Going offshore to escape the CFTC

But if Trader’s Way and FXChoice have their servers outside the US, they still changed their rules and are blocking new US clients, so there goes that theory of “just having servers outside the US” will keep them free

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Wondering out loud if having affiliates in the US is a major issue? Since I’m not one, I wonder if just doing away with that stuff will help the offshores? No idea

(and welcome back post counter and slider thing! I missed you!)

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Some brokers you can get an account with if your IP address is outside of the US, hence having a VPS outside of the US. Other brokers require KYC documents; a VPS outside the US won’t help with those brokers. One of the reasons I mentioned Amsterdam is just for latency improvements to the brokers that have their servers there when using an Expert Advisor or any other type of automated trading. My VPS in London, I’m under 2 milliseconds to Coinexx. Where I live I’m like 130+ milliseconds to their servers. The advantage of a VPS is mainly for faster and more dependable trade execution when doing automated trading. The fact that I can sign up for non-KYC brokers that just need to see an IP Address outside US is just a bonus.

[EDIT] I signed up for Evolve a long time ago, so I have no idea if their KYC policies have changed.

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Same as @pterodactyl2. I signed up years ago. I don’t know if they have KYC now. When you get your VPS going, let everyone know.

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What do you mean by this? There’s nothing shady about having a VPS? Mine is also in London because the average latency to every broker is the lowest. I don’t maintain a VPS to spoof my location, I use it to run my EA’s 24/7/365.

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Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I agree, nothing shady about having a VPS. I mentioned “I don’t promote this practice” specifically for signing up for a broker (that doesn’t accept US clients) using a “back door method” like having an IP Address outside of the US. If the broker found out somehow, they close your accounts, cease your funds? Who knows? It’s risk which many people are probably not willing to take on.

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Good point.

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Not to mention, the conditions are horrible. I would have no problem complying with their bullshit if they actual did what they say they do…REGULATE THE BROKER…force them to be DMA/ECN not this market maker crap, pay raw spread with small commission. No frozen platform for three hours at a time. You know, basically what we get offshore with the “unregulated” brokers I have no problem with 50:1 but make it all pairs not 20 on GBP and 33 on AUD and JPY etc. I don’t hedge and FIFO you can work around by staggering position sizes. The big one …IF YOUR SO CONCERNED ABOUT ME LOSING MY MONEY…STOP PROHIBITING YOUR BROKERS FROM SEGREGATING FUNDS. That’s your rule, not the brokers.

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Could someone smarter than me read this article and let me know what this means to US traders:

To me that last paragraph could mean extra scrutiny may be in store for sending large amounts of Crypto not made on the same exchange. Example if you cash out on a FX broker to send to CB to exchange for fiat.

This “advisory” pertains only to the segregated cryptocurrency funds of customers engaged in trading physically-deliverable futures contracts or swaps. This may, or may not, apply to you.

But, it does not apply to the vast majority of traders in this forum, because it does not apply to customer funds held for forex trading.

Forex contracts are not physically-deliverable. Nor are they futures contracts, or swaps.

Furthermore, by federal law, customer funds held by brokers for forex trading cannot be segregated. Segregated funds have special legal protections under the bankruptcy laws of the U.S., and Congress has excluded forex funds from these protections.

Several years ago, Jason Rogers, who was the FXCM rep here on Babypips, explained it this way:

There seems to be a misunderstanding about the “Customers’ Assets in Seg” column in the CFTC’s
Financial Data for FCMs.

None of the money you see in this column for any broker is set aside for forex accounts. That’s why you will see a value of $0 in this column for most forex brokers. The fact is that forex accounts are not given segregated status by US law. That means for any broker with money in the “Customers’ Assets in Seg” column, these funds are set aside for futures and other non-forex accounts, and are therefore not available to forex account holders during bankruptcy proceedings.

What does this mean for forex traders?

Since US law does not give segregated status to forex accounts, holders of these accounts don’t have secured creditor status in bankruptcy proceedings.


You can see the column headed “Customers’ Assets in Seg”, which Jason referred to, in the CFTC’s latest Selected Financial Data for FCM’s. Enlarge the image, and scroll to column (e).

If you scroll down, you will find IG Markets on line 30, and Interactive Brokers on line 31. Note that IG (designated as an RFED – Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer) has ZERO funds held in segregation, while Interactive Brokers (designated as an FCMBD – Futures Commission Merchant, also an SEC-regulated Broker-Dealer) has over $5 billion in customer funds in segregation.

None of the funds held in segregation by Interactive Brokers are forex trading funds.

I don’t know much about Interactive Brokers, but if any of the customer funds they hold in segregation are cryptocurrencies, then they (and some of their customers) will also be affected by the CFTC’s additional rule that cryptos held for trading can only be used to trade like-products. For example, bitcoin can be held for a customer trading BTC-pairs, but not other instruments.

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How will a 2nd passport help unless you renounce and have non us residence? The 2nd passport will have United States as original birthplace on it. The price of investment passports fell off a cliff a few years ago after the new regulations passed.

I always feared this day might be coming… It’s the main reason I stopped trading the cross pairs and solely focused on the major USD pairs 2 years ago. if I was ever forced back into the US at least I could still obtain 150-250:1 leverage & 10-30M top of book volume day trading CME USD currency futures. Paying for real time data would be a nuisance but at least my returns would be similar to offshore.

I did move a decent amount back to the US last year and Oanda raw pricing has been solid for me personally. However, 50:1 can be limiting since I sometimes need to hold multiple currencies simultaneously, and FIFO makes it damn near impossible to trade multiple strategies in 1 account.

I feel it is a bit more complicated than that, But yes can’t argue on the market maker broker logic.

a 2nd passport just has your original birthplace doesn’ts say you still reside in that country

The question is really… how the broker would view that? Would that slide with a broker that has already banned US citizens?

.These days you cannot really erase the place of birth (POB). The POB field remains the same no matter how many passports or dual citizenships you have.

they will have to view it as your place of birth and that you are a citizen of the passport you present to them

I guess if you have outside residence that preferably matches the location of passport it could work. that being said, I would hate to set all that up and it doesn’t lol.

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Giving up your U.S. citizenship has consequences. You should never make this decision lightly

EDIT: That’s what the U.S. government want you to believe