Beware of Ascendex

[vanhalendlrband]

I have two brutal experiences that have cost me money on this site

1. I had a 10x margin i only used half the leverage on so 5x essentially right? They give me a trading bonus which i thought was great. Until i tried to use it. It somehow made my leverage equal to a 100x and there was no use trying to explain it to these guys most likely they already knew their bonus was garbage. Simple math with a calculator could show them how far above a 10x leverage it was (if i used the full leverage even which again i used only half of the 10x) but was no use, money lost. They said to me "you ever futures trade before" i said "yes for many years, get a calculator out and do the math"

2. I then open a new trade figuring ok its the bonus. Well i'm trading zcash on there on futures as it has decent volume on there. I'm nowhere near my liquidation price, not even close enough where you could go oh its the estimate, i was at 40,73 my est liq price was 40.13 not great but not terrible considering my avg price was at 42.20, 40.73 is far enough off 40.13 that i should not have been liquidated in any way. I've futures traded for many years and it might sometimes go a couple cents above the estimate but not that far off.

Probably a glitch in the system but couldnt get them to believe me. I did have a better trade later that seemed to work ok

[sunsilk]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

ascendex.com is not considered a trusted service provider by BrokerChooser based on publicly available regulatory information and the fact that it is not regulated by any top-tier regulatory authority, which might put your money at risk.

[Darker45]

I wonder how they resolved your second concern. What's their excuse? It seems obvious your position got liquidated at the wrong price.

But this might not be surprising with the exchange mentioned. It has a really bad reputation. I wonder how you ended up with this unknown scammer.

It's all about rants when I searched for feedbacks on the platform. The latest 10 reviews from Trustpilot are one-star reviews. There's even an initiative of one of the victims who filed formal complaints against the exchange to share similar stories and coordinate efforts against the exchange via Telegram. Perhaps you might want to share yours at @ascendexx considering that you took effort to warn users here despite your largely inactive account.

[coupable]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

I still can't figure out how op or any other user may end up with such an unknown service, then don't hesitate to trust it with their real money although all the ratings and reviews confirm that it's a fraudulent service. Sometimes it blows my mind how some experienced users and longstanding bitcointalk users fall victims for a clear scam service although they know how/where/why to search about any service especially unknown ones.

[joniboini]

I still can't figure out how op or any other user may end up with such an unknown service, then don't hesitate to trust it with their real money although all the ratings and reviews confirm that it's a fraudulent service.

One possible reason is they have limited options, or they already do their research and feel like the risk is acceptable for the money they can use. That being said, we can only ask them directly if we want to know why they chose an obviously risky platform, especially for leverage trading when other exchanges are available.

[avp2306]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

I still can't figure out how op or any other user may end up with such an unknown service, then don't hesitate to trust it with their real money although all the ratings and reviews confirm that it's a fraudulent service. Sometimes it blows my mind how some experienced users and longstanding bitcointalk users fall victims for a clear scam service although they know how/where/why to search about any service especially unknown ones.

That's show low crypto literacy to some individuals and they think that all those platforms they use is legitimate.

Its unfortunate that they learn a hard lesson towards those situation they experience. That's why before using the platform the very first thing they should do is to verify its legitimacy and always check if lots of people knows those platform they are interested to use.

Also I guess rank is not clear indication that they know lot of things. This is the reason on why we see some of them fall from scams like this.

[coupable]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

I still can't figure out how op or any other user may end up with such an unknown service, then don't hesitate to trust it with their real money although all the ratings and reviews confirm that it's a fraudulent service. Sometimes it blows my mind how some experienced users and longstanding bitcointalk users fall victims for a clear scam service although they know how/where/why to search about any service especially unknown ones.

That's show low crypto literacy to some individuals and they think that all those platforms they use is legitimate.

Its unfortunate that they learn a hard lesson towards those situation they experience. That's why before using the platform the very first thing they should do is to verify its legitimacy and always check if lots of people knows those platform they are interested to use.

Also I guess rank is not clear indication that they know lot of things. This is the reason on why we see some of them fall from scams like this.

I don't agree with you regarding forum rank. Forum rank should determine approximately the knowledge level of the member because if someone reach a Hero/Legendary member means that he has at least 1000 activities with at least 1000 contributions and at least 500 merit points. It's not that easy regular to reach that status. Personally when i find a high ranked member falling victim in naive scam schemes, first thought that the account has changed hands somehow by jack or trade.

It doesn't need a high level degree to ask about unknown services for first use. In extreme cases, someone should stick with known services until search the credibility of new ones.

[vanhalendlrband]

Almost every exchange has the same comments

Ive been with poloniex since 2016 and they get all the same types of reviews yet i never had an issue with them

Ascendex is top futures trading for zcash trading the highest liquidity often on that coin so i figured it was safe because pretty much all exchanges have the same types of reviews about them so its impossible to tell often.

They also been around for seven years, i dont see how if nobody could ever withdraw or things like that, it may have been a glitch in their system too and they couldnt see it dont want to be bothered over 200 bucks that they probably think im lying about right

Canada blocked every exchange with zcash perpetuals too except this exchange so i figured my government must know something i didnt by allowing this exchange to operate in Canada but not Binance

[vanhalendlrband]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

ascendex.com is not considered a trusted service provider by BrokerChooser based on publicly available regulatory information and the fact that it is not regulated by any top-tier regulatory authority, which might put your money at risk.

brokerchooser says that about nearly every exchange, ive used poloniex without issue since 2016 and it says its not trusted as well

[vanhalendlrband]

I haven't heard about this exchange before. And despite that many doesn't like the centralized exchanges, it's still best to go for the known ones.

Based on this website below, they're not a trusted service provider and that speaks that after your experience. Others should also be careful about them.

ascendex.com is not considered a trusted service provider by BrokerChooser based on publicly available regulatory information and the fact that it is not regulated by any top-tier regulatory authority, which might put your money at risk.

Binance is not considered a trusted service provider by BrokerChooser based on publicly available regulatory information and the fact that it is not regulated by any top-tier regulatory authority, which might put your money at risk.

[MarynaKobylianska]

Sorry to hear this — both of those situations are frustrating, and the bonus leverage issue in particular is one that catches a lot of experienced traders off guard.
On point 1: this is actually a known trap with exchange-issued trading bonuses. What many platforms don't make obvious is that bonus funds are added to your margin balance, which effectively multiplies your notional exposure without changing your position size. So if you're running 5x on a 10x account and they stack a bonus on top, your effective leverage can jump to 20x, 50x, even 100x depending on the bonus-to-margin ratio. It's not always a glitch — it's often buried in the bonus T&Cs and the support team absolutely knows it. The "you ever futures trade before" response is a deflection, not an answer.
On point 2: unexpected liquidations at prices well above the stated liq price usually come down to one of a few things — funding rate spikes eating into margin, mark price vs last price divergence on thin order books, or the bonus itself being counted as margin that then got clawed back mid-trade. Zcash futures specifically can have spread issues that push mark price away from last price temporarily, and on a leveraged position that gap can be enough to trigger liquidation even when last price looks fine.
The fact that a later trade worked okay suggests it wasn't total platform fraud, more likely a combination of the bonus mechanics and the mark price issue on a low-liquidity pair. Still, not being able to get a straight explanation from support is a red flag in itself.
If you're evaluating where to trade crypto futures going forward, it's worth reading up on how to screen out platforms that use these kinds of bonus structures as gotchas. This guide on how to spot the most common Bitcoin scams covers exactly the kind of shady platform tactics worth watching for.
Stick to platforms where the leverage and margin mechanics are transparent before you deposit.