FTX vs FTX.us – Which Crypto Exchange is Best For You?

By  //  December 7, 2021

FTX is one of the largest crypto exchanges out there, which offers you competitive trading fees. You can use the exchange to trade in hundreds of coins. However, we get two options while signing up on the exchange -FTX, and FTX.us.

As a result, many traders are confused about which exchange to choose. Although both of the exchanges belong to the same platform, we get to see a lot of differences between these two platforms.

This is pretty similar to what Binance has. Like Binance.com is for the global audience. But for USA citizens, they do have Binance.us. 

Most exchanges go with a .us domain to comply with the rules and regulations set by the USA government. 

Anyway, the question is, which one is best for you? Is it FTX or FTX.us? We will be finding this out in this article:

What is FTX and FTX.us?

FTX is one of the popular exchanges available out there. It is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange that lets you trade in a wide range of financial products.

With this one, you can trade in BTC options. Also, it supports a wide range of crypto derivatives trading. As per FTX review from The Money Mongers, FTX also gives you access to the best spot trading practices, and it enables fund transfers via fiat and stable cryptocurrencies.

The exchange was founded back in 2019, and over the years, it has gained an immense popularity and a large user base.

Moreover, the exchange operates under two domains. The first one is FTX.com, and the other one is FTX.us.

The first one is available for all most all over the world except US citizens and few other countries. On the other hand, the FTX.us domain is only meant for US based traders.

Moreover, if you are a citizen of the USA, you won’t get to enjoy features like margin trading with the FTX.us domain. Also, you are not allowed to use ftx.com domain for trading.

Apart from this, both the exchanges require you to go through a KYC process to start trading and withdraw large amounts of funds.

To help you understand better, let’s have a quick look at the similarities and differences between both of the exchanges:

Similarities:

Both FTX and FTX.us are regulated by the same company.

Both exchanges let you trade in cryptocurrencies.

Both exchanges have a similar trading user interface.

Differences:

FTX.us has limited trading pairs and instruments compared to FTX.com.

FTX.us is only for USA citizens, but FTX.com is for a global audience except for the USA.

FTX.com offers a 101x margin, but FTX.us only has a margin up to 10x.

FTX vs FTX.us – Which is best for you?

Which One Is Best For You?

If you are a USA citizen, you are restricted from using the FTX.com exchange because of the rules and regulations imposed by the USA government. But you can always use FTX.us, which complies with all the rules and regulations. But it offers you limited features.

However, if you are a trader who lives outside of the USA, you are free to use the FTX.com domain. It has all the features of FTX.us even more. As a result, you will enjoy a smoother trading experience.

But in case if you are new in trading, then FTX is generally not the ideal trading platform. As it is more suitable for advanced and experienced traders. As it allows you to trade in derivatives which carries a high risk.  Also, it can be a pretty complicated subject for a newbie to understand.

However, if you spend your time learning about it, it will not take you much time to get pro at trading and understand concepts related to derivatives, options, and futures.

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Trading Experience

Trading on both FTX and FTX.us is fairly easy. It comes with an easy to use interface that is not too complicated to understand.

Just like any exchange, it offers you the trading chart at the center of your screen. Along with that, you will find all the charting tools and a window to select different trading pairs.

Along with that, it comes integrated with TradingView charts. As a result, doing technical analysis directly on the exchange won’t be an issue for you.

The highlighted feature of FTX is definitely the convenience of tracking and controlling your positions. Like, FTX offers you a wide range of order types. Even more than what most of the other exchanges provide.

Like you will get order types such as market order, limit order, stop limit, stop market, take profit, take profit limit, trailing stop, and more.

Also, it does support API keys. As a result, if you want to use crypto trading bots to automate your trading activity, you are free to do so.

Overall, both of the platforms are extremely easy to use and offer you the same trading experience. But thanks to US government rules and regulations, the FTX.us exchange has limited features.

Leverage & margin trading

Leverage and margin trading are extremely important if you want to make huge money. And to help you with that, FTX.com offers you up to 101x leverage. But you will have a maximum default leverage of 10x.

But you can always go to the settings section and increase your leverage as per your requirements. But make sure that your account is margin qualified to avail this feature. 

However, the same doesn’t go with the FTX.us exchange. Instead, qualified traders can access up to 10x leverage on the spot markets.

Also, there are certain terms and conditions that you have to meet to qualify for margin trading. So I would advise you to read about the margin trading fees and conditions for both of the exchanges.

Available Trading Pairs

As you already know, FTX.com is a derivatives exchange. But over here, you cannot exchange any real digital assets. But it lets you trade a product that illustrates the value of the coin that you are willing to trade.

The exchange supports more than 80 cryptocurrencies’ future contracts. Also, it allows future trading of coins with low market caps compared to its competitors. Along with that, it supports multiple fiat currencies. Like USD, AUD, EUR, TRY, CHF, CAD, and many more.

It also has a unique feature known as the MOVE contract. This allows you to trade market volatility. Along with that, you can trade perpetual futures on the platform.

As well, it lets you trade in leveraged tokens. These coins are basically ERC-20 tokens that can give you leveraged exposure to crypto markets.

However, when it comes to FTX.us, you might get a little disappointed. Why? Because it doesn’t offer as many cryptocurrencies and contacts as the FTX.com exchange.

The exchange only supports about 24 cryptocurrencies. Also, it offers you fewer financial products compared to the FTX.com exchange. As a result, you will not really have many options to trade in.

Deposits and Withdrawals

When it comes to depositing and withdrawing funds, FTX.com is much faster. Also, it offers you a bunch of options to deposit funds.

For instance, it allows you to deposit funds in multiple cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, LTC, TUSD, USDT, and more.

Also, it handles all the deposit and withdrawal requests pretty quickly and doesn’t really charge any fees. However, for ETH and ERC-20 tokens, you will have to pay a small BTC withdrawal fee which is about <0.01 BTC.

You can also deposit and withdraw funds in your local fiat currency using bank wire transfer. However, it will take about one weekday to process USD transfers. Also, if you are depositing other currencies, it might take longer.

The good part, FTX.com doesn’t charge any fees on deposit. But there is a charge of $75 USD on USD withdrawals under $10,000.

On the other hand, FTX.com is pretty quick when it comes to processing crypto deposits and withdrawals.

However, depositing and withdrawing USD can take up to two business days. Also, there is a fee for USD wire transfer deposits and withdrawals but it’s not much. The minimum and the maximum fees are $5 and $35 only.

Trading Fees

Just like most crypto exchanges, FTX.com too follows a tiered fee structure for all the future and spot trades.

They have 6 different tiers of trading fees based on the volume you are going to trade in. Also, if you are going to trade with low volume, you would have to pay a higher fee.

But if you go with a larger trading volume, the trading fee would decrease. This is to encourage traders to use more volume.

As a result, the tier 1 traders will have to pay a maker fee of 0.020% and taker fees of 0.070%. But if you trade in large volume crossing a margin of $50,000,000, then you will have to pay 0.000% as maker fees and 0.040% as taker fee.

On the other hand, FTX.us has 9 tiers of fee structure for all spot markets. If your trade volume is less than 100K USD, you will have to pay 0.10% as maker fees and 0.40% as taker fees.

But if your trading volume crosses the limit of 50 Million USD, then there are no maker fees. But it only charges you a taker fee of 0.05%.

In short, the higher volume you trade over a 30 day time period, the lesser maker and taker fees you have to pay.

Final Words:

So that was all for FTX vs FTX.us. I hope this has cleared all the doubts you might have about these two exchanges. In case if there is anything else you wish to ask, let me know through the comments.