In this review, we’ll be looking at BitMarkets, a company that lets you trade cryptocurrencies and derivatives of cryptocurrencies. You’ve come to the right place if you want to know how BitMarkets trading works, what the fees are, and why we don’t think BitMarkets is good for beginners.
BitMarkets review at a glance
BitMarkets is a platform for cryptocurrencies that lets you buy or sell them for dollars or euros, trade pairs of cryptocurrencies, or trade derivatives with up to 1:100 leverage. Over 120 cryptocurrencies and tokens, like BTC and ETH, can be used on the platform.
To trade on BitMarkets, you need to create a trading account, upload copies of your personal documents (like your passport), and then deposit the money (cryptocurrency, USD, or EUR) you will trade with.
Traders use a mobile app or a web platform to do business. You can take money out of your trading account with cryptocurrencies or by moving dollars to a bank account. In the future, you should also be able to send EUR and CZK.
The fees are the weak point of BitMarkets. You pay 0.5% per trade for spot trading, which is 5 times more than the popular Binance exchange. BitMarkets also has high fees for card deposits (3.5% to 8.5%) and withdrawals (minimum of $100).
BitMarkets has only been in business since 2022, which is also a disadvantage. The company also has no reputation.
Advantages:
- Cryptocurrency and derivatives trading
- Czech customer support
Disadvantages:
- Unknown Company (Established 2022)
- Higher fees
- It does not support CZK
BitMarkets – Basic Information
BitMarkets is an operator of a cryptocurrency trading platform that was established in 2022 by Unicorn Technologies Limited, located in the Marshall Islands. The platform supports trading cryptocurrency pairs, buying/selling cryptocurrencies for USD, and trading cryptocurrency derivatives, with over 120 supported cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, LTC, ADA, DOT, XRP, USDT, LINK, SOL, and more, and fiat currencies USD and EUR.
Payment methods include bank transfer, payment cards, and cryptocurrency, with fees for trading (base 0.5%, lower for active traders), card deposits (3.5% to 8.5%), and withdrawing money from a trading account (2.5%, minimum $100). BitMarkets offers a custodial wallet for cryptocurrency storage and requires registration for purchases. The platform is available in the Czech.
Investment products
BitMarkets is a cryptocurrency exchange where you can buy or sell cryptocurrencies for US dollars or euros, exchange two different cryptocurrencies, or trade cryptocurrency derivatives (so-called futures 2.0) with up to 100 times leverage.
The exchange works with dozens of cryptocurrencies and tokens, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Cardano, and stablecoins tied to the US dollar ( USDT, USDC, BUSD ).
Traders use an Android app on their phones or a web platform that doesn’t need to be downloaded or installed. But before you can start, you have to sign up, verify your identity, and put money (USD or cryptocurrency) into your account.
SIMILARITY TO THE BTSE EXCHANGE
Some of the investment products and the trading platform are a lot like what the BTSE cryptocurrency exchange has to offer. When you put the two platforms next to each other, you will see the same trades and order books.
How can that be?
Simply. The BTSE exchange makes its products available as a “white label solution,” so that other companies can take them over, change them, and run them under their own name. This is how BitMarkets takes over a product like futures 2.0.
Platforms
Traders can use either spot trading (also called “classic trading”) or derivative trading (futures 2.0 trading).
On the spot platform, you can trade pairs of cryptocurrencies or cryptocurrencies for US dollars.
FUTURES 2.0
BitMarkets offers trading in traditional cryptocurrencies as well as trading in derivatives (futures contracts).
BitMarkets has contracts that last for a few months and close automatically after that time. It also has contracts that last forever and never end (you close the trade manually). After a trade is over, there is a process called “settlement,” in which you either get the money you made or pay the money you lost.
You may be wondering what makes futures 2.0 different from the traditional futures that the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, for example, offers.
Classic futures contracts are paid for and settled in the same currency (usually USD, USDT, or BTC). But you can fund Futures 2.0 in any currency (or multiple currencies), and you can choose the currency or currencies in which the settlement takes place.
The BTSE exchange, which BitMarkets bought this product, has a website with more information.
BEWARE OF HIGH LEVERAGE
Trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives of cryptocurrencies with leverage is very risky and not good for people who are just starting out. Most retail traders lose money, according to studies.
Financial leverage is used to trade futures contracts, and the size of the leverage can be up to a hundred times the amount of money. This means that the size of the trade can be up to 100 times the size of your initial investment (margin). Or, to put it more simply, possible profits and losses are multiplied by 100.
At first glance, leverage seems like a good idea because it can make you a lot of money quickly. But traders with little experience often lose money when they use a lot of leverage.
Why?
Even the best analyst can’t be sure if cryptocurrency prices will go up or down in the next few hours. So you have to expect that every trade you make will lose money, even if only temporarily. But leverage will make your loss bigger, so if you don’t have enough money in your account to cover temporary losses, leverage will wipe out not just the trade, but also your whole account.
Let’s say you bet that the price of Bitcoin will go up, but the price of BTC goes down by 1%. Normally, you lose 1% of what you invested, so you can wait calmly for the trend to change. However, if you use 100x leverage, you will lose your entire investment (1% x 100). If the stock dropped by 5%, the loss would be 500% or five times what was invested.
Fees at BitMarkets
When we were writing this review in October 2022, we could find almost no information about fees. And we looked everywhere: the official website, the terms and conditions, and the frequently asked questions. This is no longer the case, though, and you can now find a list of fees on the exchange’s website.
But now for the bad news: the fees are quite high, especially the fee for putting money on your card or the fee for taking money out. Make your own decision:
- Trade brokerage fee: On the spot market, you pay a 0.5% fee for each trade. The stock exchange discounts the fees if certain conditions are met (see the table below). When you trade futures, you pay about 5 times less in fees.
- Withdrawal fees for cryptocurrencies are called “classic transaction fees” because they are paid to miners when a transaction is made. For each cryptocurrency, you will have to pay a fee.
FEE COMPARISON
We compared BitMarkets’ fees with those of other exchanges to get a better idea of its prices. We used Binance, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, and BTSE, which has the same products as BitMarkets, as comparisons (including futures 2.0).
Account establishment and funding
REGISTRATION AND VERIFICATION
Just type in your name, email address, and phone number to make an account. You can sign in right away to your account. But if you want to use the account freely, you must also fill in your home address, confirm your email address, and upload copies of a few personal documents.
What documents does BitMarkets.com require?
- ID card with a photo on both sides, like a passport, driver’s license, or citizen’s card.
- Photo with ID
- Proof of address, such as a bank statement, a bill for internet or energy, etc.
- If you want to use a bank transfer (to put money in or take money out of your account in USD), you must give the broker a bank statement and proof of where the money came from.
DEPOSITS AND WITHDRAWALS
Once your account is verified, you can put money into it and start trading.
You can use cryptocurrencies or US dollars to make deposits and withdrawals (SWIFT). In the future, you should also be able to pay in CZK and EUR (you can already deposit euros with a payment card).
Watch out for third-party fees. For example, SWIFT payments in dollars go through correspondent banks, which may charge extra fees of hundreds of crowns. When you add the fee your bank charges for sending money abroad, you can easily lose $500 in one transfer. Let’s say that euro SEPA payments are almost free, but the exchange doesn’t yet support them.
Experience with BitMarkets
Since 2022, BitMarkets has been open for business. Unicorn Technologies Limited, which is based in the Marshall Islands, is in charge of it.
Even though it is a foreign company, it has a strong connection to the Czech market. Several Czechs work in the company’s management, and the Czech road cycling team is sponsored by the company.
You can also find job postings from Quality Research s.r.o. in Brno that have the logo of the BitMarkets exchange on the Internet. At the moment, the stock exchange is looking for people like business managers, whose job it is, among other things, to find new clients.
You will almost never find reviews from users on the Internet. All we found were complaints about sales managers making unwanted calls ( source 1 , source 2 ). But there is no way to check if these complaints are true.
Bit Markets Review Summary
We weren’t very impressed by what BitMarkets had to offer. The exchange doesn’t have anything special to offer, has high fees, and doesn’t let you withdraw in crowns or euros (yet).
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?
Verified exchange offices or exchanges are the best places to buy or sell crypto-currencies for fiat currencies. Beginners will like the Czech exchanges SimpleCoin and Coinmate, for example, because they support the Czech language, accept payments in crowns, and are easy to use (which we cannot say about the BitMarkets platform).
If you care most about low fees and don’t mind doing business in English, you can try the foreign exchange Binance. Also, experienced traders who want to trade derivatives with leverage can do so on the Binance exchange.
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