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CoinFLEX is a bitcoin and crypto derivatives platform that allows you to buy, sell and exchange cryptocurrency using financial products. In this CoinFLEX review, we’ll take a closer look at what this exchange has to offer.
Bitcoin futures markets have existed for several years now, and this has created a prolific bitcoin trading community. Buying and selling digital commodities like bitcoin requires a broker and CoinFLEX’s goal is to offer a service that allows traders to speculate on bitcoin’s future prices by offering ‘derivative futures contracts’ financial products.
CoinFLEX: a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange
CoinFLEX (Coin Futures and Lending Exchange) is a physically delivered cryptocurrency futures exchange, developed for investors to hedge cryptocurrency exposure with low index or price settlement risk. CoinFLEX is the trading name of Liquidity Technologies Ltd., a firm which operates under the International Business Companies Act of 2016 of the Republic of Seychelles.
Per the website, CoinFLEX uses Bitgo for asset security, with a $100 million in insurance coverage per wallet.
Founders
The exchange has been around since early 2019 and the CEO, Mark Lamb, has been a long-time advocate for physically delivered futures products. Together with Sudhu Arumugam, the exchange’s Chief Risk Officer, CoinFLEX provides services for both institutional and individual level traders.
Team members
Another two prominent team members are Leslie Tam, the Chief Strategy Officer, and James Cunningham, the Chief Operating Officer. Leslie Tam used to work at crypto exchange giant Binance working on account coverage and OTC trading. He’s also worked in the traditional financial landscape at Bank of America and Merill Lynch.
James Cunningham before joining CoinFLEX came from a quantitative and high frequency trading background. Working on UBS’ algorithmic trading desk and was a founding member of IVC Capital’s high frequency trading hedge fund.
CoinFLEX team members can be researched and found online on LinkedIn and elsewhere. As with all legitimate and well-regulated exchanges, this is a healthy sign.
CoinFLEX Bonus
Unlike competitors, CoinFLEX does not have a signup bonus. Instead, the exchange implemented a yield system based on the native exchange token.
To earn yield, on flexUSD – a flex-based USD stablecoin – a trader needs to simply hold this native token in the exchange wallet. In contrast to other exchanges, CoinFLEX allows its users to benefit by holding assets. The users do not have to lend them directly to someone else or via yield farming.
As such, flexUSD and all flexAssets get interested when just sitting in a wallet, DeFi app, exchange, or margin account.
This enables what they call “yield on yield” i.e. using natively yield-bearing flexAssets to earn an extra yield on top of these various sources in crypto.
The system is a bit of a roundabout way of earning passive income and makes up for the customary welcoming bonus known to other platforms.
CoinFLEX Fees
Trading fees can make or break a derivatives exchange experience, especially since funding rates can vary dramatically when using futures financial products. In terms of fees, CoinFLEX is quite competitive and competes with some of the larger crypto exchanges.
| FLEX Balance | Derivatives | Spot Markets | Spread Trading | Repo Trading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | -0.02% Maker, 0.06% Taker | 0.06% Maker, 0.10% Taker | 0.03% | 0 |
| 1000 | -0.02% Maker, 0.03% Taker | 0.02% Maker, 0.06% Taker | 0.01% | 0 |
| 100,000 | -0.02% Maker, 0.03% Taker | 0.01% Maker, 0.04% Taker | 0.005% | 0 |
| 500,000 | -0.02% Maker, 0.03% Taker | 0% Maker, 0.03% Taker | 0.005% | 0 |
| Exchange | Maker Fee | Taker Fee |
|---|---|---|
| CoinFLEX | -0.02% | 0.06% |
| Binance | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| BitMEX | -0.025% | 0.075% |
Since the exchange holds its own exchange token, holders of FLEX coin will also get even cheaper fees based on the amount of FLEX they hold. This is not necessary though as fees are quite cheap nonetheless.
Deposit and withdrawal methods
CoinFLEX wallets cater for deposits and withdrawals of all tradeable assets on the platform. The platform supports USDC and USDT deposits as well as various other cryptocurrencies which can be used to trade the various financial products on CoinFLEX.
The platform also supports simple QR-code transfers, simplifying the process. All transfers require 2FA for security purposes.
On the flip-side, all you have to do to withdraw USDC, USDT or bitcoin is to select the correct coin to be withdrawn and continue the process via standard 2FA features.
A great feature is the Bitcoin address white-listing function, which adds an additional layer of protection in case malicious attempts are made on the account. Users can withdraw up to $10,000 per day.
Deposit and withdrawal fees
Buying and selling on CoinFLEX Exchange
Since CoinFLEX is a physically settled futures platform, contracts are settled in BTC.
Similar to other derivatives exchanges, CoinFLEX supports three main order types: ‘Market’, ‘Limit’, and ‘Conditional’ trading. A trader can choose from these options to open or close a position. Traders can also choose the amount of leverage they want to use.
Does CoinFLEX support 100x leverage trading?
In this respect, the trading platform goes out of its way to offer up to 250x leverage trading capabilities. As with all things leverage, this can be highly lucrative, but could also liquidate a trader’s entire holdings very quickly.
The platform allows up to 250x margin/leverage on any bitcoin trade. In the most basic sense, leverage trading allows a user to borrow money from an exchange in order to buy a financial instrument. This is effectively a loan that enables you to buy more bitcoin contracts than you otherwise could.
Leverage trading on CoinFLEX
At the time of publishing, CoinFLEX offers the following 13 trading pairs in perpetual swap contracts:
- BTC/USD
- COMP/USD
- SNX/USD
- UNI/USD
- BTC/USD
- BAL/USD
- USDT/USD
- BAND/USD
- BCH/USD
- SUSHI/USD
- ETH/USD
- CRV/USD
- YFI/USD
Risk management capabilities
CoinFLEX offers a variety of industry-standard tools for traders to protect their capital and manage risk.
These include:
- Sub-accounts This feature allows you to set a different margin requirement, leverage, and an isolated trading balance on several sub-accounts (using the same email address). This way trades on one account do not affect the leverage, balance, or margin available to trade on another.
- Stop-loss and Take profits This feature allows you to limit your risk by setting a predetermined point of exit for your trades whether it be in profit or a loss. This tool is very important for traders who do not wish to actively sit and monitor their opened positions all day.
- Trailing Stops This feature takes the stop-loss tool to a new level by allowing you to set a predefined number of pips you want you’re your stop loss to trail your open position by.
There are other numerous tools like this littered all over the platform with the sole mission of helping you manage risk at all times.
Note to US investors
Unfortunately, due to United States regulations, US traders are barred from the platform. Per the platform’s registration section, American citizens and residents of the United States of America, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, Afghanistan, and any other countries that are restricted from trading on our platform are prohibited from holding positions or entering contracts at CoinFLEX.
Users who access the platform from the US give false information could have their accounts removed and positions liquidated if they’re found to be in violation of this policy. Check our list of best crypto exchanges in USA.
Notably, it’s no surprise that US citizens are barred from using the platform given that CoinFLEX has no KYC (Know your client) protocol in place, meaning that it exists within a grey legal area.
Charts & Trading view
CoinFLEX has a relatively straightforward interface and doesn’t play around when it comes to ease of access. It is what you would expect from a derivatives exchange like Phemex or Bybit. In fact, depositing and withdrawing funds is very straightforward.
In the top left-hand corner of your desktop browser, you’ll find a list of available markets to trade. Below that is market information. The user interface is composed of a price chart, depth chart, an order book, and an order entry tab. Such features are in keeping with standard industry practice.
If you scroll down, you can see your current positions, active orders, and trade records, and the right-most section stores the contract details for the market you are trading.
CoinFLEX trading platforms
CoinFLEX supports both mobile and desktop trading, allowing you to both hunker down in your battle station as well as trade on the go.
Simplicity is nearly canonically recognized in the leveraged trading sector, and this platform ticks the right boxes in this regard.
CoinFLEX Affiliate Program
CoinFLEX offers an extensive affiliate partnership program that allows influencers and traders to earn up to 40% for futures and spot trading activity. Referral commissions are calculated and credited on an hourly basis, per the ‘commission rules’ section but no additional information is given on these details.
Unfortunately, the referral page leaves the following notice in this regard.
“Please refer to updates on CoinFLEX. CoinFLEX reserves all the rights of final interpretation”.
While referral possibilities are a welcomed feature, more clarity is needed to further bolster trust with prospective affiliates. CoinFLEX could review this affiliate system to provide better information for prospective affiliates.
Is Coinflex safe?
CoinFLEX has implemented standard two-factor authentications (2FA) protocols for users to have that added layer of security. As you know, 2FA enables another layer of protection, meaning a malicious attacker won’t be able to access your funds without access to Google’s 2FA protocol.
The exchange also operates with a 99% cold storage policy, with only 1% of the entire funds being stored in ‘hot wallets’. Per the Security page, the system has been designed “such that no single person, vault location or device failure could compromise the integrity of user Bitcoins.”
Furthermore, all user information submitted by users passes through a “Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, which adheres to strict procedures that prevent unauthorised access. Per the website’s Security page, personal information is also locked behind 2FA protocols.
Customer support on CoinFLEX
Customer support on CoinFLEX is good but falls short against the competition, which supports live-chat help session.
Thankfully, CoinFLEX has an extensive ‘FAQ’ section which is very useful if you’re unsure on what to do next. To add to that, you can also contact the team via email if the solution is not in the FAQ.
CoinFLEX Review Conclusion
We’ve covered the various features and services in this CoinFLEX review. As such, we can now make an assessment as to whether this exchange is worth your time and money.
Ultimately, CoinFLEX features a very similar trading experience to Bybit and Phemex, and feels more like a re-skin of these trading platforms than anything else. This is by no means negative as competition in the space is generally a good thing for traders.
The revamped user interface and simple design is certainly a great plus and the ability to instantly switch between ‘derivatives’ and ‘spot’ markets without opening a fresh page is also welcomed.
In addition, trading fees are also some of the lowest we have seen making the platform highly competitive in comparison to other mainstream exchanges.
While liquidity is good for the revamped exchange derivatives trading is still a niche market when seen in a broader context. According to data from CoinGecko, trading volumes peaked at $100,000,000 in November, providing enough liquidity for market participants.
Provided the platform increases liquidity moving forward, it could become a noteworthy competitor to the prevailing derivative exchange platforms. Check our list of most popular crypto exchanges.
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