Paying trading fees with BSQ

This short guide will show you how to use BSQ to pay lower trading fees. Using BSQ also compensates Bisq contributors, making the Bisq network a sustainable free and open source software project.

Bisq’s token is a bit different from most other exchange tokens: its primary reason to exist is to enable the decentralized operation and management of the Bisq network. That means no central wallets or accounts to accumulate funds, and no legal entity or leadership team to control strategy. See more details in this doc or in these videos.

For you, as a trader, discounted trading fees are a practical result of this approach: the mechanisms above require that trading fees be paid in BSQ, so the software encourages traders to pay fees with BSQ by making them cheaper than plain BTC fees.

Let’s see how to take advantage of this.

Acquire BSQ

Although BSQ is technically bitcoin, it’s colored bitcoin that must be kept in a Bisq wallet, separate from plain bitcoin.

To help you do this, and to avoid mistakes, Bisq automatically generates a separate BSQ wallet for you with its own address prefixed with a 'B'—so you can be sure when you’re sending or receiving from a BSQ address.

Retreive your BSQ address

You can find your BSQ wallet address in DAO > BSQ wallet > Receive.

Create BSQ payment account

To trade BSQ on Bisq, you need to set up an altcoin account using your BSQ address.

What is instant trading? For altcoins, Bisq offers instant trading, which shortens the trade period to a maximum of 1 hour. Everything else about instant trades is the same as non-instant trades. Instant offers are marked as Altcoins Instant in the order book, and you can only accept those offers with an instant altcoins account. Non-instant payment accounts can only be used for non-instant offers.

We’re going to leave that box unchecked and make this one a regular non-instant account.

Make or take a BSQ offer

Now that you have a BSQ payment account configured, you can trade BSQ.

Simply pick an offer you like (or make an offer of your own) and complete the trade.

Use BSQ to pay trading fees

Once you’ve got some BSQ, you can use it to pay trading fees.

When you get to the Take offer screen where you confirm the trade amount, you’ll see a toggle for trading fees where you can select between BTC and BSQ trading fees.

Pick the option you like better and complete the trade!

Using BSQ to pay for your trading fees is cheaper then regular Bitcoin and it also helps pay contributors for their work! Bisq encourages traders to use BSQ by offering a discount of approximately 50%!

Beyond trading fees

BSQ is also a core element of Bisq’s governance mechanism, allowing stakeholders like you to have a hand in crafting the strategy of the project through a voting process.

You can learn more about it in this intro doc and these videos.

We’ve also written a companion guide that walks you through a DAO voting process.

Get help and stay in touch

If you get stuck, reach out! There’s a community of people to help you on Keybase, the Bisq forum, and the /r/bisq subreddit.

You can get news and updates about Bisq via Twitter and YouTube.

And if you really like Bisq, consider contributing! Even if you’re not a developer, there’s much you can do.