Plus500

Plus500 Review

Plus500 is one of the biggest CFD providers in the trading world. Plus500 Ltd has its headquarters situated in Israel, with operating subsidiaries in the UK - Plus500UK Ltd, Cyprus - Plus500CY Ltd, Australia - Plus500AU Ltd, Singapore - Plus500SG Pte Ltd. Plus500CY Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Licence No. 250/14).

We have chosen to include Cyprus as Plus500's home country in our database.

Plus500 originally launched in 2008, but did at that point not offer any crypto CFDs (seeing as there weren't even any cryptos back then). 

The platform is a so called CFD platform, meaning that they focus on derivatives trading, or more specifically "CFDs". A derivative is an instrument priced based on the value of another asset (normally stocks, bonds, commodities etc). In the cryptocurrency world, derivatives accordingly derive its values from the prices of specific cryptocurrencies. 

Supported CFD Contracts

Plus500's crypto division offers trading in the following crypto related contracts:

Disclaimer: Illustrative prices.

As is evident from the above picture, the platform only offers trading through CFD-contracts in the more well-known cryptos here. Please be advised however that the availability of the above crypto CFD contracts is subject to applicable regulations from time to time.

US-investors

As far as we know, Plus500 does not allow US-investors to trade on the platform. So, if you’re from the US and would like to engage in crypto trading, you will have to look elsewhere. Luckily for you, if you go to the Exchange List and use our exchange filters, you can sort the exchanges based on whether or not they accept US-investors.

Mobile Support

Most crypto traders feel that desktop give the best conditions for their trading. The computer has a bigger screen, and on bigger screens, more of the crucial information that most traders base their trading decisions on can be viewed at the same time. The trading chart will also be easier to display. However, not all crypto investors require desktops for their trading. Some prefer to do their crypto trading via their mobile phone. If you are one of those traders, you’ll be happy to learn that Plus500’s trading platform is also mobile compatible as apps for both iPhones and Android users.

Plus500 Trading View

Different exchanges have different trading views. And there is no “this overview is the best”-view. You should yourself determine which trading view that suits you the best. What the views normally have in common is that they all show the order book or at least part of the order book, a price chart of the chosen CFD-contract and order history. They normally also have buy and sell-boxes. Before you choose an exchange, try to have a look at the trading view so that you can see that it feels right to you.

The following is the trading view at Plus500:

Disclaimer: Illustrative prices.

It is up to you – and only you – to decide if the above trading view is suitable to you. Finally, there are usually many different ways in which you can change the settings to tailor the trading view after your very own preferences.

Leveraged Trading

Plus500 also offers leveraged trading, up to 2x leverage on their cryptocurrency CFDs. For their non-crypto products, such as their Index CFDs and Forex CFDs, they offer up to 20x leverage and 30x leverage, respectively.

Leveraged derivatives trading can lead to massive returns but – on the contrary – also to massive losses. For instance, let’s say that you have 10,000 USD on your trading account and invest 100 USD in BTC going long (i.e., increasing in value). You do so with 100x leverage. If BTC then increases in value with 10%, if you had only invested 100 USD, you would have earned 10 USD. As you invest 100 USD with 100x leverage, you have instead earned an additional 1,000 USD (990 USD more than if you had not leveraged your deal). On the other hand, if BTC decreases in value with 10%, you have lost 1,000 USD (990 USD more than if you had not leveraged your deal). So, as you might imagine, there is potential for huge upside but also for huge downside…

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the above example is only an example for illustrative purposes. The highest leverage available for cryptocurrency CFDs is - as mentioned above - 2x. 

Plus500 CFD Fees

When you trade at a CFD Broker like Plus500, you have to pay trading fees. However, the trading fees differ in their structure compared to the trading fees at a centralized crypto exchange for instance. At an CFD Broker, you need to consider the following fees in your trading: spreads, overnight fees and (possibly) inactivity fees.

Plus500 CFD Spread

Let’s start with explaining what a “spread” is. Spreads are the main fee of any CFD Trading Platform. In essence, it can be compared to trading fees at centralized crypto exchanges. It is the mark-up or mark-down charged by the platform when you trade a certain crypto CFD. So if the price of the relevant CFD is USD 100, and the spread is 1%, the buyer can trade the crypto CFD on the trading platform for USD 101 (or sell it for USD 99). The difference between the sell price and the purchase price (USD 1 in this case), goes to the trading platform.

At the date of first writing this review (13 June 2021, at 14:00 CET), Plus500 charged 0.30% as their spread on its crypto CFDs. Here's a picture showing the fees of a BTC/USD contract at Plus500 (picture from 13 June 2021 on 14:00 CET). Please be advised though that the spread is "variable" as it depends on the trading instrument and it is constantly adjusted according to the market spread.

Disclaimer: Illustrative prices.

Plus500 CFD Overnight Fee

What is an overnight fee? An overnight is the fee charged by the platform when you hold a position (i.e. a Crypto CFD) overnight. It's as easy as that. Seeing as it is charged every night, it is small, and a trader will of course hope that his position will be successful enough that he won't even notice the overnight fee as the value of his position appreciates. Looking at the BTC/USD CFD printscreened above, the overnight fee if you have a buy-position would 0.0506% of the order value (information obtained on 13 June 2021 on 14:00 CET), and if you had a sell position it would be 0.0281% of the order value (information obtained on 13 June 2021 on 14:00 CET). The overnight funding time and the daily overnight funding percentage can be found in the “Details” link next to the instrument’s name on the main screen of the platform.

Plus500 CFD Inactivity Fee

An inactivity fee is a fee that is charged if you have not logger in to your trading account for a certain period of time. At Plus500, this period of time is 3 months and the inactivity fee is USD 10. While this fee is clearly not one of the more important ones, we feel that is worth mentioning seeing as it is a bit consumer-unfriendly in our opinion. Most of the CFD Brokers seem to have it though. Plus500 explains that this fee is established to "offset the cost incurred in making the service available", even though it has not been used. If it is of any comfort, the inactivity fee is only collected when there are sufficient available funds in the user's account.

Disclaimer: The inactivity fee applies generally to your account at Plus500, not only to the crypto CFDs. 

Currency Conversion Fee

Plus500 will charge a Currency Conversion Fee for all trades on instruments denominated in a currency different from the currency of your account. The Currency Conversion Fee will be reflected in real-time into the unrealized profit and loss of an open position.

Guaranteed Stop Order

This is a unique order type used to help you manage risks by guaranteeing the stop loss level. If you choose to use this feature, please note that as it guarantees that your position closes at a specific requested rate, it is, therefore, subject to a wider spread.

Plus500 Withdrawal fees

Seeing as you never really hold any cryptocurrency at this platform, but only contracts connected to such cryptocurrencies, there is no real point in stating a BTC-withdrawal fee here and then comparing that to the corresponding BTC-withdrawal fees at other platforms. The only thing you withdraw here is money.

The maximum number of monthly withdrawals on a User’s Account is five (5). To our understanding, you don't have to pay anything at all for these permitted 5 withdrawals. For any withdrawals exceeding the maximum number of monthly withdrawals a fee of USD 10 (or equivalent) per each exceeding withdrawal can be charged by the platform. Withdrawals via bank transfer may also incur a charge of up to 6 USD due to bank processing charges.

This seems to be quite on average with what CFD Brokers typically charge. 

Deposit Methods

At Plus500, you can deposit fiat currency in a lot of different ways, including (but not limited to) VISA, MasterCard, Klarna, PayPal, Skrill and many others. This is naturally very helpful for someone that needs an easy way to access his/her trading platform. Please be advised however that availability of the different payment methods is subject to applicable regulations from time to time.

LEGAL RISK WARNING: 77% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.