ACDX Exchange

ACDX Exchange Review

What is ACDX Exchange?

ACDX Exchange is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in Hong Kong that has been operational since 2020. The platform is available in three languages: Japanese, Mandarin and English.

ACDX Exchange focuses on derivatives trading. 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 Cryptos for Derivatives Trading

You can engage in derivatives trading connected to the following cryptos here: BTC, ETH, ACXT (the platform's own token), USDT, mUSD, USDC, TUSD, BUSD, PAX and DGCL.

Leveraged Trading

ACDX Exchange also offers leveraged trading to its users. The maximum leverage level for their crypto contracts is 100x (i.e. onehundred times the relevant amount). A word of caution might be useful for someone contemplating leveraged trading. Leveraged trading can lead to massive returns but – on the contrary – also to equally massive losses.

For instance, let’s say that you have 100 USD in your trading account and you bet this amount on BTC going long (i.e., going up in value). If BTC then increases in value with 10%, you would have earned 10 USD. If you had used 100x leverage, your initial 100 USD position becomes a 10,000 USD position so you instead earn an extra 1,000 USD (990 USD more than if you had not leveraged your deal). However, the more leverage you use, the smaller the distance to your liquidation price becomes. This means that if the price of BTC moves in the opposite direction (goes down for this example), then it only needs to go down a very small percentage for you to lose the entire 100 USD you started with. Again, the more leverage you use, the smaller the opposite price movement needs to be for you to lose your investment. So, as you might imagine, the balance between risk and reward in leveraged deals is quite fine-tuned (there are no risk free profits).

ACDX Exchange Trading View

Every trading platform has a trading view. The trading view is the part of the exchange’s website where you can see the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and what its current price is. There are normally also buy and sell boxes, where you can place orders with respect to the relevant crypto, and, at most platforms, you will also be able to see the order history (i.e., previous transactions involving the relevant crypto). Everything in the same view on your desktop. There are of course also variations to what we have now described. This is the trading view at ACDX Exchange:

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.

ACDX Exchange Fees

ACDX Exchange Trading fees

Every time you place an order, the exchange charges you a trading fee. The trading fee is normally a percentage of the value of the trade order. Many exchanges divide between takers and makers. Takers are the one who “take” an existing order from the order book. Makers are the ones who add orders to the order book, thereby making liquidity at the platform.

At ACDX Exchange, takers pay 0.05%. Makers, however, receive a discount and pay 0.015% per trade. Compared to the contracts trading industry average fees, these fees are quite on point with average. The contracts trading industry averages are 0.064% for takers (ACDX Exchange is slightly below here) and 0.014% for makers (ACDX Exchange is very slightly above here). 

You can also receive discounts on your trading fees if you hold a certain amount of the exchange's own token (the ACDX Governant Token). In order to receive the highest possible discount (30%), you need to hold USD 500,000 worth of ACDX Governance Tokens. On the date of first writing this review (10 February 2021), that corresponded to approx. 1.4 million tokens. Here's a full table of the available trading fee discounts:

ACDX Exchange Withdrawal fees

ACDX Exchange charges a withdrawal fee of 0.0006 BTC per BTC-withdrawal. This fee is slightly below the global industry average. The current global industry average is 0.000643 BTC per BTC-withdrawal according to this report.

All in all, the fees charged by this platform are acceptable.

Deposit Methods and US-investors

Deposit Methods

In order to trade here, you must have cryptocurrency to begin with. The only asset class you can deposit to ACDX Exchange is cryptocurrency. However, if you really like ACDX Exchange but you don’t have any crypto yet, you can easily start an account with an exchange that has “fiat on-ramps” (an exchange where you can deposit regular cash), buy crypto there, and then transfer it from such exchange to this exchange. Use our Exchange Filters to easily see which platforms that allow wire transfer or credit card deposits.

US-investors

Why do so many exchanges not allow US citizens to open accounts with them? The answer has only three letters. S, E and C (the Securities Exchange Commission). The reason the SEC is so scary is because the US does not allow foreign companies to solicit US investors, unless those foreign companies are also registered in the US (with the SEC). If foreign companies solicit US investors anyway, the SEC can sue them. There are many examples of when the SEC has sued crypto exchanges, one of which being when they sued EtherDelta for operating an unregistered exchange. Another example was when they sued Bitfinex and claimed that the stablecoin Tether (USDT) was misleading investors. It is very likely that more cases will follow.

ACDX Exchange does not allow US-investors on its exchange. 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.