platform, which pairs can be traded and everything you need to start: Step 1. Sign up at Bitmex (use this link and get 10% trading fees for 6 months)
First of all, let’s have a short look at how to create an account on BitMEX. The specialty at this point is, that at Bitmex.com you can create an anonymous account, which doesn’t have any connection to your real name, incase you use an anonymous e-mail address for this purpose. If you are the United States please use a VPS like zenmate google chrome app. BitMEX is closed to all american applicants so you need to fool the system in thinking you are registering someone else. Choose China as your location. Afterwards you register you do not need to a VPS again. Create an (anonymous) account: First, we have to click on the “Register” button. This will take us to the next page: Fill in with your info (e-mail address) and set up a password. You will receive an email to confirm your registration, and you’re done. Step 2. Once that is done go ahead and deposit BTC into your account.
To make a deposit, select “Account” in the top bar and then “Deposit” within the drop down menu. This will open a QR Code window to complete the transaction. BitMEX only accepts deposits and withdrawals in Bitcoin. If you don’t own Bitcoins yet, you have to purchase them in another exchange. To make a withdrawal, you have to insert the amount and BTC address to complete the transfer.
This is the main screen. On the left side, there is a panel where you can place an order, check your current position and see contract details. (We’ll be back on that later). In the central platform area the BTC deposit address of your account is placed (BitMEX only accepts deposits in BTC). On the top right, you can access your account & security options, where you can set a two-factor authentication. On top in the middle, the other cryptos which you can trade on Bitmex.com are displayed as tabs. Your trading history is on the bottom of the platform interface, with the current positions on the first tab and the active orders on the third:
The arrangement of those widgets within your account can be changed by clicking on the button placed right on the top bar (to switch from basic to advanced display). This gives you full control of what you want to display: As you can see on the right side we see the last transactions made, in the middle we have the graph, and the left pane is actually the interesting one, here we open our positions. Quantity = position size in US dollars. Limit Price = The price we set in order to open the position. Cost = the total price of the position. Order Value = The total value of the position (if the leverage is set to 1, then it’s equal to the cost minus fees). Available Balance = Balance we have in bitcoin. Before opening the position, we will define the leverage. If this is your first trade I would recommend leaving it on 1, that is, with no leverage at all. Leverage means position cost divides by the same ratio. For example, if we set the leverage to be times 5, then we expect the cost of the position to be reduced by the same ratio – divided by 5. Which means it will be reduced by five times. This basically allows us to trade on bitcoins we borrow from the exchange. Keep in mind - the higher the leverage will be, the more we will have to borrow from BitMex and therefore the fees will increase. Another thing you need to know about is the liquidation price. This is the price value at which Bitmex will close the position, or liquidate it. Bitmex can’t afford to lose, and in order not to lose the money we borrowed for the position, the position will automatically close once we lose the amount of bitcoins that belongs to us. Placing a new position We do it using BUY, means long position - when we believe that the value of Bitcoin will increase, or SELL – short position - when we actually benefit from the decrease of the Bitcoin’s value. We will set the buying price to be higher than the market price because we want the position to open immediately (means buy from the sellers) or lower than the market price if we want to join the buy wall and wait for a seller. We need to confirm the position in the popping screen - notice we can see when Bitmex is estimated to liquidate the position. Now we see our position: we have here the entry price, Unrealized PNL is the estimated profit and it’s calculated according to this Mark Price, we also see the real Liquidation Price. In case we close part of the position, we will see the gain or loss on the Realized PNL tab. Two ways for closing our position The first is by setting a SELL command: suppose we want the position to close at price of 4200$, so we will create an inverse command to our original position with the same quantity. Or if we want to close the position immediately – there is this red button here - Market. The order will be released to the market and will close at the best available price. On Bitmex there are more advanced options such as stop-limit.
All your orders can be easily viewed in the trading platform interface. There are tabs where you can select your Active Orders, see the Stops placed, check the Orders Filled (total or partially) and the history log. On the Active Orders and Stops tabs, you can cancel any order that you want, by clicking the “cancel” button. You can also see all your currently open positions, with an analysis if it is in the black or red.
A little more on how to leverage: Again, Leveraging is the ability to place orders that are bigger than your current wallet balance. This could lead to a higher profit in comparison when placing an order with only your wallet balance. Trading in such conditions is called “Margin Trading.” Inside margin trading, you have two sub-types: Isolated and Cross-Margin. The latter type of trading should be made with extreme caution because you can lose all your wallet money, and not only the money used to place the order. In the first type, you can select the amount of your wallet you want to use to hold your position after the order is placed. In BitMEX trading platform you can set your leverage level by using the leverage slider. BitMEX Margin Trading Fees: The taker fee is 0.075% which gets multiplied with the leverage. So 10x leverage would cost 0.75% fees. Please refer to our other guides on the different types of order types you can place. Don't forget to use this link for 10% fees for 6 months