Thoughts on trading crypto with no fees?

I’ve been seeing a bunch of exchanges advertising "0% trading fees" recently. As far as I get it, this basically means you don’t have to pay the usual maker or taker fees on some spot pairs. So, no direct commissions on trades, which is pretty awesome, especially if you’re trading a lot. Platforms like MEXC are already doing this for certain pairs. But let’s be real, it’s not totally free. You still have to deal with: - spread - slippage - and funding rates if you're in futures. So yeah, the costs are still there, just not as obvious as a trading fee. That said, getting rid of those fees can really make a difference. If you’re trading frequently or scalping, those little percentages can definitely add up. I’m just curious do you think zero-fee trading can actually last, or is it just a tactic to attract users? Also, has anyone compared execution quality between zero-fee pairs and regular ones?

Honestly you are right with that. They actually just called it free and zero trading but thats probably just a marketing. Ofcourse that will sound sweet with the users and traders. But behind it those details are entails the spread of tokens and other information like you mentioned. But those are actually negligence when you make a good trade. I never look on fees when Im on gain considering that as part of it.

I hope that you made this thread for education, but not for advertisement of MEXC exchange. About these drawbacks you mentioned, they're right and I agree with you too. Exchanges can sometimes give "zero-trading" fee offers for users when they were new exchanges and need to make noise to get users, or when they see that it's good time of cryptocurrency market to waive trading fees in order to increase trading activities of users on their exchanges. Such offers won't last for too long but users must be more careful and cautious if these offers are from new exchanges. It can be honeypot for new exchanges to get users, get money from user deposits, then make their scam exits. In addition, there are drawbacks you already mentioned. Generally, there are many exchanges to choose by filtering their Taker, Maker, Withdrawal fees. https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchanges/

Funding rate is not charged by the exchange to enrich themselves, it is given to traders. What fee are you referring to with spread and slippage? Zero trading fee is possible on exchanges but it is for marketing and it will not last for long. If dome exchanges have zero trading fee for few pairs, that may last longer but we do not know the deal between the exchange and those that created the coin. The exchange might be making money from those that created the coin.

Good to have but not really the thing that will make me stick with that exchange. The funding rate and the fee doesn't really mean much if the market is illiquid and occasionally have some anomalous chart to liquidate people. Exactly why i'm still using the best most liquid exchange there is. The fee means nothing if I can keep winning and make some profit.

There's nothing like zero trading fees because those trading apps only use such deceitful adverts to attract users who only realised the charges afterwards. At that stage, a user sees the charges as insignificant and goes on to use their services. Real zero fee trading will be a good idea. Little deductions make huge money for the developer and if same is allowed for traders, they will also make a huge amount someday.

It makes an effective promo for the exchanges and helps some traders increase their profits. Zero fee can temporarily stabilize markets since day traders place more orders on both sides of the market, close to the current price. This effect can suddenly turn into extra volatility when the market breaks out of the tight range and traders rush to close out the losing side of their scalp trades.

It's a way to attract more volume to them and that's why they're using it as a way to have more traders in the market on their exchange. It's not only on that particular exchange you've mentioned but also on the other exchanges too. We can't ask all the nice things and they will have no benefit of what we're asking. So, having a zero trading fee is already nice when you're just a casual trader and you'll wait again for a longer time to trade again. While these fees aren't going to take all of your money and they're just a very tiny portion of what you potentially earned.

Zero fee is good but you must also be observant not to be lured to a fake exchange because of zero fee offer. I was trading futures option one exchange that I just registered on recently, actually I specifically registered on that exchange because of the p2p trade I wanted to do there which made me deposit a huge amount of USDT, after some weeks later I just decided to open the app because it was still on my phone and I saw they gave me some bonus for future trading alone and the bonus was to expire in 5 days time. I used the bonus and took a couple of trade which I won all but their fee for each trade I took was about $0.45 dollars, it might seem small but other exchange I have used has a lower fee compare to them.

If the majority of traders continue to view it as a good offer, it will be sustainable. Exchanges also monetize their business beyond trading fees; they can charge you more through other features. Otherwise, their profit margins won't even cover operational costs. Perhaps the OP means that the exchange sets price spreads wider than the actual market price. Let's say... Actual Market Price|0 Fees PriceAsk1.00|1.04Bid0.99|0.95

Zero trading fees is possible because there are other ways the exchanges make profits to be able to run their business. Like you mentioned, spread, slippage, and other minor fees are used to cover the fees and while they apply the zero trading fees, they attract many new customers who they charge spread and the other minor fees to cover the gap and everyone will feel a win-win situation. In addition to low or no trading fees, I like platforms that offers raw spread too because they allow me set my stop loss and take profit better.

Its preferable for me especially if they charge no trading fee for taker. Once you traded above $2k in one go as a taker, its not a good feeling to see the money we received isn't as expected even if its just few dollars off. Do multiple trading and the fee really become a pain.

Of course there's always a catch to those kinds of events and this isn't different from what the usual exchanges are doing. Marketing strategy. This is how I see it, and ever since, I don't see it as a 0-fee. I've been trading on MEXC as well for quite some time, and I would say that I've saved hundreds of dollars on trading fees because of this event. Is it sustainable? Well they've been doing it for a long time where some pairs have 0 fees, so I guess it is... for a long time, but it will not be forever. It's more of attracting new customers is what I believe the main reason why they did this. If you're a scalper or even a day trader, this is a big help. Also, XAUT and XAG have 0-fees right now, and it has high volume as well so it's very helpful for those scalpers out there. Of course, there's the risk of losing money, but nevertheless, these events by MEXC is very helpful to traders out there that often trades more than 2 times per day.

They don't make money off the pairs if they don't have fees on them, so what I think is happening is that the exchange places their own orders on one side of the book, which if they go well (and they should because they of all entities should have all the access to market informstion), their "profits" come from your lost trades.

If reputable exchange are applying this zero fee then it is a good innovation and also another best marketing strategy for most of the exchange as it would attract more users and traders to their exchange. Although, if this is coming a reputable exchange then it will be fine but, for those newly launched trading platform then I have to advise you to be that mindful not to get lured into scam exchange so quickly as this could be another strategy to attract traders to their exchange.

Spread is not something the exchange makes money from, slippage is not, it's transaction fee basically, basically what you are saying is that trading fee is gone and exchange has no way to make money. I ma sure they will figure out a way to make money, not sure how, but they will and you will not like it better, it's good to have trading fee because at least then we know what we are getting into and what we are paying for it. If you are seeing something that is "free" for you to use, realize that you are the product, not the customer. Because if they are not making money from you, but you do use them, then they have to make money off you somehow, and that is why avoid places that are not clear ways of making money off you for using their product.

They change the trading fees with others so we will still pay But if they really do this, that will be something that traders like. Besides that, who doesn't want to have a "free" cost of trading? That is just marketing to attract more traders and if the trading fees are reasonable for me, I don't mind trading on that exchange. So far Binance, Bitget, Bybit, and MEXC are good for me.

Zero fee trading sounds good but there's always going to be a catch in offering zero crypto fees and personally I will stay away from such type of platforms that offer zero fee crypto trading because who knows in the end the ones who're avoiding fees may have to pay the platforms with their funds getting stolen or something else. I know the platform that OP mentioned is a good one but I would try to avoid such platforms that are allowing zero crypto trading fees because for me it's not possible for a platform to allow trading without any fees.

As long as they do business with customers, they are clearly profiting from their money. They have found various ways to almost completely conceal trading fees, exploiting price differences, execution timing, and even employing order bots. Centralized exchanges have always had an advantage because they don't have to be transparent in every aspect.

You've answered it yourself here. I've traded on several crypto exchanges and I haven't found an exchange that offers 0 fees which is bullshit. Even though they say specifically for certain types of crypto it is possible to trade without fees, but they will direct us to types of crypto that are not popular because of the losses that occur to us, of course they don't need any more fees, our losses are enough to cover their costs.