I’ve had a ridiculous experience with Bitmex/leveraged trading, both fun and depressing, but I think I’m finally getting a grip on it, so I wanted to share some things I’ve learned. For clarity, when I first started using Bitmex, I lost about 3 BTC over the course of a month because I had no idea what I was doing and I’m an idiot. Since then however, I’ve taken .06 BTC and I’m currently at 2.7 BTC from Bitmex alone in a few weeks. It has the potential to make you rich, but also super broke. Do not take it lightly.

Note, with Bitmex's crackdown on US users, I've begun using Deribit primarily. It has lower fees and doesn't have the system overload issues. If you're outside the US, I'd still probably use Bitmex, but Derebit is a bit more lax if you just use a VPN it seems.

If you've never used Bitmex before, you can read my original newbie guide on how to start using Bitmex here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4319995.0

Also a reminder, you get 10% off fees if you sign up with a referral code on either site. If you already signed up and didn’t use one, email support and ask them to apply one, it's pretty quick and definitely worth the 2 minute hassle. Would appreciate if you use mine, but just make sure you use something to get the 10% off: https://www.bitmex.com/register/astVxa and https://www.deribit.com/reg-4025.4455


1. Maker vs Taker: I wasted SO much money on fees originally before I knew about this. Market buying/selling means you pay a fee and based on the last point that is very expensive. If you set limit orders and choose the "post-only" option, you will only place an order if it doesn't execute immediately. If the price hits your mark, you'll actually receive fees rather than paying them. While that seems super small, as mentioned when working with high leverages it adds up a LOT. Fees are based on leverage, so if you’re cross or 100x, you’d literally pay 7.5% just to open an order. At 100k contracts, this is nearly .01 BTC.
2. Cross Leverage: Far left on the leverage slider. This is 100x leverage, but it uses your entire wallet balance as margin. If you have 1 BTC and you open a position worth .1 BTC, on normal 100x leverage, your liquidation would be ~$60 away from your entry price. With Cross, you have .9 BTC as margin, meaning your liquidation would be about $600 away from your entry. Nearly everybody uses this because it helps guard against those fluctuations where you have the right call, but you got liquidated right before. It does mean you can lose 300% or 700% of your money though, so be warned, use stop losses.
3. Funding: In the bottom left of Bitmex, there’s a “Funding Rate”. Every now and then, this will get ridiculously high (i.e. if everyone is longing, and no one is shorting) and play a massive part in the landscape. If the fee is positive and you have a long open, you will pay that fee every 8 hours. If you have a short open in that situation, you get paid that fee. On 100k contracts and a .2 fee, this is .02 BTC, which isn’t bad at all. More importantly beyond the fee though is the pump/dump around it. In the case of a positive .2 fee, the price on Bitmex will tank ~30 minutes before funding (because everyone is closing their longs to avoid the fee) and the second that funding goes through it will skyrocket. Often times it’s worth it to pay the fee just for the price bump afterwards, but I’d honestly recommend just having no position if there’s a massive funding fee coming up. Note, on Derebit, funding is continuously calculated rather than in 8 hour windows, so the idea of a pump/dump for funding is minimized, but you still need to be aware of it.
4. DCA and Small loss vs Big one: There’s two schools of thought to a losing trade. You can dollar cost average, meaning, if I enter long at $9500 and it goes down, I can add more at $9400 to get my entry to $9450. This sometimes works beautifully if you truly believe it goes up. However, the flipside to that is that you add at $9400 and it then goes to $9200. That’s nearly a 300% loss. Adding at stoploss at let’s say $9430 would have lost you 80% instead. But there are times where your stop loss triggers and it shoots up right after. You need to make a decision in these situations how you’re going to handle it. I’ve done days where I make .2 BTC four days in a row and feel great, but then lose 1 BTC all because of one bad trade I refused to get out of and it’s all nullified.
5. Wait for entry and pre-set orders: Bitmex swings HARD. If Bitfinex has a $100 candle, Bitmex may have a $200 candle, solely because of overloaded blocking people from new orders meaning only orders on the books before the big candle are counted. Never, ever, ever, try to catch a candle. By the time your order goes through, it’s too late and you’ll likely be stuck with a terrible entry as it’s about to retrace. Additionally, use this to your advantage. If you expect a $100 pump, put your take profit close at $170 above, or a take profit earlier and then open a short at $170 above with expectations for a retrace. Even outside these large pumps, jumping into a wave is almost always a bad idea. If you miss an entry, just be patient. Missed profit is better than losing money. On Derebit, this is much less of an issue.
6.Signals: You should learn how to do your own TA, but there’s also lots of Twitter guys/Discord groups that provide signals. One thing you’ll find is they never agree on anything. Don’t trust any single person because every single one will brag about how much money they’re making, but they can and will be wrong. Use them as guidelines, but not gospel

I’ve had a ridiculous experience with Bitmex/leveraged trading, both fun and depressing, but I think I’m finally getting a grip on it, so I wanted to share some things I’ve learned. For clarity, when I first started using Bitmex, I lost about 3 BTC over the course of a month because I had no idea what I was doing and I’m an idiot. Since then however, I’ve taken .06 BTC and I’m currently at 2.7 BTC from Bitmex alone in a few weeks. It has the potential to make you rich, but also super broke. Do not take it lightly.

Note, with Bitmex's crackdown on US users, I've begun using Deribit primarily. It has lower fees and doesn't have the system overload issues. If you're outside the US, I'd still probably use Bitmex, but Derebit is a bit more lax if you just use a VPN it seems.

If you've never used Bitmex before, you can read my original newbie guide on how to start using Bitmex here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4319995.0

Also a reminder, you get 10% off fees if you sign up with a referral code on either site. If you already signed up and didn’t use one, email support and ask them to apply one, it's pretty quick and definitely worth the 2 minute hassle. Would appreciate if you use mine, but just make sure you use something to get the 10% off: https://www.bitmex.com/register/astVxa and https://www.deribit.com/reg-4025.4455


1. Maker vs Taker: I wasted SO much money on fees originally before I knew about this. Market buying/selling means you pay a fee and based on the last point that is very expensive. If you set limit orders and choose the "post-only" option, you will only place an order if it doesn't execute immediately. If the price hits your mark, you'll actually receive fees rather than paying them. While that seems super small, as mentioned when working with high leverages it adds up a LOT. Fees are based on leverage, so if you’re cross or 100x, you’d literally pay 7.5% just to open an order. At 100k contracts, this is nearly .01 BTC.
2. Cross Leverage: Far left on the leverage slider. This is 100x leverage, but it uses your entire wallet balance as margin. If you have 1 BTC and you open a position worth .1 BTC, on normal 100x leverage, your liquidation would be ~$60 away from your entry price. With Cross, you have .9 BTC as margin, meaning your liquidation would be about $600 away from your entry. Nearly everybody uses this because it helps guard against those fluctuations where you have the right call, but you got liquidated right before. It does mean you can lose 300% or 700% of your money though, so be warned, use stop losses.
3. Funding: In the bottom left of Bitmex, there’s a “Funding Rate”. Every now and then, this will get ridiculously high (i.e. if everyone is longing, and no one is shorting) and play a massive part in the landscape. If the fee is positive and you have a long open, you will pay that fee every 8 hours. If you have a short open in that situation, you get paid that fee. On 100k contracts and a .2 fee, this is .02 BTC, which isn’t bad at all. More importantly beyond the fee though is the pump/dump around it. In the case of a positive .2 fee, the price on Bitmex will tank ~30 minutes before funding (because everyone is closing their longs to avoid the fee) and the second that funding goes through it will skyrocket. Often times it’s worth it to pay the fee just for the price bump afterwards, but I’d honestly recommend just having no position if there’s a massive funding fee coming up. Note, on Derebit, funding is continuously calculated rather than in 8 hour windows, so the idea of a pump/dump for funding is minimized, but you still need to be aware of it.
4. DCA and Small loss vs Big one: There’s two schools of thought to a losing trade. You can dollar cost average, meaning, if I enter long at $9500 and it goes down, I can add more at $9400 to get my entry to $9450. This sometimes works beautifully if you truly believe it goes up. However, the flipside to that is that you add at $9400 and it then goes to $9200. That’s nearly a 300% loss. Adding at stoploss at let’s say $9430 would have lost you 80% instead. But there are times where your stop loss triggers and it shoots up right after. You need to make a decision in these situations how you’re going to handle it. I’ve done days where I make .2 BTC four days in a row and feel great, but then lose 1 BTC all because of one bad trade I refused to get out of and it’s all nullified.
5. Wait for entry and pre-set orders: Bitmex swings HARD. If Bitfinex has a $100 candle, Bitmex may have a $200 candle, solely because of overloaded blocking people from new orders meaning only orders on the books before the big candle are counted. Never, ever, ever, try to catch a candle. By the time your order goes through, it’s too late and you’ll likely be stuck with a terrible entry as it’s about to retrace. Additionally, use this to your advantage. If you expect a $100 pump, put your take profit close at $170 above, or a take profit earlier and then open a short at $170 above with expectations for a retrace. Even outside these large pumps, jumping into a wave is almost always a bad idea. If you miss an entry, just be patient. Missed profit is better than losing money. On Derebit, this is much less of an issue.
6.Signals: You should learn how to do your own TA, but there’s also lots of Twitter guys/Discord groups that provide signals. One thing you’ll find is they never agree on anything. Don’t trust any single person because every single one will brag about how much money they’re making, but they can and will be wrong. Use them as guidelines, but not gospel

Huge note: Bitmex is cracking down on it's no US users policy. You used to be able to sign up via VPN and it was fine if you never used the VPN again. Now, if you login using a US IP they flag you. This means you need to use a VPN every time you login. The new up and coming futures exchange is Deribit which I've started using instead of Bitmex. The volume is lower, BUT it doesn't have the "System Overload" problems that Bitmex does. The fees are also lower on Derebit.

Note, you do get 10% off fees if you sign up through a referral link. Feel free to use mine: https://www.bitmex.com/register/astVxa and https://www.deribit.com/reg-4025.4455, but even if you don't use mine, use someone's because it's 10% off fees, which adds up. You're literally throwing away 10% on every trade if you don't use a referral.

I kept seeing the Bitmex wrecked twitter thing and seeing mentions of leverage all over 4chan, but had absolutely no idea what it all meant. It also looked too complicated for me so I've always ignored it. Got bored today and it's actually much simpler than it seems. There's a ton of guides that go super in-depth and those made absolutely no sense to me, so I'm going to explain it from an idiot's perspective.

First of all, the draw of Futures Exchanges is you can do what's called Leveraged trading. In the simplest terms possible, it means you multiply your percentage gains/losses. If you go 10x leverage long on bitcoin and bitcoin gains 1%, you gain 10% more money. This is super cool for impatient people like me because it allows you to trade more actively without getting wrecked by fees, and it's ridiculously exciting.

Again, both Bitmex and Derebit don't allow US users, so unless you're outside the US, you need to register under a VPN (and continue using VPN on Bitmex, Derebit should just be register under it and you're done). I use NordVPN and it's only $3 a month.

Once you're registered, deposit some BTC into your Bitmex/Derebit wallet. When you first open the trade screen it's going to look super complicated. It's not.

Buying Long on a coin means you expect it to go up. Buying short on a coin means you expect it to go down. Playing those buys works like any other Exchange (i.e. Binance). You can set a limit price to buy in at and an amount. to buy.

Now you want to pick your leverage. In the menu below that, there's a slider. Again, each multiplier of leverage means every 1% = your leverage multiplier. 1% gain with a 25x leverage means 25% gain. I would start with 2x/3x leverage until you get a good handle on things.

The Cost number below the buy long/buy short number is the big one here. With leverage, you're essentially putting loaned money toward a coin. With 10x leverage, you can buy 1 BTC even if you only have .1 BTC (this is why the percentage gains are so drastic). However, this means you can lose it as well.

Let's say you bought 1 BTC at $10000, Long at 10x leverage (So you put in $1000). If BTC dropped 10% to $9000, you would lose all $1000 you put in. If it went to $11000, you would gain $1000 and double your money. Bitmex will auto "liquidate you" if you drop too far and don't have any more money to cover (10x leverage means if it drops more than 10% you lose all the money you put in. 25x leverage means if it drops more than 4% you lose all your money).

You can change orders on the fly and constantly adjust. Let's say BTC raised to $10100 (1%). You could then sell your long order and you will have gained 10% and now you can invest your $1100.

Like I said, there's a ton of guides out there that go into the more fancy TA and ways you can adjust orders, but this should provide a quick overview to get you started. They have a testnet site where you can practice with fake money first as well.

Part 2 with more advanced tips here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4602479.0

Huge note: Bitmex is cracking down on it's no US users policy. You used to be able to sign up via VPN and it was fine if you never used the VPN again. Now, if you login using a US IP they flag you. This means you need to use a VPN every time you login. The new up and coming futures exchange is Deribit which I've started using instead of Bitmex. The volume is lower, BUT it doesn't have the "System Overload" problems that Bitmex does. The fees are also lower on Derebit.

Note, you do get 10% off fees if you sign up through a referral link. Feel free to use mine: https://www.bitmex.com/register/astVxa and https://www.deribit.com/reg-4025.4455, but even if you don't use mine, use someone's because it's 10% off fees, which adds up. You're literally throwing away 10% on every trade if you don't use a referral.

I kept seeing the Bitmex wrecked twitter thing and seeing mentions of leverage all over 4chan, but had absolutely no idea what it all meant. It also looked too complicated for me so I've always ignored it. Got bored today and it's actually much simpler than it seems. There's a ton of guides that go super in-depth and those made absolutely no sense to me, so I'm going to explain it from an idiot's perspective.

First of all, the draw of Futures Exchanges is you can do what's called Leveraged trading. In the simplest terms possible, it means you multiply your percentage gains/losses. If you go 10x leverage long on bitcoin and bitcoin gains 1%, you gain 10% more money. This is super cool for impatient people like me because it allows you to trade more actively without getting wrecked by fees, and it's ridiculously exciting.

Again, both Bitmex and Derebit don't allow US users, so unless you're outside the US, you need to register under a VPN (and continue using VPN on Bitmex, Derebit should just be register under it and you're done). I use NordVPN and it's only $3 a month.

Once you're registered, deposit some BTC into your Bitmex/Derebit wallet. When you first open the trade screen it's going to look super complicated. It's not.

Buying Long on a coin means you expect it to go up. Buying short on a coin means you expect it to go down. Playing those buys works like any other Exchange (i.e. Binance). You can set a limit price to buy in at and an amount. to buy.

Now you want to pick your leverage. In the menu below that, there's a slider. Again, each multiplier of leverage means every 1% = your leverage multiplier. 1% gain with a 25x leverage means 25% gain. I would start with 2x/3x leverage until you get a good handle on things.

The Cost number below the buy long/buy short number is the big one here. With leverage, you're essentially putting loaned money toward a coin. With 10x leverage, you can buy 1 BTC even if you only have .1 BTC (this is why the percentage gains are so drastic). However, this means you can lose it as well.

Let's say you bought 1 BTC at $10000, Long at 10x leverage (So you put in $1000). If BTC dropped 10% to $9000, you would lose all $1000 you put in. If it went to $11000, you would gain $1000 and double your money. Bitmex will auto "liquidate you" if you drop too far and don't have any more money to cover (10x leverage means if it drops more than 10% you lose all the money you put in. 25x leverage means if it drops more than 4% you lose all your money).

You can change orders on the fly and constantly adjust. Let's say BTC raised to $10100 (1%). You could then sell your long order and you will have gained 10% and now you can invest your $1100.

Note, on Derebit, each contract is $10 rather than $1, meaning a 10,000 contract order on Bitmex is the same as a 1,000 contract order on Derebit.

Like I said, there's a ton of guides out there that go into the more fancy TA and ways you can adjust orders, but this should provide a quick overview to get you started. They have a testnet site where you can practice with fake money first as well.

Part 2 with more advanced tips here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4602479.0

Pretty nuts how much this is tightening. I'm terrified of a $300 candle, but tempted to short 3650

Serious no trade zone. Going small scalps with tight stop losses because anything could happen here.

Serious no trade zone. Going small scalps with tight stop losses because anything could happen here.

Serious no trade zone. Going small scalps with tight stop losses because anything could happen here.

Long at 3505 right now.

Long at 3505 right now.

Didn't get 3550. Honestly this is scary. Everything is tightening up. I'm playing small scalps with tight stop losses. Might go big long at 3500 but who knows.

Forgot to post but so much for being stuck at 3980! Great profit. I'm looking at 3550 then up right now.

Forgot to post but so much for being stuck at 3980! Great profit. I'm looking at 3550 then up right now.

Forgot to post but so much for being stuck at 3980! Great profit. I'm looking at 3550 then up right now.

Ouch. Nutty candle. I'm stuck at an average of 3980 but I'm EXTREMELY nervous for Bitfinex maintenance in 4 hours. Not sure what I'm going to do yet. Would love to close this ASAP.

Ouch. Nutty candle. I'm stuck at an average of 3980 but I'm EXTREMELY nervous for Bitfinex maintenance in 4 hours. Not sure what I'm going to do yet. Would love to close this ASAP.

Ouch. Nutty candle. I'm stuck at an average of 3980 but I'm EXTREMELY nervous for Bitfinex maintenance in 4 hours. Not sure what I'm going to do yet. Would love to close this ASAP.

Too hungover to trade last couple days! I'm shorting 3900 here if it gets there. Would love for it to drop out of the sky to 3200 and start the new bull run.

Too hungover to trade last couple days! I'm shorting 3900 here if it gets there. Would love for it to drop out of the sky to 3200 and start the new bull run.

Too hungover to trade last couple days! I'm shorting 3900 here if it gets there. Would love for it to drop out of the sky to 3200 and start the new bull run.