Heads up: Beware the 1broker Shills
Lately I've noticed extensive shilling on various websites I visit of a company called 1broker, mostly aimed at crypto enthusiasts who don't have a strong knowledge of brokers for forex and other markets. These posts apparently aim to take advantage of people who will 'invest' their bitcoins in order to gain referral bonuses. It worries me because there are a lot of red flags with this 1broker, and I think it's very important to be aware of them before trusting them with your money.
There are a lot of dodgy brokers for various markets out there, particularly with forex and CFDs. The two biggest things to avoid are:
-Unregulated brokers
-Bucketshops
1broker is both of these things. They are not regulated by any authority, and may take your money for themselves under any pretext they choose, nobody will really care. They make no attempt to even give the semblance of a reputable broker.
They are also a bucketshop. This means that you do not actually trade anything with this 'broker', you are purely betting on price movements through them. They have no liquidity providers, you just 'trade' in their pocket. Other brokers with far less red flags than this one have operated for years and then disappeared with all their customer's money. Most serious traders wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.
1broker is typically promoted with the point of 'you can copy the trades of better traders and make profits without doing anything yourself!' That's great, but there are many other brokers who offer direct copying of other traders, or you can even use automated signal providers for free to copy traders on your own, who may not even be using the same broker as you. If you want to copy actual good traders, there are a lot better options than 1broker out there.
Literally the only thing 1broker has going for it is that you can deposit and withdraw in bitcoins. Their trading platform is named 1gox, do you really want to trust them with your precious bitcoins?
If you want to copy trade, I strongly recommend choosing a regulated broker that isn't just a bucketshop.
Thank you for the alert! I know 1broker and I have been trading with it when they started to make changes 'on the fly' (for example they limited Bitcoin positions against USD when Bitcoin started rocketing)
Do you still feel the same way about 1broker?
If so, what are the other sites you referenced? I really like that I can deposit and withdraw bitcoin. Are there any sites which allow that?
For the record, I deposited about $200 in bitcoin on the first of July, then withdrew (about $300) around the first of August and there was no problem at all.