How brokers are checked and ranked

The first check: can an Australian use it

The first question is whether a resident of Australia can open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. A broker that fails that test is not ranked, however good its platform looks, because a product an Australian cannot practically use is not a product for this audience.

Local funding matters here. PayID and bank transfer are the methods an Australian reader is most likely to use, so a broker's published process for those is read closely, including what it says about withdrawal back to the same source.

What happens when two sources disagree

When two sources disagree, the broker's own legal and product documentation wins for broker facts, and the public index wins for the reference price. A review site, a forum post or a comparison table is treated as a lead to investigate, not as evidence. If FxPro's pages and a regulator's register disagree on licensing, the regulator's register is treated as authoritative and the discrepancy is noted.

The disagreement is recorded rather than smoothed over. If one page says a platform is available and another is silent, we state only what is affirmatively confirmed and describe the rest as depending on your account and entity. We do not average the two, pick the more flattering figure, or fill the gap with a plausible number. A visible gap is more useful to you than a confident guess.

For market data, a difference between the reference index and a broker quote is expected and is not treated as an error. The index is a composite; the broker quote is executable and includes its own pricing. We keep the two separate and label them, so a margin example built on the reference price is never mistaken for a quote you could trade at.

How you can reproduce any number on this site

You can reproduce every calculated figure with a calculator and the inputs stated on the page. For the $385.00 margin example, multiply 0.10 lots by 1 BTC per lot by the reference price of 77000.0 to get 7700.00 USD, then divide by 200. The result is 385.00 USD, and the page states the reference price and the leverage cap next to the figure so the arithmetic is checkable without trusting us.

For pip values, multiply the lot size by 1.0, the pip size for BTC/USD. A 1.00-lot position is 1.00 USD per pip and a 0.10-lot position is 0.10 USD per pip. If you want the figure in A$, apply the conversion rate shown on the page and note that your own rate at the time will differ. The formula is stated in words precisely so you can run it yourself and compare.

For broker facts, open FxPro's own pages and the relevant regulator register on the day you read this, and compare them with the dated statement on the site. If your check disagrees with ours, the date tells you how old our confirmation is. That is the point of publishing the date and the formula together: you are not asked to take the page on faith, you are given the means to test it.

The known limits of this method

The method cannot tell you what a trade will cost. Spreads, commissions and swaps are not published here as numbers, because they vary by account, by market conditions and by the entity you are onboarded to. The calculators show margin and pip movement, which are mechanical, and deliberately stop short of implying a total cost. Treat any cost estimate you build yourself as an estimate, not a quote.

The margin figures assume the leverage cap is the leverage applied. Up to 1:200 is a cap, not a setting to aim at, and a lower leverage setting will require more margin for the same position. The worked $385.00 example is therefore a minimum-margin illustration at the cap, not a prediction of what your account will reserve. Your platform's own margin requirement is the authoritative figure.

The method also cannot verify execution. Slippage, requotes, funding delays through PayID or bank transfer, and platform outages are real and are outside what a published figure can capture. The reference price is an index, not your broker's executable price, so any calculation built on it describes the mechanics of a trade rather than the outcome of one. Trading bitcoin at leverage carries a real risk of loss.

What is deliberately not published and why

Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are deliberately not published as numbers. They vary by account type, by entity and by market conditions, and a single figure would be wrong for most readers most of the time. Instead, the site says what each cost consists of and what it depends on, so you can ask the broker the right question rather than anchor on a number that may not apply to you.

Leverage ratios other than the 1:200 cap are not published, and the cap is labelled as a cap rather than a target. Publishing a menu of ratios would imply that higher leverage is a feature to select, when in practice it raises the margin call risk on a volatile instrument like bitcoin. The single cap figure is enough to run the margin arithmetic without turning the page into a leverage menu.

Bonus and promotion details are not published, and neither are performance claims or return figures. Promotions change without notice and often carry conditions that are not visible in a headline, and return claims on a high-risk instrument would be misleading. The omission is intentional: the page is a toolkit for understanding mechanics, not a marketing surface, and the absence of those numbers is part of the method.

The formula behind each calculator, written out in words

The margin calculator divides the position's notional value by the leverage cap. Notional value is the number of lots multiplied by 1 BTC per lot and then by the bitcoin price in USD. At a reference price of 77000.0, a 0.10-lot position is worth 7700.00 USD; divided by 200, that gives 385.00 USD of margin, which is the figure quoted on the site. The calculator does not add a buffer or a spread to that result.

The pip value calculator multiplies the number of lots by the pip size and by the price. For BTC/USD, one pip is 1.0, so a 1.00-lot position moves 1.00 USD per pip and a 0.10-lot position moves 0.10 USD per pip. The result is in USD and is converted to A$ only for display, using a rate that is stated alongside the output so you can see the conversion rather than infer it.

The position size calculator works backwards from the risk you enter. It takes your account balance in A$, multiplies by the risk percentage you choose, and divides by the distance in pips between your entry and your stop. That gives a lot size, which is then checked against the margin the position would require at the leverage cap. If the margin exceeds your available funds, the calculator flags it rather than quietly returning an oversized trade.

Where the numbers come from

Figures are taken from the broker's own documents, and each figure carries the date it was read. The regulator position is quoted as the broker states it, including the fact that FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC and does not hold an ASIC licence, so Australian residents deal with an offshore entity.

Leverage is recorded as a cap, not a target. At 1:200, a 0.10-lot bitcoin position needs about $385.00 margin, and that figure is shown as an illustration of the cap rather than a suggestion of how much to use.

Why the live price can differ from a broker quote

The live price on this site is a public index, while a broker quote is the price at which that broker will execute for your account. They differ because they are different things: the index aggregates venues, and the broker quote reflects its own liquidity, its markup and the moment you click. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions, and the gap between them is normal rather than a fault.

The gap widens when the market is fast. Around news, at weekends for bitcoin, or during thin liquidity, the index and the executable quote can separate meaningfully, and a stop can fill away from the level you calculated. That is why the pip-value and position-size calculators describe mechanics and not outcomes. The number you see is a reference for the arithmetic, not a promise of the fill.

Currency adds a second layer for Australian readers. The instrument is quoted in USD, your account may be funded in A$, and the conversion rate at the time of the trade affects your result independently of the bitcoin price. The site states the conversion rate it uses for display so you can see the assumption, but your broker's rate at execution is the one that counts.

What updates automatically and what a person checks

The bitcoin reference price refreshes automatically from its public index feed, and the timestamp next to it shows when the last update landed. That is the only figure on the page that changes without human involvement. Everything derived from it, such as the worked margin example, is recalculated from the refreshed price so the arithmetic stays consistent with the number on screen.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. Leverage caps, platform availability, entity details and the ASIC caveat are checked against FxPro's published pages on a scheduled basis and whenever we are alerted to a change. They are not scraped, because a scraped page can capture a stale cache or a regional variant that does not apply to Australian readers. Each fact carries the date it was last confirmed.

Funding method names and instrument specifications are also manual checks. PayID and bank transfer are confirmed against the broker's Australian payment information, and the 1 BTC lot size and 1.0 pip value are confirmed against the contract specification. If a manual check cannot be completed, the fact is marked as unconfirmed rather than left standing as if it were current.

How a broker fact is dated and re-checked

Every broker fact carries the date it was last confirmed against FxPro's own pages. The date is the day of the check, not the day the page was written, so a fact that has not been re-confirmed recently is visibly older. When you see a date, it means a person opened the broker's documentation on that day and matched the statement to what is published here.

Re-checks run on a schedule and are triggered early by signals. A scheduled review covers leverage, platforms, entity and regulator status. An early review is triggered if the broker announces a change, if a reader reports a discrepancy, or if a regulator publishes something that affects the Australian caveat. The ASIC position in particular is re-checked whenever FxPro's licensing disclosures are updated.

If a re-check cannot confirm a fact, the fact is downgraded rather than left as it was. That means removing the specific claim and replacing it with a description of what it depends on, or marking it unconfirmed until the next check. We would rather show you a gap than a stale number, because a stale leverage cap or entity detail can lead you to fund an account on a false assumption.

The limits of the testing

The desk tests with published documents and its own reading, not with a funded live account at every broker. That means execution quality, slippage in fast markets and the lived speed of a withdrawal are described only in terms of what the broker says and what the process requires.

Where a fact could not be confirmed, the page says so rather than filling the gap with a number. Costs are described by what they consist of and what they depend on, because a spread or commission without a quoted figure cannot be called low or high honestly.

Where each class of figure on this site comes from

Broker-specific figures come from FxPro's own published documentation, not from third-party review sites. Leverage, platform list and entity details are taken from the broker's legal and product pages and recorded with the date we read them. The Australian caveat about FxPro UK Limited and the missing ASIC licence is quoted from the regulator and broker disclosures, so you can trace it back to the source rather than to our summary.

Market figures such as the bitcoin reference price near 77000.0 are sourced from a public spot index and used only to illustrate how a calculation works. They are not a live quote and are not presented as one. The 1 BTC contract size and the 1.0 pip value are instrument specifications, so they are fixed facts rather than observations, and they do not change with the market.

Funding method details, PayID and bank transfer, are listed because they appear in the broker's Australian-facing payment information. We do not attach amounts, processing times or fees to them, because those depend on your bank and on the broker's current schedule. Any dollar figure you see in an example, such as the $385.00 margin on a 0.10-lot position at 1:200, is arithmetic from the stated inputs, not a quoted cost.