StormGain

StormGain Review

What is StormGain?

StormGain is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange from the United Kingdom. It launched in July 2019.

Supported Cryptos

This platform supports trading in the following cryptos: USDT, BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, XRP. As you surely know, these are all major cryptos in the industry so the risk that you would purchase crypto at this platform that later turns out to be scams should be considered as very low.

StormGain Advantages

StormGain highlights the following three factors as the main advantages with its platform: it offers up to 200x leverage on certain trades, it has the "lowest fees" and that you can start trading with a demo account until you feel comfortable enough to trade using real money. We put lowest fees in quotation marks seeing as this is not true, there are countless exchanges out there with much lower fees. Not even "low fees" would have been entirely true. The fees here are slightly below the industry average (more on that below under StormGain Fees).

Official Crypto Trading Partner of SS Lazio

Another fun thing about StormGain, which they announced in an email sent to its users on 16 September 2020, is that they are the "Official Crypto Trading Partner of SS Lazio". Things like these, that crypto players sponsor world famous sports teams (in this case football club SS Lazio), contributes to the mass adoption of cryptocurrency and is something that we warmly applaud.

StormGain Mobile Support

Most crypto traders feel that desktops allow the best conditions for trading. Not only do computers have a bigger screen, but the crucial information they require is also easier to view. 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 StormGain’s trading platform is also mobile compatible. You can download it to/from both the AppStore and Google Play:

Leveraged Trading

StormGain also offers leveraged trading to its users (but only perpetuals, no futures with specific expiry dates). The maximum leverage level is 200x, meaning two hundred times the relevant amount. This leverage level is quite rare, most exchanges have much lower levels as their maximums. 

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 10,000 USD on your trading account and bet 100 USD on 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 bet 100 USD, you would have earned 10 USD if you simply held Bitcoin. Now, as you bet 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 a huge upside but also a huge downside. In most cases though, there are different safety limits that you can set so that your loss doesn't exceed a certain level.

StormGain 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 concerning 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 StormGain:

It is up to you – and only you – to decide if the above trading view is suitable for 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.

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 seems scary is that 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. More cases will likely follow.

It is unclear whether StormGain permits US investors or not. We have read their Terms and Conditions and have not found any explicit prohibition of US investors. We urge any US investors to form their own opinion on the permissibility of their trading at StormGain though.

StormGain Fees

StormGain 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.

StormGain charges what we call flat fees, meaning that both the takers and the makers pay the same fee: 0.25%. These taker fees are somewhat above the global industry averages for centralized exchanges. Sure, industry averages have historically been around 0.20-0.25% but we now see new industry averages emerging around 0.10%-0.15%.

StormGain also has an extremely interesting offering, namely that you only have to pay trading fees when you make a profit. To our knowledge, StormGain is the only crypto exchange in the world that has this offering. However, it should be noted here, that if you do make a profit, you have to pay 10.00% in trading fees. 10.00% is really hefty... An interesting trading fee structure nevertheless!

StormGain Withdrawal fees

StormGain has a very special withdrawal fee model. It not only fixed, and not only percentage based, it is a hybrid. Withdrawals are charged fixed fees of 0.0006 BTC per BTC-withdrawal, and then in addition to that another 0.10% on the withdrawn amount. 

With a pure percentage based model, when you withdraw small amounts, it is beneficial to you. If you withdraw 0.01 BTC, the withdrawal fee becomes 0.000010 BTC (extremely low and very consumer-friendly). However, if you withdraw 10 BTC, the withdrawal fee becomes 0.01 BTC (extremely high). But as Stormgain has thrown in a fixed fee as well (0.0006 BTC per BTC-withdrawal), this withdrawal fee model can never be beneficial to you. Not good, Stormgain.

Deposit Methods

StormGain lets you deposit assets to the exchange in many different ways, through wire transfer, debit card, and of course also by just depositing existing cryptocurrency assets.

Seeing as fiat currency deposits are possible at this trading platform, StormGain qualifies as an “entry-level exchange”, making an exchange where new crypto investors can start their journey into the exciting crypto world.