CoinFLEX Launches BracketWars Trading Competition

CoinFLEX, the first physically-delivered Bitcoin futures exchange, has officially launched its competition platform, called BracketWars. The competition features a trading order type called “brackets” catering towards scalp traders.

The news comes on the heels of CoinFLEX’s revamp of its maker/taker program, FLEXMaker, which blends staking of the FLEX token into the exchange’s low-fee DMM model.

It’s quickly becoming evident that institutional interest and large trader aspirations are to settle on favored exchanges. However, the fragmented and budding market for crypto derivatives has many large players exploring relationships with different exchanges currently. And it appears, at least in the U.S., likely to continue until more a defined regulatory environment crystallizes.

Asia appears poised to become the pioneer of the new fintech age as exchanges tinker with new features, fee systems, and incentive designs to accrue liquidity – an appealing development to Seychelles-based CoinFLEX.

Parallel to the looming “Blockchain Wars,” detailed by Gavin Wood, there is a race to capture the most value in a derivatives market. Even if crypto derivatives absorb a tiny fraction of legacy financial derivatives (low-end $544 trillion), the market opportunity is enormous. The question subsequently becomes:

Will venues consolidate into a few major players or will a more fragmented market emerge?

Right now, the picture of the market is incomplete. But early competition, paired with booming volumes, is driving some fascinating innovation in crypto derivatives products – an area where CoinFLEX believes they have a decisive advantage.

Understanding Bracket Orders – A New Trading Tool

CoinFLEX recently announced a hybrid manual/automated form of scalping orders called bracket orders for its trading interface. Users can wield bracket orders to target specific profit margins between resting bids and asks on CoinFLEX’s orderbook.

Traders can consolidate bracket orders higher in the book to take on more risk or spray the book with lower bids, all depending on their risk tolerance and trading strategies – specifically scalp traders. Akin to algorithmic scalp trading, CoinFLEX’s bracket orders have a slightly more manual approach. The same high-frequency buy/sell concept applies, just with a more controlled approach whose design hinges on an explicit way to mitigate risk on the part of individual traders.

“It’s like powering up while playing Super Mario Brothers,” details Kenny Clutch in the introductory YouTube video of the new bracket order features.

The Bracket Order Competition (i.e., BracketWars) will encompass a 100k USDT prize pool for users to learn the ropes of the new trading tool. There are two levels of initial collateral to join the competition, and the top 20 traders by volume will be rewarded from the pool.

Critically, bots and algos cannot game the system to win the competition since bracket orders entail manual selection on the trader’s part. Such a compromise between algo scalping and manual trade execution is also widely appealing to retail traders.

The Asian market for retail interest in crypto is enormous. The rollout of CoinFLEX’s bracket orders, along with a slew of other products, is conducive to the type of interface and functionality more approachable by retail traders that don’t want to indulge in high leverage swing trades on crypto futures contracts.

CoinFLEX’s smooth UI is already popular among traders too since it is based on legacy trading giant Trading Technologies’ suite of tools. The low maker/taker fee model fused with FLEX token staking also attracts interest from market makers and prop shops.

Considering that major financial institutions and professional scalpers in traditional markets like commodities are intimately aware of Trading Technologies’ suite of tools, CoinFLEX’s interface – now with bracket orders – is a compelling product. Recent stumbles by crypto derivatives leader BitMEX, including an email leak and persistent trading engine woes, only serve to help CoinFLEX’s case in the Asian market too.

Throw in a highly appealing trading competition with a dash of nuance and you get BracketWars. CoinFLEX even plans on rolling out some new trading competitions parallel with more interface upgrades, trading tools, and incentive releases.

Amid multiple exchanges jostling for superiority in the budding crypto derivatives market, CoinFLEX provides a unique take on many of the vanilla trading competition models offered by other exchanges.

It’s hard to be unique in the crypto market, where everyone is striving to disrupt conventional finance, but CoinFLEX is exhibiting an affinity for distinction.