If you plan to try out the P2PB2B exchange, or Kraken trading system, with a few small trades, to see how well it works, well... just don't.
Please, don't.
Unless you have plenty of money to waste or loan out.
Unless you plan to trade a lot, their withdrawal fee is ridiculously high. Some exchanges charge a minimum deposit, minimum withdrawal, and minimum trade fees. Some even have minimum amounts you can trade.
Some exchanges even put rules in place to purposefully SCREW the little guy and STEAL his tiny deposit.
So, me being a little guy still relatively new to trading in general, but brave enough to try my luck, I decided to test out a few trades on a couple of exchanges.
I wanted to test out the P2PB2B trading system and the Kraken system, so I deposited $5 of bitcoin into each.
With the P2PB2B, I ended up not executing a trade that I had planned, and my balance grew to 6.7 just due to normal market fluctuations.
Now, I would like to put that $5 back into cash.
However they want to charge me .87 cents USD just to withdraw 6.70 in BTC.
That's a ridiculous fee.
However the folks at P2PB2B.io see things differently.
They could not care less about the "little guy" who only has a few USD in BTC to trade.
In fact, they are purposefully setting up their system to allow micro-deposits, so they can then STEAL your microdeposit.
Yes, I know... that's a huge accusation.
However I suggest the burden of disclosure rests on the person offering the service, not the potential buyer.
Companies should be required to put their exchange terms next to any exchange buttons.
That way, before you deposit money you know what you are getting into.
When contacting support for P2PB2B they claim that simply I should have read the fine print.
Yes, I am aware how disclosures work. BUT, anyone can tell you it would be very easy and take about 2 minutes of time to simply print the text: "min. withdrawal fee .001 btc" next to your DEPOSIT button.
It's in the spirit of customer service and helpfulness that the courts have even ruled several times in past cases similar to this, that hiding the terms in your website fine print and requiring the user check a box saying they read the terms, does NOT constitute disclosure.
That's been decided already by a few cases and courts.
That being said, plenty of exchanges are screwing the little guy still.
There is one called Kraken that I also deposited $5 into.
My plan was to make a few micro trades and see if I could score a small profit.
Of course I rushed into the Kraken deposit as well, not reading the fine print.
I found out that Kraken is EVEN MORE DESIGNED to steal the little guy's BTC.
They apparently let you deposit as little as $5.
They purposefully advertise they are perfect for "small trades" and offer "small deposit minimums".
However once you deposit your $5 you find that there is a much higher minimum trade amount.
Which means your $5 is just sitting there, useless, and you cannot trade it.
You effectively just loaned $5 to Kraken with no guarantee on interest rate, terms, or repayment.
However that's where the fun is just starting.
My only choice at this point is to either deposit more bitcoin (that's what they want you to do) ...and honestly I didn't want to deposit the entire minimum amount (was it $100? i cannot remember, but too high for me anyway.)
I also realized that even if the $5 was the minimum trade amount, it still wouldn't make sense, because any profit I gained by trading would be likely eaten by high withdrawal fees.
So that left me only one option to try to withdraw my bitcoin back into my own wallet.
Of course, that would not be so easy either.
Apparently Kraken also has a minimum WITHDRAWAL amount.
Who Knew?!?!?!
They will let you deposit just $5, but you cannot withdraw it!
Or trade it.
So now, I have effectively loaned (or given away?) $5 worth of BTC to the Kraken exchange, with no hope of ever getting it back unless I want to keep playing their little game.
That's what I get for trusting a centralized exchange.
The worst part is that these exchanges KNOW what they are doing.
They KNOW they have minimums and required fees, etc.
They KNOW that 90% of their customers are going to be a "little guy" who just wants to trade a few satoshis.
They even TARGET the little guy, SAYING THEY ARE THE BEST FOR HIM because you can deposit as little as $5!!
However then they leave you high and dry, with no apologies, while they sit on your $5 deposit and laugh, knowing you will likely never come back for it.
When this happens to just one person, it's a mistake... the customer's mistake... they are to blame because they didn't read the fine print... and hey we told them in the fine print!!
The problem is when you know for a fact that a majority if your customers are small time crypto-holders, and therefore you purposefully advertise yourself as small-deposit friendly, yet your policies do the opposite, that's more like purposeful deception, and borderline fraud.
Argue the law all you want.
At the very least it makes you a real piece of crap to do that to your customers.
So, learn from me and not the hard way.
Avoid the centralized exchanges like the plagues they are!
Next on my agenda.... research DEX's.....
Until then, HODL!!!!!