So, after a two-week break, the crypto academy is back with professors posting weekly assignments for everyone. I am going to start off this week with professor @sapwood's assignment on the P2P market. We could either use Huboi or Binance as part of this assignment. I have chosen Binance because I have completed my KYC on this exchange and I didn't want to go through the KYC at Huobi at this time. I soon realized the drawback imposed by Binance P2P. In fact, it is actually an answer to one of the assignment questions as well.

^{The 0% fee on P2P trading}
Before we get into the assignment questions, I would want to answer a big question in everyone's mind. Why use P2P when the regular exchange trade does the trick right? Well, P2P comes with its own set of unique advantages. The best part about P2P s that you don't have to cough up any exchange fees at all. Additionally, you will come across several chances of arbitrage trading when you start P2P. This is because you are not limited to a single region or currency. As P2P rates are different in different regions, you can capitalize this for arbitrage trading.

Now that we know the two big advantages of using P2P, let us get into this week's assignment.

(1) Explain how you set up your exchange niche in P2P Market(Binance or Huobi)- Market Maker/Advertiser?

^{Binance Greets you with a warning}
If you are new to Binance's P2P trading thee you would be surprised to see a warning notice on the home page of P2P. To get started with this, you would need to complete three things.
1.Link your mobile number: You would need to link your mobile number to receive notification of a P2P trade.
2.Complete KYC: You need to complete KYC of your account.
3.Give a nickname for your profile: This is the name that would be displayed in the public marketplace on the P2P interface.

^{You need to select advertiser mode to be able to post ads}
After you have completed these three steps. you can click on the three dots on the top right side and choose advertiser mode. This mode can be used to create ads to buy as well as sell cryptocurrency.

^{You need to hit on confirm to switch to advertiser mode}

(2) Explain how you buy/sell USDT in the P2P Market of Binance or Huobi for fiat? (Screenshot needed)

^{Transferring funds to the P2P wallet to start}
Before you begin this, you need to ensure that you have the crypto that you are selling(In my case) in your P2P wallet. You can transfer crypto from your spot wallet to your P2P wallet by going into the wallet section on the Binance app.
1. Once you are in advertiser mode, go to the Ads tab.

^{Click on Post ad to create a new ad}
2. Here you will see an option to create a new ad.

^{As you can see, I have set the buy limit to INR 85 per USDT}
3. On the scene that appears, select the option to buy or sell crypto, set the price at which your trade would get executed. Please note that the minimum and maximum price that you can set would be specified by Binance based on certain factors at that time. Once you have done this, hit the next button.

^{Here, you need to provide the amount you are buying/selling along with the accepted payment methods}
4. On the next screen provide the details such as the amount of crypto that you would want to buy/sell and also add the accepted trading methods.

^{Here is where you can provide more details as well as send automated messages}
5. The next screen is a final screen where you can set automated messages to send traders as well as directions to be followed by buyers/sellers to execute the trade. You can also set the ad to be online as well as offline. Offline ads are not displayed but can be enabled(made online) by a user at a later point in time as well.

^{As you can see my order is now on the orders page}
6. On hitting next, your ad would be created and will be visible on the orders page of the particular crypto.

(3) How does escrow protection help a buyer and seller?

Escrow is a safe place for funds to reside until an order is fulfilled. So, you can say that it is a layer of protection added by Binance to prevent fraud and protect genuine traders.

When someone decides to buy the USDT that I just advertised, my funds would get locked in an Escrow account. This means that I will not be able to move my funds anywhere when it happens. I should either accept the payment from the buyer or reject their offering. When I reject, my funds are available once again. When I complete the order, the USDT is transferred from my account to the buyer's account.

In case of any dispute, Binance provides excellent support to solve the problem. If I raise a dispute saying I didn't receive any payment, I would also need to provide details such as bank history payment status, etc. Once the Binance support team has verified the issue, my funds would be returned and the perpetrator would be punished by Binance.

(4) What are the different payment methods (fiat options) available in Binance or Huobi? (Choose any one exchange to demonstrate) Have you ever used any of the fiat payment methods to trade your USDT? Examples/Screenshot?

Binance currently supports 50 different fiat currencies for P2P trading. Some of the most popular payment methods include UPI, Paytm, Skrill, etc. From the screenshot attached, you can clearly see the wide range of payment methods available.

^{Numerous payment methods available}
While UPI and Paytm payment methods are great for local P2P trading, Paypal and Wire transfer are the most popular payment methods when dealing with P2P in the international marketplace.

I have never tried P2P. The order that I placed earlier has not been fulfilled by anyone yet. Now that I know the benefits of P2P trading, I will go ahead and do this more often.

(5) What is the minimum amount you can trade in the P2P Market(USDT) of Binance or Huobi? (Choose any one exchange to demonstrate)

When I started preparing this assignment, I wasn't aware of the limit that Binance imposes when it comes to the minimum tradable amount.

^{Here, you can see that Binance is giving me a waring because the amount is lesser than 100 USDT}
The minimum traded amount here on Binance is 100 USDT. This is not so small and not everyone would be willing to put up so much on a P2P marketplace. On researching on Huobi P2P marketplace, I found out that it allows users to set limits. This I feel gives users more freedom than P2P on Binance.

(6) Have you ever transferred TRC-20 USDT from Binance to Huobi and vice versa? How much cost do you save using Tron Network as compared to ERC-20 USDT?

^{A transaction that I had made back in 2020 for 0 fee}
While I haven't transferred USDT from Binance to Huobi, I have transferred USDT out of my Binance account into my Kucoin wallet back in 2020. For this transfer, I had used the Tron network for its negligible fees. Back when I transferred the funds, the network fee was actually 0 USDT as seen in the screenshot. That has since changed.

^{The high ethreum gas fees}
Now I need to cough up 20 USDT as a network fee when I send over the Ethereum network. This also adds a restriction to the minimum amount of USDT that I can withdraw which is 40 USDT.

^{The fee on the Tron chain is just 1 USDT}
The same transfer on the Tron network would cost me just 1USDT and the minimum send amount is just 10 USDT.

So, the savings are massive for simply choosing the Tron network over Ethereum's

Conclusion:

This was my very first experience with P2P trading so I faced a lot of problems. Finally, I managed to place an ad. Now that I know how to use this feature, I would be using it regularly. this is mainly due to the amazing benefits that it has to offer and the numerous arbitrage opportunities that it provides. If you haven't tried P2P trading, I would definitely recommend it if you have some time and love to save up on the exchange fee charged when your trade gets executed.

CC: @sapwood