BaseFEX Review

Crypto trading has gone a long way from the first Bitcoin (BTC) exchanges back in 2010. As soon as altcoins like Litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum (ETH) started becoming popular, crypto exchanges began offering multi-currency trading features and complex market order types and implemented advanced trading principles taken from the stock market, such as margin trading, futures trading, and leverage trading.

Most popular crypto exchanges like Kraken and Binance allow users to facilitate standard spot market orders, plus advanced leverage trading for more experienced users. However, some crypto exchanges, such as the relatively young BaseFEX.com platform, are focused on pro traders and crypto derivatives trading strategies that involve massive leverage while trading only with a small selection of the leading global digital currencies.

BaseFEX isn’t a platform for those new to crypto trading. In fact, this exchange is only recommended for pro traders who have a thorough understanding of crypto market volatility, know how to read detailed price charts, and use advanced technical analysis tools for estimating the price change direction of specific cryptos.

The BaseFEX Trading Platform: Bitcoin (BTC) and Cryptocurrency Derivatives Trading at up to 100X Leverage

The BaseFEX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange was launched in 2018 by a group of experienced crypto traders headed by crypto veteran Jesse Wu, who wanted to provide users around the world with a trustworthy platform for crypto futures, perpetual contracts, and leveraged trading. The platform is registered in the Seychelles Islands, but the headquarters of the company is located in Hong Kong.

Unlike standard cryptocurrency exchange platforms, BaseFEX doesn’t provide users with a broad range of crypto trading pairs like btcusd, the ability to quickly conduct asset swaps, or carry out fast spot trading orders, such as instant buy/sell operations. BaseFEX is specifically geared towards advanced crypto brokers who have extensive knowledge about the crypto market, as well as high-risk appetites.

BaseFEX allows users to enter crypto futures contracts with up to 100x leverage on their trading positions. Futures trading means that you’re practically betting on the direction a certain asset’s price is going to go, either within a limited period of time, or just the general direction of the price change, without time limits.

While users can enter Bitcoin futures trading contracts with up to 100x leverage, the other are available at a maximum of 20x leverage through perpetual contracts that aren’t the same as classic futures trading. The perpetual contracts can best be described as futures contracts without the time-specific limits, which means that these contracts can stay open for an indefinite amount of time. With perpetual contracts, the contract holders can periodically conduct payments based on the current price difference between the contract specifications and the specific cryptocurrency’s price.

Risks of Leveraged Trading

Trading on BaseFEX is extremely risky not in terms of security since the platform has quite strong safety measures in place but in terms of potential asset losses. When you’re entering a leveraged trading position, your potential profits are multiplied by the leverage number. However, if your trading order goes sideways, the losses are also multiplied by that same number.

That’s why leveraged trading isn’t recommended for crypto beginners since you can end up losing a lot of money extremely fast if you don’t know the right entry price and if you don’t know how to use price charts and technical analysis tools to estimate crypto price changes accurately.

Supported Cryptocurrencies

If you’re looking for a crypto exchange with hundreds of available coins, then you’re in the wrong place because BaseFEX has a very limited choice of digital currencies, but this isn’t in any way a disadvantage since the platform focuses on futures trading and perpetual contracts. For this type of trading, the 7 cryptos available on BaseFEX are more than enough.

Since futures trading is very risky, platforms such as BaseFEX that offer this type of service tend to support only top trending coins that are well established on the market and have an extensive trading history. This way, they can help users estimate the future price changes of assets based on their historical data.

Users can engage in 100x leveraged futures trading for Bitcoin (BTC), while Binance Coin (BNB), Eos (EOS), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) are available for 20x leveraged perpetual contracts and margin trading.

For every available crypto, BaseFEX has a dedicated page with trading order specifications that list the requirements for margin trading, perpetual contracts, and the available leverage limit.

It’s important to note that unlike standard crypto exchanges where profits and losses are settled in the specific currency you’re conducting a trading order with, BaseFEX settles all financial operations exclusively with Bitcoin and the Tether (USDT) stablecoin.

Payment Methods and Withdrawals

BaseFEX doesn’t charge any fees for deposits or withdrawals, which is a key advantage over many competitor platforms, but the payment methods are limited only to Bitcoin and Tether deposits.

The platform isn’t fiat-friendly, which means users can’t deposit any fiat currency directly on the platform. It is also impossible to directly pay for trading deals using a wire transfer, bank account transfer, debit card, or credit card. In order to carry out trading orders on BaseFEX, you need to first deposit BTC or USDT on the platform. Keep in mind that your crypto deposits are subject to standard network fees or blockchain fees.

If you don’t have any BTC or USDT in your private crypto wallet, then it’s best to head to a fiat-friendly exchange platform like BitMEX (provides auto-deleveraging), Coinbase or Binance and purchase some crypto with fiat. Once you’ve bought the coins, you can directly send them to BaseFEX through the Deposit feature, which will quickly generate a custom wallet address or deposit address for BTC or USDT.

Once you’ve deposited Bitcoin or Tether, you’re ready to start trading on the platform. The fact that BaseFEX isn’t fiat-friendly makes it a bit complicated for brokers to quickly start trading on the platform unless they already have some BTC or USDT, but for those who are looking for super high leveraged futures trading, it’s worth going through the few extra steps, since most crypto exchanges don’t offer such high leverage options.

The withdrawal procedure is similar to the deposit one since all you need to do is copy your destination wallet address in the Withdraw tab and initiate a transaction from BaseFEX to your wallet without any platform withdrawal fees.

BaseFEX Fees and Limits

Platform fees are one of the most important aspects of every crypto exchange platform since they can have a heavy impact on the profitability of your trading deals. High percentage fees can literally consume a considerable amount of your profits, especially if you’re an active trader who deals with high volumes of crypto.

Most crypto exchanges use a market maker and market taker fee model to charge users for trading deals. BaseFEX also uses this fee model in order to reward active market makers with a fee discount. The platform uses a multi-tier fee structure that rewards high-volume traders with lower trading fees. Traders with a monthly trading volume lower than 100 BTC are charged a taker fee of 0.06%, while maker fees start at 0.02%.

There are six additional fee tiers that progressively lower the fees, up until the highest tier, LV 6, which awards market takers who have a monthly trading volume of at least 60,000 BTC with a 0.03% fee, while market makers incur a 0.005% fee.

For margin trading orders, there’s a funding rate added every 8 hours to maintain open positions. This fee is 0.01% for all trading pairs, no matter whether you’re funding a long or short position.

As far as trading limits and withdrawal limits, BaseFEX doesn’t state any limitations. There aren’t any minimum deposit amounts either.

BaseFEX Exchange Trading View Features

While BaseFEX lacks instant buy/sell features, it comes with a wide range of trading options and tools to help experienced traders decide what type of cryptocurrency futures contract, margin trading order, or perpetual contract to implement.

The key trading tool for monitoring the market on BaseFEX is the price chart trading interface on the BaseFEX trading view. Every asset and every trading pair on the platform have their own price chart, accessible at all times by selecting the appropriate tab in the upper left section of the trading view, where the list of assets is located.

The chart occupies the upper middle section of the trading view and comes with a high number of details, such as candlesticks for showing market sentiments and price change directions, along with the possibility of setting specific labels on the chart, analyzing price depth, and selecting specific time frames.

In the lower right section of the trading view, you’ll see the order book for the selected trading pair, along with a list of recent trades to help you navigate the average prices for trading deals of the selected asset pair.

The lower left section is reserved for your market positions, as well as your account balance. To the right of your trading positions and your balance, there’s a small section for initiating market orders and limit orders.

The platform also has a great mobile app for Android and iOS devices. Experienced users can easily navigate the browser version of the platform, but the mobile app is much more user-friendly for less-experienced traders.

BaseFEX Order Types

BaseFEX allows traders to enter initial margin trading, futures, and perpetual contracts through various order types. Not all order types are available for all trading operations, which is logical because futures trading, for example, can’t be carried out through a classic market order used to immediately settle trading deals at the current market prices of trading pairs.

Users have access to several advanced order types on BaseFEX, such as limit orders which have specific buy or sell limits that automatically trigger a trade once reached. It can take some time to fulfill a limit order, so it’s important to set realistic limits in line with the current market circumstances and price change directions.

Users can also place trigger orders which are somewhat similar to limit orders because they are automatically triggered once certain market circumstances are met. However, Trigger orders are used to take specific actions such as limiting your losses or taking gains.

That’s why they are classified into stop loss and take profit orders. A stop loss is a trigger order that lets users enter a trading position and set up a selling price that’s automatically carried out if the underlying asset’s price drops down to the stop-loss threshold. This order is designed to limit trading losses automatically. Crypto traders don’t need to constantly monitor the market if they set up a stop-loss order.

Take profit orders use the same mechanism, except that they are designed to help users automatically take profits once a trading pair reaches a profitable sell zone specified by the trader. On BaseFEX, stop loss and take profit orders are merged into a single order type called SLTP. Traders can easily specify these triggers under the order specifications on the BaseFEX trading view.

Platform Security

BaseFEX stores all of the platform assets offline, in multisig (multi-signature) cold wallets that require several keys for anyone to access them. This means that the funds are safe from any type of cyber hacks since they are stored in cold storage devices. Plus, if anyone managed to gain access to one of the multisig keys, they would be useless without all the other keys.

Every withdrawal on BaseFEX goes through a manual verification process to make sure that the request is authentic and not made by bots or unauthorized third parties. This measure is used to double-check the validity of each withdrawal request.

Also, users have the highly recommended two-factor authentication (2FA) feature at their disposal. This option requires users to manually approve every transaction either through an email verification code or through a code sent by SMS to the user’s mobile device. With 2FA, if a cyber attacker somehow gains access to your account and initiates a withdrawal, you’ll be notified immediately, and the attacker won’t be able to withdraw your crypto to their private wallet. In case a successful hack doesn’t happen somehow, BaseFEX also has an insurance fund for user assets.

Unlike many popular exchanges, BaseFEX doesn’t require users to go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) protocol and provide sensitive personal information. This adds an additional layer of privacy to the use of BaseFEX, which is rarely seen among crypto exchanges as they tend to gather extensive user data. The company states on the BaseFEX website that it’ll never share any user details with governments or authorities.

Customer Support

The BaseFEX customer support is really top quality, and it comes in three forms. When you run into an issue with your platform account or simply can’t find the features you need, you can initially look at the BaseFEX FAQ section. If you can’t find an answer to your issue there, you can either contact the support team through email and get a fast response from the team or contact them through the on-site, live chat feature or via their social media channels such as Telegram.

The live chat is run by real people and not by chatbots. Additionally, it’s available 24/7, which is really rare for a crypto exchange support team. The team members are all experienced crypto professionals who can quickly solve all of your platform issues. The support team’s response time on live chat is also exceptional, which means you can quickly contact support and start solving whichever issue you have with the platform.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Up to 100x leverage for Bitcoin futures contracts, and up to 20x leverage for perpetual contracts for other cryptos.
• No KYC protocol
• The platform offers excellent liquidity
• Great security measures.
• Extensive technical analysis tools and detailed price charts.
• Supports advanced trading order types.
• Low fees.

Cons

• The platform isn’t fiat-friendly, users can’t deposit USD or other fiat currencies, and users need to deposit BTC or USDT into their platform account before initiating a trade.
• The platform isn’t legally available in the US because it isn’t regulated and licensed by US financial authorities.
• Futures trading is only available for BTC.
• The platform isn’t beginner-friendly, and it’s only suitable for experienced traders.

FAQ

Can I deposit fiat currency directly into my BaseFEX account?

No, you can’t since BaseFEX doesn’t support fiat deposits. You can only deposit Bitcoin or Tether and use it to enter futures contracts, margin trading, or perpetual futures contracts.

Can I use BaseFEX to conduct standard spot trading buy/sell orders?

BaseFEX doesn’t support spot trading. In fact, only Bitcoin and Tether are accepted by the exchange. All the trading deals on the platform regarding other cryptos are actually trading contracts that deal with the price change of underlying assets rather than trading the assets in question. That’s why when you’re conducting a perpetual ETH/BTC contract on BaseFEX, you only get paid out in BTC since the platform doesn’t deal with Ethereum as a currency, only with its price.

Why isn’t BaseFEX regulated and licensed by US financial authorities?

The platform doesn’t use a KYC protocol to identify users or gather their personal information, which is a key requirement for all licensed crypto exchanges to operate in the US.

What are the supported countries by BaseFEX?

The platform is available in nearly all countries. The exchange is not authorized to accept US traders due to lack of US regulation. Customers from several other countries are also prohibited from holding positions on the exchange or entering into contracts through it, such as Quebec (in Canada), China and Crimea and Sevastopol. This exchange has a positive feature: it supports languages. There are 10 languages supported: English, French and Italian, Spanish, Portuguese as well as Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian.

Conclusion

BaseFEX is a pretty reliable crypto exchange for leveraged margin trading, futures trading, and perpetual contracts. However, the platform isn’t recommended for crypto beginners who are new to advanced trading orders and complex trading tactics that require extensive crypto market knowledge.

The BaseFEX platform is most suitable for experienced brokers who know how the crypto market works and usually use a mix of spot trading, margin trading, and futures trading for different parts of their crypto portfolio. If you’re a beginner, BaseFEX might lead you to considerable losses, but if you’re a pro trader looking for crazy high leveraged trading features, then BaseFEX is the perfect place for you.