Hi Clint,
Maybe it does not accept US customers
Does anyone have the story of the demise of Tallinex?
Hereās their home page:
<!doctype html>
Tallinex does not solicit residents of the United States of America, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, United States Minor Outlying Islands or St Vincent and The Grenadines in relation to the provision of retail Forex services, and no option exists for residents of those countries to apply for retail Forex services due to regulatory requirements.
hyperscalper
New to Forex trading, a US citizen doing my research, and I just want to say, THANK YOU SO MUCH for this thread. The regulatory market for a US citizen is nightmare, and I have been very confused for sometime and not able to find RELIABLE information about brokers for US citizens, until today and this thread.
Thank you for contributing, everyone.
Thank you to Clint and other mods, for your hard work over the years.
Thank you to hyperscalper for your input and unfailing work to assist and research.
Thank you for keeping this thread open and active. It is the single most helpful thing I have found to date, and answers many questions. I will come back again and again to this information.
And hereās to the repeal of the Dodd-Frank, and to the downfall of the CFTC!!
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This is a really useful list. Many times we get US visitors which we canāt accept and I cannot confidently refer them to any existing US brokerage which will take care of them well. Very useful list indeed, really appreciate it.
Hmm, thatās weird. I remember this broker was one of the options I considered few months ago
- LMFX is a brokerage I donāt know anything about.
But I have a new client/associate and will shortly be able to evaluate LMFX live performance technically, on the straight Forex side anyway.
- I may be wrong, but I donāt see Evolve.Markets (a BitCoin only funded broker) listed in the list who accept U.S. clients. They have a very good pricing, datafeed and performance; and I donāt think they asked where I was fromā¦ BitCoin funding and withdrawal only.
hyperscalper
My understanding is that neither Dukascopy Switzerland, or Dukascopy Europe will accept U.S. clients. No way. This is very sad for me, as I have loads of legacy Dukas API code, which I can use only with one of their Community Demo accounts. I still want to beg them to issue me a Live account for the data feed only, but I believe there is no way they can accept a U.S. person for a tradable Live account.
[EDIT] Why would I care about Dukascopy? Because they have a Depth of Market feed, from which I extract enough information to construct a Time and Sales, and further, do Order Flow Analysis ā in Forex? yes, in Forex. And everyone knows thatās āimpossibleā since there is no T&S and there is no Market Depth for the entire Forex market. Doesnāt mean I canāt āvirtualizeā it, thoughā¦ And thatās why I like Dukascopy; but since I lost my European partner (he died) I can no longer get access. Sob.
So as things stand now, I can get it from their high quality Demo feeds, virtually identical to a live feed; by virtue of just joining their Community, and it is āperpetually renewableā so I can get that info, thank Gott.
hyperscalper
well, i donāt think that i will be bringing the technical depth that hyperscalper is looking for when he brought up not knowing much about lmfx.
all i got so far is 3 weeks of live trading with them. i have made a little bit of money which shocks the shit out of me. so thatās cool. keeps the wife from pulling the plug on my goals here.
but their eur/usd spread has been a very consistent 1.2/1.3 pips. no huge spreads at open or close hours, news, etc.
no freezes that iāve encountered. pretty much nothing but good things to say. i havenāt tried pulling any money out. but i donāt want to. so i cannot comment on that. they did reimburse my bank wire fee. put that $45 right into my account.
they also let you trade with the margin of your deposit bonus, even though iām a looooong way away from trading the volume needed to earn it. itās just up to the trader to understand that theyāre being allowed to trade with that equity as if the bonus has been earned, but it cannot be withdrawn.
i realize that iām small fish and may not have the info being sought after, but let me know if anyone has any questions with this broker.
Hello everyoneā¦
First of all, I would like to thank everyone for all the info in this thread. Iāve been demo trading for about a year and a half now and I think Iām ready to start a live account. I created my own EA in MT4 that will help me on my journey. Unless anyone objects I will open an account with Tradersway in the next few weeks. Iāve been trying out their demo ECN account and think itās great for my EAā¦ Thanks.
Subject: FXChoice BitCoin denominated accounts
Iām moving toward BitCoin funding across various accounts.
Especially brokers who have accounts denominated directly
in BitCoin. Currently I am aware only of Evolve.Markets and
FXChoice, but there may be some others in future.
So I opened one at FXChoice. Unlike Evolve.Markets who use
the unit BIT ( 0.000001 ) BitCoin, FXChoice uses cBTC
or 0.01 BitCoin ( 1/100th BitCoin ) as their unit.
Now, thereās nothing inherently wrong with that, except that they
appear to use only 2 significant digits after the decimal point.
Example:
Letās say I have 0.010155 BTC which is 10,155 BIT at Evolve.Markets
where accounting uses 6 digits of precision. My MT4 equity in
that account is shown as 10155 BIT . Perfect.
At FXChoice using cBTC ( 1/100th BTC ) that same value
0.010155 BTC , represented as cBTC is 1.0155 cBTC.
BUT it appears they use ONLY 2 digits to the right of the
decimal point, so that becomes 1.01 or maybe 1.02 depending
upon how they handle rounding.
Iām trying to attach a statement image, hope it works, and
you can see rounding is only 2 decimals !?! So not even
commission can be representedā¦ I could show you the
same thing from Evolve.Markets, but they obviously have
enough precision to represent commissions so I wonāt
bother.
Note commissions are shown as 0.00 ?? This is an ECN variable spread
account plus commission. Note all 3 Live trades are WINNERS, but they barely
overcome what would be the Commissions. Just a little micro scalping as a test.
NOTE: as a result of this small test, account equity went from 3.84 cBTC to
3.85 cBTC . Again, details seem to be lost in the 2 digit rounding.
Iāll try to find out from FXChoice why theyāve made these rounding decisions,
and get back to the forum on the results. But it doesnāt look workable
to me.
Any comments ?
hyperscalper
I have been using the FXChoice BTC denominated account for a while now. Good point about the significant digits. They added these accounts when BTC was trading around $400. Not really a problem back then, but could use another 1-2 digits now. This would be a great comment for customer support. Have you already done this? Otherwise I can.
Made quite a few trades in the BTC denominated account with no execution issues, but I donāt scalp. One thing I do like is their BTC CFD is swap free. Comes in handy for longer term positions. I donāt know any other broker that offers BTC swap free. Also, a few months ago they changed the underlying from BTCe to Coinbase, which I think better represents the ātrueā price of bitcoin. But the CFD doesnāt trade weekends.
Recently made a decent size withdraw via bankwire. No problems there.
One thing though I havenāt been able to get a straight answer from FXChoice is on using their internal BTC<->fiat exchange. Previously they told me if I load the account in BTC but then exchange to a USD denominated account, subsequent withdrawals would have to use bankwire instead of BTC. But a recent email from customer support seemed to indicate I could now make an internal fiat transfer but still withdraw BTC. This would certainly make things more convenient. If so I would probably switch back to USD account for trading, and use BTC for deposit/withdraw.
Here is FXChoiceās response regarding their BitCoin accounting. They just
punted their standard response, with no commitment to change anything.
So much for multi-entry micro scalping in BTC at FXChoice, so Iāll just move to
their USD denominated accounts. So I guess the only real BitCoin brokerage I
know of is the fabulous Evolve.Markets brokerage.
Maybe yāall know of some others competitive with http://Evolve.Markets ?
Using BitCoin side-steps many of the issues in funds transfer which confront
us as U.S. persons using offshore brokers.
hyperscalper
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I havenāt tried FXchoiceās BTC denominated accounts, but I did fund my USD based acccount via BTC and noticed the same odd 2-digit rounding they use. Makes it fairly difficult to accurately and precisely transfer moneyā¦
THE BITCOIN SCHISM COMING AUGUST 1
The following info from FXChoice concerning uncertainty when this
occurs:
Dear clients,
Many of you have already enjoyed the benefits of working with Bitcoin in our company. Itās an automated, easy and secure way to transfer funds around the world. However, alas, like all advanced technology, its foundations are not firmly fixed as its fluid nature begins to take on a life of its own. In the Bitcoin community change is in the air, and we believe it is our duty to give you the proper advanced warning.
We are of course talking about the potential schism of Bitcoin due to the activation of Protocol BIP148 (about which you can read more here http://www.uasf.co). According to this Protocol, on 1st August the Bitcoin network will split into two; the consequences of which are impossible to predict.
We remind you that we reserve the right to suspend Bitcoin deposits/withdrawals/inter-account transfers, and at this moment no course of action can be completely ruled out. Of course, we will make another announcement closer to 1st August when more details should be available to shed a little more light onto the situation.
Should you have any questions about the Bitcoin schism, please donāt hesitate to Contact Us.
Best wishes and happy trading!
The FXChoice Team
hyperscalper
FXCHOICE AGAIN REFUSES TO ACCOMMODATE REQUESTS.
I made a clear request to have their default 200:1 Leverage increased
to 400:1 . I explained that I need to have ācomparable leveragesā across
all of the brokerage which I simultaneously trade.
WELL, FOR ME, ITāS 3 STRIKES AND YOUāRE OUT, FXCHOICE, HEAR ME?
AND YOU HAVE 2 STRIKES AGAINST YOU ALREADY.
Any brokerage which ājust says noā is not a brokerage I want to do business with.
I AM JUST ABOUT TO DUMP MY TESTING WITH FXCHOICE, SINCE THEY
DONāT REALLY CARE VERY MUCH.
By contrast, FinProTrading quickly responded to my request and provided 400:1
leverage. Also, TradersWay is very responsive to such requests, offering between
500:1 and 1000:1 leverage. Evolve.Markets has 500:1 leverage .
hyperscalper
SEEDVPS.COM FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE VPS IN AMSTERDAM
Wow! I am starting to love these guys. I was saturating 4 Xeon CPUās so
I asked what an extra CPU would cost. They responded with this:
"Hi Hyperscalper,
I can offer you the following:
Additional CPU core ā¬2,50
Upgrade to 6 Cores - ā¬5 EUR p/m
Upgrade to 8 Cores - ā¬10 EUR p/m
Your system configuration will be preserved, a reboot will be required for the changes to take affect.
Best regards,
Roy G. "
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THATāS INCREDIBLE PRICING. So I took 2 additional CPUās
and might soon take another 2.
[Edit] Let me make it clear that I was running a configuration for 35 Euros per month, so this
additional brings that to 40 Euros per month. Amazingly good value.
Right now Iām running 6 Cores, with 8gb ram. At about 80% capacity. This is pulling
in 28 Forex pairs data feeds from about 6 brokers simultaneously, with an allocation
of about 20 MT4 terminal.exe processes running under the NJ4X.com framework.
I highly recommend that if you need very high performance VPS in Amsterdam, where
many MT4 brokers have their backends, and also not that far from London, that
you get a Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition VPS for unbelievably low prices.
Weāre talking extremely high performance here, and lots of memory, with dedicated
resourcing. They donāt hold your hand, so you need some competence in system
managementā¦
hyperscalper
FXCHOICE THREE STRIKES AGAINST, AND OFF MY LIST OF BROKERS
So I opened a Ticket at FXChoice with the title āSo do you want my business or not?ā
Here is their response. So, I say āFXChoice, 3 strikes and youāre outāā¦
Their idea that āECN brokersā canāt match prevailing leverages freely offered by
other brokers we use, is NONSENSE.
My current recommendations for BEST BROKERS are:
FinProTrading (will respond to special requests, BitCoin funding)
TradersWay (will respond competitively, BitCoin funding)
Evolve.Markets (the model for a āpureā BitCoin denominated accounts broker)
Unless you have a good reason, personally, I wouldnāt move off this
short list. Sure, I donāt have all the answers, but these are my views.
Iām going to post next on Capital City Markets and, hint, itās not goodā¦
hyperscalper
CAPITAL CITY MARKETS NOT COMPETITIVE ( migrated U.S. persons from Tallinex )
So I took the time to directly compare CCM against FinProTrading, and
here are side-by-side pricing MT4 displays. Hands down, FinProTrading
is the best, both on commission and Bid/Ask spread, plus responsiveness.
So I emailed Tony Garwood, one of the partners in CCM and expressed
the obstacles which prevent me from using their brokerage.
Without going into too much detail, their minimum 0.1 is an āoddballā among
our target list of brokers; and I would have to significantly recode the software
to deal with this restriction.
Their pricing is terrible, as was also the case with Tallinex, as you can see:
As you can see, their spreads are 3x - 4x wider than the best of the bunch, which is
FinProTrading.
So basically I told him that CCM was, by several measures, a non-starter in the
competitive retail brokerage business, for those accepting of U.S. persons.
[EDIT followup] CCM sent a reply email stating that they were unable to compete
with the spreads available on FinProTrading. No effort to improve their competitiveness
of course. So Iād recommend against using Capital City Markets in favor of several
other competitors, unless you happen to have other reasons to visit Vanuatu :slight_smile
Hey, just kidding !!!
hyperscalper
Iām really glad to see that this thread keeps rolling along without daily input from me.
Thanks to all of you who have participated. You make this thread the valuable resource that it is.
Now Iād like to jump in with some comments, and a couple of questions.
ā¢ Evolve Markets Ltd (SVG) ā I will add this broker to Group 1 of the Offshore Broker List in a day or two. Thanks to HyperScalper for bringing this broker to our attention. Iāve been able to confirm most of the data regarding Evolve Markets which HyperScalper has posted here.
For those not familiar with this broker, here are my rough notes:
Evolve Markets Ltd (SVG) ā https://evolve.markets/
- trading in forex (60 currency pairs), commodities (oil, nat gas, precious metals, copper) and indices (currently 9 stock indices)
- physical infrastructure in London (MT4 server time GMT)
- company registered in SVG, not regulated
- no personal information required to open a live account (except valid email address)
- Bitcoin-funded and denominated accounts only
- no fiat money deposits or withdrawals
- other cryptocurrencies can be deposited after conversion to bitcoin via Shapeshift
- no minimum deposit amount
- no fees for deposits or withdrawals (blockchain fees are refunded by Evolve)
- MT4 platform, live and demo (demo accounts do not expire)
- 500:1 max leverage
- STP order processing, no re-quotes, no FIFO restriction
ā¢ TradeWiseFX (SVG) ā after MorpheusZ alerted us to the apparent change in policy at TradeWiseFX excluding new U.S. clients, I have been displaying a notice to that effect in their listing in post #1. I emailed TradeWiseFX for confirmation of their policy, and they have replied that they do not accept U.S. clients. I will remove TradeWiseFX from our List today.
ā¢ Finpro Trading (UK) ā this broker has been on our List for many months. And, during that time, all of the comments posted about them have been positive. Iām wondering whether you guys think that Finpro Trading has proven itself worthy of the Trusted Broker designation? Please weigh in on this question with a yes or no, and your reasons. Thanks.
ā¢ **LMFX (**Macedonia) ā another candidate for the Trusted Broker designation. Most of the discussion regarding LMFX has occurred in another thread (Lmfx) rather than in this one. Most of the comments in that thread over the past (nearly) 2 years have been positive. LMFX petitioned us for Trusted Broker status 2 year ago, but we deferred a decision on their request, pending more info. Now that weāve seen more info, is it time to designate LMFX as a Trusted Broker? Please weigh in with your comments.
ā¢ Bitcoin ā the discussion on bitcoin in this thread has been informative. Thanks to those of you who have contributed. Regarding the bitcoin āeventā scheduled for August 1 which FX Choice announced (http://www.uasf.co/), and HyperScalper referred to, I have to admit that I donāt even understand most of it. But, Iām a beginner in this bitcoin thing. I hope that HyperScalper will stay on top of it, and keep us informed of any implications the āeventā might have for money transfers to and from offshore. Also, Iām asking all of you who are using bitcoin for offshore money transfers to continue to post your experiences, along with any advice you can offer to those who have not yet ventured into bitcoin.
ā¢ The list of Links in post #7 is, once again, out of date. Over the next week, or so, I will review all the posts in this thread from the last 2 months, and post links to those pertaining to specific Group 1 brokers.
Thanks again to all of you who have made this thread the internetās #1 source for offshore broker information.
One last comment on Evolve Markets: The broker describes itself as āa privately owned IBC in Saint Vincent and the Grenadinesā. Wouldnāt it be cool to discover that the private owners of this IBC (international business company) are our old friends from Tallinex? Donāt take that as fact ā Iām just imagining a scenario in which Tallinex gets their revenge against the CFTC.
nothing new to add to what i previously said about lmfx:
-easy to fund
-reimbursed my bank wire fees
-great eur/usd spreads
-no down time issues
for what 4 weeks of live trading is worth, they have my vote for trusted broker
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