How to Trade PKT

How to Safely Trade PKT

Credit: Adonis Gaitatzis

The process of trading crypto is inherently risky. Everyone involved is vulnerable to scammers, hackers, and mistakes. Payments are sent to anonymous people over the Internet and cannot be retracted after being sent. Accounts can be hacked. Addresses can be mistyped.

The following is a procedure for trading PKT, designed to reduce risks associated with trading. Following this procedure cannot eliminate all risks, but will hopefully make trading as safe as possible

Finding and Negotiating a Trade

There are several resources available for finding trading partners and negotiating the price of PKT.

Step 1: Find a Trading Partner

To trade in the community, the best thing to do is to post your intent to buy or sell PKT in the Telegram PKT Trade Bot.

Using the Trade Bot

This bot allows you to post an intent to trade and records the price for a fixed period of time so others can view offers at any time.

To use, open the PKT Trade Bot in Telegram and type /help into the text input for instructions on its use. Typing /buys or /sells will display an order book that includes the quantity of PKT being bought or sold, the price it’s being traded at, and the Telegram username of the buyer or seller. Click on the username to initiate a chat with that user.

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Using the Trading Group

If you are using the PKT Cash Trading Group, there are many people who post the quantity of PKT and the price is USD they are interested in selling at.  These posts typically come in the form of:

Intent to sell: WTS [email protected], meaning “I want to sell 10,000 PKT for about $0.02 each”

Intent to buy: WTB [email protected], meaning “I want to buy 10,000 PKT for about $0.02 each”

You can click on the username of that chat to initiate a chat with that user.

PayPal generously maintains a PKT price ticker on their website, which uses information from the PKT Trade Bot to estimate the current market price of PKT in USD, and certain members of the community donate their time and other resources to moderate the community and try to reduce the occurrence of scammers. They do the best with the resources they have, but such work is never perfect or complete. If you encounter a scammer, please alert a moderator as soon as possible about the details of the scam so that it can be addressed.

If you can, try to trade with someone you trust or someone who can be vouched for by someone you trust. It won’t guarantee that the person is trustworthy, but it reduces the risk.

Risks at this step:

  • Meeting a scammer
  • Being misinformed about the current price of PKT
  • Possibly other risks

Step 2: Negotiate a Trade

Once you’ve found a trade you like and a partner to trade with, you can begin negotiating a trade.

What to provide

The basic process is to decide on these three points:

  • A quantity of PKT
  • A per-unit price for PKT (and the total trade price)
  • An escrow to use
  • When the deal should expire if an agreement is not reached or the trade has not been executed

At this stage, it’s important to remember that the person you are trading with maybe a stranger or may not be trustworthy. It is important to select an escrow for the deal to reduce the risk of theft since one person must send their crypto before the other does, leaving one party vulnerable to theft.

How to Verify the Price

Be sure to do your own calculation of the trade to make sure it is a price you want to pay.

These formulas may be useful for quickly checking your trade details:

Total Price               = Quantity PKT x Per Unit PKT Price

Per Unit PKT Price = Total Price / Quantity PKT

Quantity PKT           = Total Price / Per Unit PKT Price

Things to Avoid

Trade only what you can afford to lose

Be sure to only buy what you can afford to lose. This principle, known as the “Principle of Expect No Return,” is a good principle to follow for any investment. There are no guarantees that you won’t lose all your PKT, your crypto, or that the value of one or the other won’t plummet overnight. 

The happiest scenario is that you trade only what you are comfortable to have lost and the price goes up. The worst-case scenario is that you lose the money and the PKT by getting hacked, losing your wallet password, or sending it to the wrong address.

Don’t feel pressured to buy more or pay more

Don’t let someone tell you that the price will go up to encourage you to buy more or to overpay.  Better to miss a good deal than to take a bad one.

Try to always use the same app and currency

It is best to use the same currency and the same app for each trade. This makes it so that you are familiar with the process involved in trading. Using a new app or a new currency makes you more prone to making mistakes either from UI changes or currency conversion calculations or accidentally copying the wrong address or revealing sensitive information. If you use USDC, try to always use USDC, try not to use Litecoin on Edge today, ETH on Coinbase tomorrow, and Safemoon on MetaMask in the next week.

Don’t share sensitive information

Don’t ever share your wallet seed, password, IP address, OS version, screen share, passport number, social security/identity number, or any other sensitive information that could be used to steal, harm, or blackmail you. If you are being asked to share something you’ve never shared before, it’s ok to ask, “Why do you need that?” and to say “Let me think about that” when they respond, to give yourself time to think or ask questions in the PKT Cash Trading Group or to someone you trust.

Risks at this step:

  • Being manipulated into believing the price will move in a certain direction
  • Being misinformed about the price of PKT or the value of the deal.
  • Buying more than you are comfortable with
  • Being lied to about the nature of a trade
  • Revealing sensitive or compromising information about yourself
  • Possibly other risks

Executing a Trade

Step 3: Contact an Escrow

An escrow exists to reduce the risk of theft by a dubious buyer or seller during a trade. The escrow holds the seller’s PKT in their own wallet until the buyer pays the seller. 

It is important to know that the term “escrow” here is used to make the process familiar to people. Community escrows act as trusted trading partners, not as legal entities.

What to Provide

You will need to contact an escrow through private chat and invite them to facilitate a trade. You must provide to them:

  • The username of the buyer and seller
  • The quantity of PKT being traded
  • The total price of the trade

If they agree, they should create a group chat for them, the buyer, and the seller.

Sometimes escrows are unavailable due to schedule conflicts. Escrows typically have a day job and may have a family or live overseas. Escrowing is not a full-time job. They earn money for their time but they do it to support the community, and they do it at tremendous risk to themselves.

How Escrows are Verified

Escrows are vetted using an independent service called verif-y where they submit sensitive identifying information to a service that cross-checks their identification documents with government services and the public record. This guarantees that they are real people that can be quickly tracked down and brought to justice if they were to ever scam or steal money during a trade. Additionally, many have a good reputation in the community from months or years of escrowing. Many community members can vouch for one or more escrows from their personal experience. Moderators in the PKT community attach the label escrow to these users in the Telegram PKT Cash Trading Trading Group, but they are not appointed, licenced,  bonded, or insured. 

Look for the word “escrow” in gray text next to the user’s name in the PKT Cash Trading Group:

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Escrows are still vulnerable to hacking. It has happened in the past that an escrow’s Metamask wallet got hacked during a trade. The escrow lost the trader’s money and all their own crypto that was held in Metamask within seconds of the execution of the hack.

Things to Avoid

Don’t trade without an escrow

Using an escrow dramatically reduces the risk of theft and scams. In particular, an escrow reduces the risk of a “cash advance scam” where the buyer receives PKT and never pays the seller. This is similar to why a bank holds money deposited by check for several days before unlocking it for the account holder to spend. Since a seller must send PKT before they are paid, there is a risk to the seller of theft. The escrow holds the PKT in a safe place until the buyer is paid by the seller, then releases PKT to the buyer. 

Make sure the escrow and trade partner’s usernames are correct

Verify that your trading partner in the chat group is the same as the one you were negotiating with before.

Make sure you are dealing with a legitimate escrow by verifying that the escrow’s username is named as an escrow in the PKT Cash Trading Group info:

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This public escrow list is provided for safety reasons by the trading group admins, to try to make sure everyone in the trading group can verify anyone else’s claims about who has been verified and can be trusted to be an escrow.

Risks at this step:

  • Contacting a fake escrow
  • Entering a chat room with a fake escrow.
  • Revealing sensitive or compromising information about yourself
  • Possibly other risks

Step 3: Formalize the Trade

Once the escrow creates the room and the buyer and seller join, someone must announce the terms of the deal in the room.

Sometimes people are executing more than one trade at a time, so it’s useful for them to scroll up and make sure they are executing the right deal. It’s not fun when a buyer sends 10x what they expected to the wrong trade partner, or if the escrow does something similar. Overcommunication is better than making assumptions. Be focused and ready to answer questions in the group chat.

Procedure

The process is as follows:

  1. Escrow creates the room
  2. The buyer and seller announce and confirm the terms of the deal:
    1. Quantity PKT
    2. The other currency being traded, eg USDC
    3. Trade amount of the other currency being traded in exchange for PKT 
  3. The escrow will provide their PKT address to hold the seller’s PKT until the trade completes

Here is an example trade group chat formalizing the trade:

Escrow name created the group “Trade name with trade details”
Escrow Name owner
Hi guys, I understand you guys are looking to trade 10k PKT for 500 USDC?
Seller
Hi, yeah
Buyer owner
That’s right
Escrow name owner
Awesome, I’m glad I can help you out. So that you know, I typically charge a 1% fee on each side of the trade

Escrow Fees

It is common for escrows to take a fee for their time. Usually, that’s 1% per side of the trade, resulting in 2% total. The seller should expect to send 101% PKT to cover their 1%, and the buyer should expect to receive 99% PKT to cover their 1% of the trade.

This is a small fee when you consider that ETH might charge $100 for a $500  trade (20%) or $1000 trade (10%) and provides absolutely no safety against theft, or that loss from theft will be 100% plus the transaction cost.

Risks at this step:

  • Accidentally agreed to the wrong amount of PKT.
  • Entering a chat room with a fake escrow.
  • Revealing sensitive or compromising information about yourself
  • Possibly other risks

Step 4: Trade

The final step is to execute the trade.

This can be simultaneously an exciting and terrifying moment, because you might be sending a lot of money to someone you’ve never met before, with no way of getting it back if things go wrong. It’s like playing with a loaded gun. It is important to follow a well-defined, well-understood standard to reduce the risk of making mistakes.

For this reason, it’s very important to check certain things before and during the trade and to be totally focused on the chat group.

What to provide

What information you need to provide

  • Escrow
    • Escrow PKT address
    • when PKT has landed in escrow
    • transaction ID to Buyer
  • Seller:
    • Type of crypto and chain (eg USDC on ERC20 chain)
    • Selling crypto address
    • When payment has landed and Escrow can release PKT to the Buyer
  • Buyer:
    • Buyer PKT address
    • When PKT has landed in the address

Procedure

  1. Seller sends PKT (plus 1%) to Escrow and provides transaction ID
  2. Escrow notifies the room when the PKT has been confirmed
  3. Buyer sends money to Seller (escrow typically not needed for this, see note below)
  4. Seller notifies room that payment has landed, tells escrow to release PKT
  5. Escrow releases PKT (minus 1%) to Buyer

Since crypto blockchains are public, all three parties can verify that a transaction has been completed. For this reason, there is no risk of a seller lying about receiving the money and therefore no reason to use the escrow for that part of the trade.

The escrow is there to protect the seller from a cash advance scam where a dubious buyer takes PKT and leaves.

This does not mean that it is impossible for the buyer, seller, or escrow to make a mistake or get hacked.

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Here is an example group chat of two people trading with an escrow:

Escrow name owner
@Buyer can you please send 10,100 PKT to:

<pkt address>
Seller
Done. Transaction ID:

<transaction ID>
Escrow name owner
I see it pending…
It has landed.  @Buyer you may now send USDC to @Seller
Seller
My USDC Address is:

<USDC ERC20 Address>
FYI It’s an ERC20 address, not a BSC address.
Buyer
Ok. I’m sending now. Transaction ID:

<USDC ERC20 Address>
Seller
I see it. It’s still unconfirmed
It’s confirmed. @Escrow name Please release the PKT
Buyer
My PKT address is:

<PKT Address>
Escrow name owner
Wonderful. I’m sending 9,900 PKT now. Transaction ID:
<Transaction ID>
Buyer
I see it pending…

Confirmed! Thank you guys.
Seller
Thank you. That was great.
Escrow name owner
It was a pleasure. Have a great day.

Things to Avoid

1. Be certain of your crypto, chain, and address

Always double-check your addresses, your currency types, and your chains. It’s too easy to send Bitcoin to a Bitcoin Cash address and lose it forever. It’s too easy to send USDC on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) instead of the Ethereum Network (ERC20) and lose it forever. It’s too easy to accidentally send to a wrapped USDT on ERC20 instead of USDT. It’s too easy to copy and paste the wrong address. One mistake and you could lose tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

2. Be certain of decimal points

Triple check, ask in the chat and use a calculator to verify amounts. Sending crypto is a “measure twice, cut once” type of process. There’s no way to undo a mistake.

3. If you can, use a separate device for trading

Using a separate device reduces the risk of hacking. or of copying and pasting something sensitive that could result in you losing everything. If your trading machine is one you don’t use much will also reduce the risk of that machine having malware or other tools that can scrape your passwords or send your keystrokes to hackers.

4. Consider sending a small amount as a test

Before sending a full amount in PKT or any other crypto, consider sending a small amount, for example, $1 or $100 worth as a test, to make sure it goes to the right address. This will reduce mistakes later on because you can copy and paste the information in the full trade. Trading fees on other cryptocurrencies may be high, which disincentives this. But it’s better to spend $200 in-network fees than to lose $10,000 by sending to the wrong address.

5. Consider breaking the trade into parts

If you can afford the time and extra transaction costs, consider breaking the trade into smaller chunks, for example, if you are intending to trade 100,000 USDT, you may want to do 5 trades of 20,000 USDT with a few minutes in between trades so that, in the case of an issue, you lose 20% instead of 100%.  A reason to consider this is that, when wallets are compromised, bots read transactions looking for a large transfer. They may do this for months or years. When a sufficiently large transaction comes (as defined by the hacker), the bot wakes up and empties the wallet automatically. If this happens when you have only given 20% of a trade, it will hurt less than if you gave 100% 

Risk at this Step

  • Accidentally sending the wrong amount of PKT or other cryptos
  • Accidentally sending crypto to the wrong address
  • Accidentally providing the wrong crypto address to receive payment or PKT
  • Accidentally sending crypto on the wrong chain
  • Accidentally confusing trades when handling multiple trades
  • Accidentally revealing sensitive information
  • Being hacked

Conclusion

Following these best practices will reduce, but not eliminate your risk when trading. Driving the speed limit and with a seat belt reduces your risk of injury when driving, but doesn’t eliminate it.

The vast majority of people in the crypto world are honest, enthusiastic, social people. There is a small minority that can create tremendous harm with very little effort by employing technology or by manipulating information, social contracts, or expectations. We must all work together to reduce their power and impact through good security practices, open communication, and other cooperative efforts.

Crypto trading is fraught with risk. Major exchanges get hacked. Celebrities get hacked. People lose their passwords and seed phrases. People’s computers get damaged. People send to the wrong address. 

Other things to consider when using cryptocurrencies:

  • Maintain a “cold wallet” where you store most of your funds.
  • Only unlock your hot wallet when sending crypto.
  • Never provide your private keys, seed phrases, or passwords to anyone
  • Avoid holding or transacting large amounts of cryptocurrency in wallets that run on your daily computer or mobile device. These devices are prone to malware and other problems that can read your private keys.
  • Never screenshot or digitally store seed phrases. Write them down and secure them in a safe place such as a safety deposit box.
  • Use App-based (not SMS-based) Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) by connecting apps such as Google Authenticator or Authy.
  • Use a new, generated password, for each account or better yet use a passphrase
  • Use a password manager to securely store passwords. Computers are much better at cracking passwords than people are at remembering them.
  • Don’t publish or provide or publish information that can be used to steal your identity, threaten you, or blackmail you. This includes social security / identifier numbers, passport numbers, home addresses, children’s names and schools, etc.
  • Use a VPN, especially when connecting to hotel or cafe WiFI networks.
  • Keep your software up-to-date. Install updates and security patches.
  • Enable your operating system’s firewall
  • Consider using a dedicated device to do crypto trading, such as a Google Chromebook or System76 laptop that has enhanced security, including having disabled the Intel ME chip.
  • Scan your devices with well-known anti-malware and antivirus tools for example Norton Antivirus and Malwarebytes.
  • Use a username and password to log into your computer, and use a PIN to log into your phone.
  • Close your laptop, log out of your computer, and lock your phone when not using it.
  • Monitor your home network for unknown connections and ban those MAC addresses. 
  • Avoid doing crypto trades in places where someone could look over your shoulder or watch you type.
  • If you are confused, ask people questions. It is better to look ignorant than to be robbed.
  • Verify who you are doing business with.
  • Don’t join unsolicited chat groups.
  • Don’t buy crypto because you are told you’ll miss out or that there are guaranteed returns.
  • Practice doing these security practices until they are capitalized. As long as they are confusing or you take shortcuts, you are putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

Doing these things will help to reduce unreasonable risks. Understand that doing all these things and more won’t guarantee that you can’t be hacked or compromised, or that you won’t suffer some other form of loss. 

It’s something like locking the door to your house. Doing so makes it so that someone can’t just walk in, but if someone really wants to break in, a lock won’t stop them.

What to do if you’ve been hacked

If your crypto wallet has been hacked, there may not be much you can do.  However, your best chance is to act as quickly as possible. Record and report the following information:

  • Your wallet address
  • The type of crypto currency (for example USDC)
  • The chain if relevant (for example USDC could be on BSC or ERC20)
  • How much has been stolen
  • When the theft happened

Additionally, attempt to trace the transaction from your account into the receiving accounts and from there, where it went. This process is difficult and a sophisticated hacker may move this into a DeFi exchange or a coin recycler, making it virtually impossible to trace.

However, if one of the receiving addresses corresponds to a central exchange that requires KYC such as a passport, it may be possible to identify the person responsible for the hack, and even possibly to recover some of the money.

However, due to the international and anonymous nature of crypto and addresses, these things are unlikely to come to fruition. New security measures, tools, and laws are being developed constantly as a result of this newly emerging technology, and the constantly shifting risks they present.

Decrypt has an article regarding how to best respond to a crypto hack.

Interestingly there are more articles explaining how to report crypto theft on your taxes than there are on how to report it to the authorities or how to recover it.

Good luck out there.