When I began trading on exchanges, I would instantly transfer all my funds back to my noncustodial wallet after closing a position. But as I started using more exchanges, I spread my trading capital across five different platforms. Now, I actively trade on three of them while keeping the other two for long-term holds. These days, I don’t move about 30% of my trading funds back to my noncustodial wallet like I used to.
What about you? What kind of derivative trader are you? Do you send all your money back to a noncustodial wallet, keep everything on the exchange, or only transfer it when you close a position?
And how do you manage your funds? Do you keep all your trading money on exchanges or just a fraction? For example, if I have $500 and want to trade Bitcoin at 1x, I might choose to put in $100 and go for 5x leverage instead. It's a smart move to use leverage without being greedy.
For short-term trading, I keep the same balance on the stock exchange, and I withdraw the profit received as a result of trading to a non-custodial wallet about once a month. If trading has made a loss during the month, I replenish the deposit on the exchange to its original size.
I normally leave my trading funds on exchange when trading futures since I frequently watch the price to enter immediately once theres an opportunity such as big drop in price.
I have separate funds for holding while my trading funds is an amount that I can afford to lose in an event that exchange closed.
I have low trading funds amount which is why I dont bother leaving my coins on exchange long term.
I agree with @tvplus006, this approach is successful because it maintains asset security in equilibrium with flexibility needed in trading. With the fixed sum of money kept on the exchange as "working capital" and transferring only the surplus to a personal wallet, you reduce the risk of losing all of your funds due to other factors. At the same time, having a stable balance is easier to gauge performance without getting sidetracked by the constant inflows or withdrawals. This is an effective and self-controlled approach, especially if one's main purpose is account longevity and not to generate huge profits.
I put money into an exchange, but it's a very small amount so that if something goes wrong with the exchange, I won't suffer a major loss because it's money I can afford to lose. I also think having to constantly withdraw money from the exchange after closing a position would be quite detrimental, as there are withdrawal fees, which are quite high for the exchange I'm trading with.
Perhaps it can be managed by withdrawing all funds when wanting to take a break because it is impossible for traders to trade nonstop without a break for example one day or two days.
If the withdrawal fee is cheap enough, your practice is very good as your fund in the meantime of no trading, will be safe in your non custodial wallet. You must know which blockchains and which days and hours are best for fund movements from exchange to your wallet and from your wallet to an exchange too.
Keeping fund always on centralized exchanges is very risky and for fund control and safety, it's never recommended to store your fund on CEX. It costs you more money for on chain transactions (in deposits) and withdrawal fees but to control your coins and fund safely, it's recommended practice.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.
It's hectic and hard to move funds back and forth while scalp trading or day trading, so I tend to keep the portion of funds I use for trading in an exchange. Maybe withdraw the profits once in a while, but the rest of the funds stay outside the exchange. I am one person who does not adjust my position size after a margin call because stop-loss takes care of that why before I even get to that point.
I don't withdraw or move my funds immediately to a non-custodial wallet after closing a position. I'm going to wait for the next opportunity unless you are doing spot trading because it needs a longer-term holding than trading on futures.
I just put in a small amount of funds and use the leverage, usually around 10x to 50x, depending on the tick size price.
We know it isn't safe to hold many funds on the exchanges; that's why if you are in profit, gradually move some assets from the exchange to your non-custodial wallet for safety. Only add more on the exchange if your capital isn't enough to take a position.
That totally makes sense if the withdrawal fees are low enough, then keeping your funds in your own wallet when you're not actively trading really helps with security.
one of the major rules in trading is to always seat in stables, because you will always needs it urgently, so seating in stable coin is very important for your ability to react fast when spotting an opportunity.
What I normally does is that it for example now that I fund my exchange account with $100, once I trade with that money and it rose to the least $130, I will transfer the $30 or anything more that I made a more secured wallet than leaving everything in the exchange, though am not a big fan of splitting my funds across exchange because I normally sees them as a threat to my money, but as an active trader, it's more advisable to always seat in a stable coin in your exchange account so that you will easily take an opportunity once it comes, than wasting time trying to transfer money from your wallet to your exchange anytime you spot an opportunity.
I just have small percentage of my money in exchange, the one I used for trading. I find moving back and forth to non-custodial wallet from exchange to be pain in the ass so I don't really do that. Since with derivative we can use leverage, I only used small portion of money, the one I can afford to lose so I don't really think much about it.
If I bought from spot in huge amount, I'd definitely move it to non custodial. For example if I bought ETH, i'd move it to my own wallet and do restaking.
Despite that it is risky leaving fund on CEX but to transfer and redeposit fund daily is cumbersome. I would rather transfer just trading amount that is quite minimal to what I want to trade and try to do with that for the time being. If I make profit after two weeks or a month then I will withdraw and leave the capital in the exchange. If we transfer and deposit daily, it is stressful and charges too should be taken into consideration.
I usually only withdraw my assets from centralized exchanges when I have a busy schedule that prevents me from monitoring the market for a few days. I then send them back to the exchange when I need to trade again. After closing all positions, I always immediately transfer my assets back to my personal wallet. I don't want to take the risk of leaving them on an exchange. We never know what will happen to the exchange where we trade.
I prefer to remain cautious, even if an exchange seems fine and relatively safe. However, I've learned from what happened to FTX, and it can happen to other exchanges without warning.
I think this will depend on how much the trading fund is and how much profit was accrued, it will also depend on the trader. If the funds is large, prolly after making profit, and the trader cannot afford to lose it all, then they should consider moving a portion of it into their non-custodial wallet and leave enough to open another position.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer. There are many big traders who leave thousands of dollars in the exchange, but if you are not such, try as much as possible to minimize your risk at all times.
Personally, i prefer to keep my trading funds on the exchange, because it would be complicated to transfer the balance to a non-custodial wallet after trading, then transfer it back to the exchange when i want to trade again, this would waste more time and money on transfer fees. However, my strategy is to keep funds in a non-custodial wallet, but only the profits earned from trading on the exchange. The capital balance remains there, and i do this at specific intervals, such as once a week or when i make a large profit. It all comes back to each person's strategy and preferences, some may focus on asset security and prefer to transfer funds immediately after trading, which is fine.
I have most of my Bitcoins in my self-custody wallet. I have some money on exchanges, which I do not withdraw, I leave them there because I often trade to profit a few bucks, like $50 here and there. I do not really day trade, I only do it few times a month to pay for my small expenses, so I always have some money on exchange. Btw as I've said many times, I am a long-term holder and trader. I trade only 1-2 times a year with my capital and that's when I deposit some money on an exchange, convert Bitcoins to usd, wait for the price fall where I have to leave funds for one, two or three months, then I buy Bitcoins back and then I withdraw Bitcoins to my wallet. I never deposit 100% of my capital from my self-custody wallet because I'm always afraid of exchange freezing my money for no reason as I've heard many horror stories.
I don't transfer my trading funds to noncustodial wallet, I just leave it there because I use a cross margin and not isolated margin, I do use two exchanges for my derivative trading and both has the fund I use in them, I don't withdraw money from the account unless I want to spend it and one reason too why I don't do that is because I am not using isolated margin while trade. I like to hold my position longer if the market is not going as planned, so, if I have large balance and I took the trade with just 10% of my total balance, the remaining amount makes it possible for my liquidation price to be far.
Been a derivative trader but mostly I tend to stick on one exchange but most of the time it always stay on the exchange. Yeah, not advisable but I want it more liquid and don't want to make some hassle whenever I try to withdraw it personally and besides that I always tend to change my security especially passwords and verification methods frequently.
It wasn't in one basket of course, I try to diversify it. I think that depends on your risk tolerance or whatever you're comfortable with when it comes to leverage as long as TP and SL are in place. You should always know your R/R ratio.
Whatever amount of money that I assigned to trading is an amount of money that I can afford to lose. To make my trading funds more secured, I split it into three exchanges and I don't withdraw them at all to my noncustodial wallet after trading because it will be like too much stress to me and I might not have easy access to my funds when I need to open a position instantly.
All three exchanges cannot shut down at once. Not really a good a good practice to be sending funds to exchange from a noncustodial wallet only if you're using a single address that is seperated for this.
I remember the last time i made good profits on derivative market, a memecoin gave me an unexpected pump upto $1,000 in profits, immediately i close the position, i moved the money to my funding wallet and then exchange the money into fiat through p2p.
Sure i always withdraw my profits any time i close position on a profits note, so trader's must learn how to avoid too much bankroll since it can trigger your greed to open more positions that may not end well for you after all.