Cryptocurrencies, and bitcoin in particular, are starting to look like viable alternatives to the conventional money-transfer methods (bank wire, credit card, PayPal, etc.) that we have relied on for moving funds to and from our offshore brokers. The CFTC and other fascist regulators have attacked those conventional money-transfer methods, as a way of attacking the offshore brokers they serve.
My suspicion now is that the CFTC’s interest in “blockchain” technology is not at all about the purposes mentioned in the article. Instead, I suspect that the CFTC’s interest in “blockchain” is all about finding ways to [I]get control of cryptocurrency money-transfers,[/I] so that they can continue to strangle the offshore brokers who, so far, have escaped the iron fist of the CFTC.
In this circumstance, my hopes – as well as my confidence – are low.
I think one of the biggest challenge for an average user is to get used to it. I tried to put a comprehensive post about bitcoins and all the relevant links that can be useful for an average user to get his forex account funded and converting his Dollars in BitCoins and vice versa, but unfortunately, my post didnt get published (perhaps because I’m still a “newbie” on this forum and not allowed to post long posts with bunch of links in it)
But it will be helpful if an older member takes a stab at educating users of this thread on how to use bitcoins and relevant providers, brokers & BTC exchanges.
BitCoin is one of the best source of money transfer available today and its mature enough of a technology to rely upon. It not only lets you fund your forex accounts, but also lets you plan your taxes efficiently (since bitcoins are either digital assets or a commodity and you can not be taxed unless its converted to fiat currency).
I think its totally worth it to get used to it.
@Clint , would you like to share your knowledge on bitcoins with your readers so everyone can benifit from it
Clint, I share your healthy scepticism about the interest in BTC (BitCoin).
Of course, we know the U.S. IRS classifies it as “property”, rather than “currency”
but we use it as currency. Property transactions are subject to capital gains, of course.
I’ve been working fairly extensively with Evolve.Markets MT4 since I like the
pricing, the MT4 platform uses GMT as its server time, and it has proven highly
reliable. I’m refining a scalping “nibbler” BOT scanning across the 28 Currency Pairs,
and have been testing on my Evolve.Markets variable spread BitCoin funded
account with 500:1 leverage (they fund with BTC only, I think).
It’s hard to get used to BIT (which is 0.000001 BTC) which is used on Evolve’s
MT4 platform. So while 50,000 BIT seems like a lot, it is 0.050000 BTC and
right now with the BTC frenzy rally against the USD 1 BTC is worth roughly $2200.
So that 50,000 BIT is about $110.00 at current peak exchange rates.
When I bought a small amount of BTC from CoinBase to fund the account, it was
about $1500 / BTC. BitCoin volatility against the USD is definitely another factor
in using this crypto currency; but that can also be an opportunity ?
Although I do not trade the Currency Pair BTCUSD, it is offered on the Evolve.Markets
MT4 platform. For me, I just trade the 28 Forex majors; with brokerage funding in BTC
instead of USD which would be the usual situation. I haven’t pulled any BTC out
into USD yet, so I can’t comment on that transaction. I’m just going to build the BTC
equity.
The post you describe above sounds like a marvelous resource for traders interested in learning about and using bitcoin. [B]I want to encourage you to reconstruct that post, together with all the links you previously gathered, and take another shot at posting it here.[/B]
Before you attempt to post this information for the second time, save a copy, in case things go awry again. If that happens, send the entire post to me via Private Message, and I will post it in your name.
You are giving me more credit for bitcoin knowledge than I deserve. I am not a bitcoin expert.
As we become more familiar with bitcoin – and as the price of BTC/USD (one bitcoin priced in dollars) goes ever higher – we’ll get more comfortable with the fractional divisions of bitcoin.
In theory, those fractional divisions of bitcoin are no more complicated than the fractional divisions of the dollar: quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. But, the numbers themselves are a bit daunting.
Here are the fractional divisions converted to USD, [B]using a recent bitcoin price of BTC/USD = 2000:[/B]
[B][U]Why would bitcoin need to be divided into such tiny fractions?[/U][/B]
The answer lies in the [I][B]bitcoin protocol[/B][/I] – the original scheme devised for bitcoin by “Satoshi Nakamoto” (whoever he/they might be). The scheme is such that the financial incentive to “mine” bitcoin will diminish over time, until that incentive will effectively disappear when there are 21 million bitcoin in existence.
See — Bitcoin - Wikipedia
[B][U]A whole bunch of [I]if’s[/I][/U][/B]:
If the protocol plays out as designed, 21 million will be the final worldwide stock of bitcoin.
If bitcoin becomes established as a permanent (alternative) world currency, the value of each individual bitcoin will have to become enormous. Currently (as of January 2016), if all the money in circulation in the world (bank notes, coins, and bank deposits) were to be converted into USD, the total would be more than $80 trillion ($80,000,000,000,000.) That figure does not include the leveraged value of derivatives. See — Here’s all the money in the world, in one chart - MarketWatch
If we envision a bitcoin system in which there are enough bitcoin in existence to substitute for, say, 5% of the world’s money supply, then the world would need $4 trillion worth of bitcoin, given today’s market metrics. If the total stock of bitcoin is capped (by the bitcoin protocol) at 21 million bitcoin, then the price of BTC/USD will have to soar to $190,000 per bitcoin.
If 1 BTC = $190,000 —
— then 1 mBTC = $190, 1 bit (1 µBTC) = $0.19, and 1 satoshi = $0.0019 (19/100 of 1¢).
This thought-experiment does not account for the time factor. We are “equating” the ultimate stock of bitcoin [I]at some time in the future[/I] to an assumed percentage (5%) of [I]today’s[/I] worldwide stock of conventional currencies. But, the ultimate stock of bitcoin (21 million BTC in existence) is not projected (by the bitcoin protocol) to be reached before [I]the year 2140.[/I] A lot can happen in the next 123 years.
Suppose bitcoin gains traction; suppose its increasing use requires increased “mining”; suppose interest and confidence in bitcoin drives its price higher until the [B]bit[/B] achieves “parity” with the U.S. dollar; and suppose that all of this happens long before the year 2140.
In other words, in this [I]very[/I] hypothetical scenario, the ultimate worldwide stock of bitcoin would reach 21 million well ahead of schedule, and [B]1 bit would equal $1.[/B] Furthermore, the total value of bitcoin in existence would be slightly greater than 26% of the world’s money in circulation (based on the January 2016 money figures used in the example above), not 5% as supposed in that example.
[B][I]If[/I][/B] all of that were to occur, then all the cumbersome numbers in the table, above, would become very simple and easy to remember —
1 satoshi (we need a symbol for this!) – would be $0.01 (1¢)
1 bit (one µBTC) = 100 satoshi – would be $1
1 milli-bitcoin (one mBTC, should be renamed one kbit) = 1,000 bit – would be $1,000
1 bitcoin (BTC, or XBT*) = 1,000,000 bit – would be $1,000,000
Maybe those are the prices Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind from the beginning.
[B]Currency code[/B]
The ISO 4217 currency code for Bitcoin is XBT. However, at the moment it is an unofficial code according to the ISO 4217 standard. The unit name BTC is also commonly used to represent one bitcoin, but it violates ISO 4217 because it begins with “BT”, the country code of Bhutan. Bhutan does not actually use the code BTC for any currency, and XBT has not yet defined which unit it represents (just that it represents some unit of bitcoin), so the Bitcoin community is likely to continue using mainly BTC as a unit name and currency code for some time.
A formal application by the Financial Standards Working Group of the Bitcoin Foundation is nearing completion [still true?]. This application would request ISO 4217 standard to support XBT.
The broker system for loading charts and execution is extremely fast, even faster than FXChoice in my opinion, thats 1 of 2 reason i like them, the second reason is their 1:500 leverage. But for leverage 1:500, i found out that when your equity goes above $5k, your leverage became 1:200, and if you trade and somehow your equity goes below $5k, you can’t have 1:500 leverage back, not for 30 days since your last leverage changed.
Their spread is very low, for major currencies, the spread is below 1 pips, well i am comparing them with FXChoice, and FXChoice pro account for AUDUSD and NZDUSD is around 1-2 pips, rarely goes below 1 pips. And their swap is a little bit higher than FXChoice but not as high as Trader’s way. Commission is lower than FXChoice.
The broker sites is ****ty as well as their support, they don’t have live support, and when you login to your account, it’s very unprofessional, unlike all other broker.
Well i withdraw money without problem, it takes 4 days for the money to reach my bank, i would probably stay with them if the leverage still 1:500, maybe one day i will try them again, when they update their sites and support. withdraw money is free with them (at least thats what on their site said, but it’s not), i got deducted $30 when my money arrives + $16 (my bank fee)
Well thats all folks, if you looking for broker with fast execution and lower spread, commission, higher leverage, i would recommend them, but don’t expect anything from their support and their sites. as for trustworthy or not, i can’t say anything on that matters, although they say that they are regulated, but i highly doubt that they are.
.
I don’t know whether this is good news for us, or not.
This proposed new bank appears to offer hope for some relief from current money-transfer problems to and from offshore companies – specifically Caribbean offshore companies – and that may open up new money-transfer possibilities for the offshore forex brokers we deal with.
If this new bank gets up and running as planned, it will be open for business in the fall. We should keep an eye on this development, even as we continue to pursue other money-transfer solutions using bitcoin.
Excerpts from a BloombergBusinessWeek article:
The global campaign against money laundering combined with the Panama Papers made the Caribbean islands of sun, sand and offshore banking a near no-go zone for the world’s biggest banks.
So the British Virgin Islands has a solution: a bank to service offshore companies, many of them from China, locked out of the global banking system by HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and others. The new Bank of Asia (BVI) Ltd. is to begin operating online later this year.
“We have a captive client market of all these offshore companies that have had difficulties opening bank accounts, not for their own fault but because the legacy banks have stopped wanting them,” said Carson Wen, 64, a former acquisitions lawyer at Jones Day in Hong Kong and now founder and chairman of the bank. He plans to target the 200,000 out of 400,000-plus BVI companies that can’t get bank accounts.
In a speech in January, [BVI Prime Minister] Smith expressed hope that Bank of Asia “will mitigate against the restrictive banking practices that have impacted our incorporation numbers,” citing the effect of the Panama Papers’ revelations. Elise Donovan, director of the government’s BVI House Asia in Hong Kong, said in an emailed statement that the bank’s license was approved and that BVI officials were delighted.
Link to an msn.com reprint* of the Bloomberg article:
I saw this article in the print version of BloombergBusinessWeek (the May 22 - May 28 issue).
In the magazine the article was titled A New Caribbean Bank for Chinese Money.
Bloomberg is very restrictive regarding the sharing of their copyrighted material on the internet: only certain articles appear in bloombergbusinessweek.com. Links to Bloomberg articles posted in other sources usually fail, generating a 404 error message.
However, some sources apparently have permission from Bloomberg to redistribute certain material, and that’s how I came upon this reprint in msn.com. The title of the article is different, but the content is the same.
(disclaimer: not advertising, and I am not an affiliate)
Update on Evolve.Markets Pricing for major
Forex Pairs, with focus on Bid/
Ask spread. Note
that this is during the U.S. session so it
will reflect wider spreads than during the
London session, of course.
Order Operations elapsed times are
under 300 milliseconds. (Includes Ping times from
my Amsterdam VPS server to their server
is 77 milliseconds.) So 300 - 77 = 223 milliseconds…
LOL, sorry about that, didn’t realize misspell it, it’s fix now
Also i edit my review about their withdrawal fee, on their sites, it said that withdrawal on pro accoount is free, so i thought that when it arrives it got deducted $30 fee, and it’s from my bank, turn out, my bank later on charge me $16, so when they said it’s free, it’s not free for withdrawal, in fact more expensive than FXChoice
I have been trying out LMFX for about 20 days and thus far I must say there are NO problems. I will be requesting my first withdrawal tomorrow and will let you know how that experience goes.
Positives: Can trade ETFs and Stocks as well as Indices’s and forex. Low margins. Flawless execution.
Negatives: Can only withdraw via Bank transfer
Bonus: They advertise free VPS. When I queried customer support I learned that it is not set up yet and they referred me to fozzy.com which is in the Netherlands and they say is the closest to their data. Fozzy is the cheapest VPS I have encountered and I will be giving them a try. Support informed me if certain conditions are met they will refund VPS fees.
I will let you know my vote for preferred status at the end of next week.
Free VPS is almost never a good deal IMHO. This is not a VPS thread, but it depends how
much “horsepower/speed” you really need. In my case, I’ve said before I’m using SeedVPS - Linux & Windows VPS Hosting in The Netherlands which gives you “dedicated” CPU and Memory resources, and
is situated in Amsterdam. The problem I find with VPS’s is the lack of Memory. That’s
where SeedVPS really seems to shine.
I use a 4 Xeon CPU system with 8gb Dedicated
resources for $38 / month; and a 3 Xeon CPU with 6gb Dedicated for $28 / month.
Now, these are Windows 2008 R2 DataCenter boxes, which are usually way more
costly than a Linux box. So I think this is a great deal.
But, again, this is for very high performance; which almost seems like you have
a Dedicated machine. I code in Java and measure the latencies when a Thread wants
to run, until it runs; and I haven’t seen more than a 10msec latency. You just don’t
get high performance with some VPS providers; and you certainly don’t usually get
like 6 or 8 GB memory to play with either ! I run dozens of processes, and crank
the CPU utilization to 90% and its consistent. Just my 2 cents, that not all VPS
services give you anywhere near the same “bank for your buck”.
Just to give credit to Joe Carney at TradersWay.com who took note of this video showing the “pause”
in the pricing feed. They had a serious meeting with their technical team, now that they have a bit
more info from the video comparison; and pledge to resolve the “pause” issue to generally improve
their service.
I won’t post the contents of the message; just to say that they are constantly working to improve
their service. They are appreciative of the hard data comparison, so that they can work with their
server technical teams to offer the best service possible.
I continue to keep TradersWay.com as one of my Trusted brokerages; and I can assure you that
if you do have any issues, they are very willing to help and resolve them. As you can imagine,
these offshore brokerages are under Tremendous Pressure with the CFTC “war” against them, and
that they are employees who have their own jobs and livelihoods at stake, tied to the reputation
and the long term success of their brokerage business !!
TradersWay has always shown me that they hold Customer Satisfaction very high on their
list of priorities, and so I think they deserve consideration. This is a lower-cost brokerage, so
we need to consider value for money; and if you do have any issues, as with any
brokerage, don’t hesitate to contact them and see whether they will work with you
to resolve.
Too often, we just “bail out” and go to another brokerage, hoping things
will be better. Just my opinion. “Brokerage hopping” is not the way to establish
a strong relationship. Who knows? If you commit to a brokerage, you may be
able to negotiate certain terms appropriate to a longer term relationship.
First of all, I would like to sincerely thank Clint and all the other contributors here for the incredibly valuable information in this thread. I’m only a couple hours deep into it, but I feel it has already saved me a lifetime of frustration.
I am a newbie here and also relatively new to FOREX despite being involved for about 2 years - I’ve just never really gotten that deep into it. I wanted to give a few thoughts on LMFX and felt that my credentials (or severe lack thereof) should be put out there first.
My original account was with Tallinex, but I was always looking for other possibilities with the difficulties/cost of wiring funds back and forth into my account. I set another account up with LMFX to run alongside my Tallinex one, but with the recent ejection of all US clients, LMFX is my sole broker for now (I just registered with FinPro today).
All of my interactions with LMFX have been great up to this point. I’ve only ever contacted their online chat, but each interaction has been satisfactory and prompt. Others can/have commented on their speed and spreads which don’t seem to be too out of norm either way, but of particular note to me was their proactive approach to fees. My original fundings were international wire transfers from my bank, and LMFX reimbursed me the $30 wire fees that my bank charged each time. All I had to do was forward them the wire receipt showing the charge, and $30 showed up in my trading account a few hours later. They also recently enabled credit card deposits, and I tried several of those. Each time the transaction was fast and free of any fees. My credit card (Chase Visa) also did not charge me any additional cash advance fees. It just showed up as a regular transaction, so I got some airline miles out of the deal as well.
At the time I signed up, they didn’t have their ‘free’ VPS system set up yet, so they recommended Fozzy.com. They offered to reimburse my VPS fees, whether I went with Fozzy or not. Since I don’t have any experience with VPS, I went with the recommendation. My setup with Fozzy is a Windows server with 2 cores and 2GB RAM at $37.40. I’m not sure if this is a great deal or not, but it serves my needs. Also, I send that monthly paid invoice to LMFX, and they credit that amount into my trading account. All in all, it’s a tidy, fee-free account.
Hello, 5ninefish, welcome to the forum, and welcome to this thread.
Thanks for your comments on LMFX.
If you are running accounts at LMFX and Finpro Trading side by side, let us know how you think they stack up against each other.
Also, regarding VPS, check out HyperScalper’s post #4210 above. He mentions a 3-core VPS with more memory (at SeedVPS in Amsterdam), for less cost than the one you mentioned.
I’ll repeat my offer on a limited basis, to evaluate free any LIVE MT4 ECN variable spread
plus commission type brokerage account.
Best if you have limited funds, trust me to do the testing, and then change your brokerage
password when the testing is completed. I will make every effort NOT to fill any orders,
unless you request a minimal Market order fill, for purposes of establishing fill latencies.
Your account number will be kept confidential.
Without filling any orders, I can test the Pending Order placement latencies, as well as
the 28 major Forex pairs Bid/Ask spreads statistics. I can also give you an idea of the
tick rates on the 28 Forex pairs.
I can’t test anything other than the 28 Forex pairs. No accounts where commission is
included in the spread and no DEMO accounts, sorry.
AS FOR VPS, if you are just running one or two copies of MetaTrader, then you’re
really not pushing the machine. My interest in performance is because I run custom
multi-threaded Java software with dozens of threads, lots of interprocess communication
and “pools” of MT4 terminal.exe processes. A brokerage-supplied VPS is OK for
just running the MT4 trading platform in a non-high-performance, non-CPU-intensive
situation, as most people would have.
Brokers usually require too much volume, in order to qualify for the VPS they are
offering; but clearly it’s a “mine field” out there with VPS providers, so you really
need to know the basics of system management, unless somebody’s gonna do it
for you.
MY NIGHTMARE: For example, I recently nearly soiled my pants when my 4-Core VPS
was completely CPU-SATURATED !!! No way I can figure out how it happened, but
malware called MinerGate-Service.exe a system service was MAXing out every
CPU cycle I had !!! Believe it or not, it was mining BitCoin using my CPU !!!
Ironic, but completely unrelated to the fact that I recently started dabbling in
BitCoin with Evolve.Markets. A complete coincidence, but quite a ROFLMAO after
I was able to get my heart rate back down again
Using Sophos, I removed that malware, but managing a VPS
is not for the uninitiated, I can tell you !!! LOL but, seriously, security is
so important !! Windows VPS is probably the most common, but perhaps the
least secure; and Linux I just love, but so difficult to manage for beginners.
One more tip: If you have a Windows Server, specify that it should be Windows
2008 R2 and do NOT work with Windows 2012 or the latest “fancy” OS’s .
The reason is very important. Your 2 GB of memory can largely be “gobbled
up” just by the OS itself, so stay with the “old” Windows 2008 R2 !!! Most
MT4 traders will be using Windows, and not Linux.
Haha, well… my username refers to the size and type of surfboard that I normally use as my daily ride - a 5’9" fish. I changed the spelling a bit, so now ‘Five’ should be fine.
I’ll let you know my thoughts regarding FinPro vs LMFX when I get things up and running at FinPro.
As far as VPS at Fozzy, I’m currently only running 4 copies of Metatrader at the moment, and the dual core seems to be handling with zero hiccups so far. It looks like I’m pegged at 50% usage. If things get more complicated, I’ve bookmarked SeedVPS that Hyper recommended and will definitely check them out. I also happened to pick Windows 2008 R2, so looks like I picked well.
Hyperscalper, I can forward you the info to a live trading account, but I think I picked the wrong kind of account. I have the LMFX ‘premium’, and I [I]think [/I] commission is included in the spread. I know, I really should pay closer attention to these kinds of things. My focus on FOREX as part of my investment portfolio is lacking, but I’m working on changing that since I’ve recently allocated so much capital towards it.
[B]Bitcoin[/B]
As far as bitcoin, my experience has been mixed. I got into that a couple of years ago mainly for long term holding with some minor trading. Eventually I switched to margin lending both BTC and USD using bots at Poloniex and Bitfinex due to the decent, steady rate of return offered, but I got bit hard when BFX was hacked last year. I’ve mostly gotten out of bitcoin since then. BFX at the time seemed like a safe, stable exchange, and that hack rocked my confidence in them and in bitcoin in general. Unfortunately that means I liquidated most of my bitcoin right before this recent rocket to the moon. I doubled my money, but the potential to 5x was there if I was a little more patient. BFX has since paid back every penny lost in the hack, so I’ve put more money back in that account for some lending. Rates recently have been ridiculously good due to the BTC race to the top - about 0.2% daily. Unfortunately Circle - my preferred method of buying and selling bitcoin - ceased those operations. Coinbase - my second option for buying and selling btc - ceased operations in Hawaii due to our recently hostile environment towards virtual currencies. Gemini hasn’t come here yet and now they probably never will. I’m going to give bitstamp a try, but I’m not holding my breath. Living in the US is difficult enough with all the regulation, and peanut-brained politicians in Hawaii add an additional level of frustration to the situation.
