Traders,
I haven’t done much with my leveraged trades. There are reasons for that which I am about to get into here.
First of all, I live in the U.S. Of all the countries in the Universe, the U.S. is one of the most restrictive when it comes to crypto. And yet, people still want to claim we live in a bastion of freedom. Lol. Whatever.
Anywho, unless an exchange is properly licensed here in the U.S., which is extremely difficult to do, they may (and probably will) become the next target of the SEC. Therefore, most centralized exchanges do not offer leveraged trade features.
CEXs (centralized exchanges) also have to perform KYC and KYC protocols are often insanely invasive of privacy and the risk that your data will become stolen by hackers at some point is too great to even consider using centralized exchanges for anything more than entry into or exit out of crypto to the dollar. But this is my preference, not yours. So, let’s move on from this point.
A DEX (decentralized exchange) is not (thus far) as large of a target for the SEC as a CEX (centralized exchange). And because they are decentralized, KYC will not be a part of the in-processing requirements. However, some DEXs, in order to avoid being targeted by the SEC mafia, will take some precautions to filter out customers from highly restrictive countries such as the U.S. These measures might come in the way of IP address filtering. If you are attempting to connect from an IP address of any network located in one of these more restrictive countries, you will not be allowed the same permissible operations that other full-right customers will have on the same exchange.
DEXs do not consider whether you may be a dual citizen or not. They don’t ask these questions and that is kind of the whole point. They don’t care about collecting information about you. They are not supposed to care. These are decentralized networks built for privacy and anonymity.
However, some traders do attempt to do everything by the law regardless of how ruthless and unethical the law may be. In my case, because I am a public figure and trade publicly, I don’t want to place myself in a situation that would allow the law to be easily used against me. Therefore, I have taken steps to obtain secondary citizenship where KYC is not required.
This brings me to my first point. I am still primarily located in the U.S., which means my IP address will be an IP address that can be filtered out by exchanges that don’t desire the wrath of the SEC and don’t even want to come close to playing with the potentiality of becoming the latest SEC lawsuit. Even DEXs will filter visitors just to stay out of SEC radar.
ZETA is one DEX that filters by IP. Therefore, even though legally because I am a dual citizen of a secondary country that does not require KYC, I still am unable to obtain full permissible services on the DEX unless I fake my IP address or VPN to another country that is permitted to trade leverage without KYC. Though minor, this is a bit of a nuisance and a little inconvenient. At the very least, it discouraged me from accessing the platform as much as I would have had I not had to take these extra steps to connect. And even when I did connect to the DEX via VPN, one time the site connected faster than my VPN and I received the following warning:
Storm, however, is a bit more bold than Zeta. They have chosen not to filter out certain IPs. This makes it easier for me to access the exchange via my computer, phone, or even Telegram bot. And this is my first reason for making the switch. It is just more convenient to access from anywhere. See for yourself:
https://app.storm.tg/?ref=4A9K27WqG5
Another reason why I am digging Storm right now is because I can utilize three different forms of collateral: USDT, TON, and NOT. All three of these can be used as trading pairs. On Zeta, I could only trade in and out of USDT. There are benefits of having additional options here which I won’t get into at this time. But I do love these trading pair options.
Then there is the fact that I can choose my leverage amount. I can go anywhere from 2x-100x on any trade. I can go long. I can go short. I can choose my TP amount. I can choose my SL amount. I can set multiple TPs/SLs per trade. The trades are executed quickly and for minimal costs.
With Zeta, these were my token choices and the max at which I could leverage each one. Notice how Bonk and Wif are restricted to only 4x. I can 100x both of these coins on Storm if I want.
And finally, I have noticed that with Storm, I still have most of the trade choices I am interested in. Though, I lost a few, mainly they were not coins that I would have traded anyway. Here are my choices on Storm.
So, if your are interested in these types of high-risk full-on degen plays, come check it out with me. Be very careful. Never ever risk more than you can afford to lose, especially when it comes to leverage, because there is a good chance you will. Outside of that, have fun, and let me know what you decide to trade!
Stew