Stoic Q&A: everything you wanted to know about deposits, fees, and performance

Stoic has seen huge growth since it launched last month and is already making automatic trades for hundreds of users with a total of $1 million worth of crypto assets!

But since Stoic is so new, there are plenty of questions. We’ve decided to present the answers to the most commonly asked questions together in a blog post.

Do I have to pay the fees from the Binance account?

No! You can pay the fees from any wallet. It’s just often easier to pay from Binance because you’re already logged in when creating the API keys.

Some observant users have noticed that if they pay fees from Binance, there will be a smaller portfolio for Stoic to manage… This is true, but the fees you pay cover the entire sum until the following year. You can just buy more crypto on Binance to restock your balance.

Here’s an example

It’s 1 November and you have $1,000 on Binance, so with 5% fees you need to pay $50. You send $50 from your Binance account and now there is only $950 left.

But your fees cover the automated trading of $1,000 until 1 November the following year. So you can add another $50 for Stoic to manage at any point until then without paying any additional fees.

I like Stoic, how do I deposit more funds?

It’s simple: just add more funds to your Binance account that Stoic manages. You don’t need to let us know or even do anything in the Stoic app.

The great thing is that you can deposit any crypto listed on Binance and Stoic will just rebalance it the next day.

Once you’ve made a deposit, you’ll receive an email telling you the fees you need to pay. You can also find this information in the app in the ‘Deposit and fees’ screen.

All additional fees will cover the period until the date covered by your original fee. This is just so you don’t have to remember multiple dates for paying fees – the new payment will be due exactly a year after your first payment.

Example

You put in $1,000 on 1 October 2020 and pay $50 in fees for the period until 1 October 2021.

Then, half a year later on 1 April, you put in $3,000 more. You’ll need to pay 5% fees for half a year, until 1 October 2021 – the date when the repayment of your original fee is due. So you’ll pay just $75 for that second deposit.

A year later, on 1 October 2021, you’ll need to pay the fee on whatever balance you have at that time.

Is there a minimum amount for additional deposits?

There is no minimum or maximum, just add whatever amount you wish to your Binance account.

And if you add a small sum (say $100), you won’t need to pay the fees immediately.

This is because the Ethereum transaction fees are often high and could be bigger than Stoic’s management fees.

For example, with a $100 deposit the additional Stoic fees would be just $5 so you might have to pay half of that or even more in gas.

To avoid this waste, Stoic will immediately start trading the full balance.

Only once your outstanding fees reach $30 will you be asked to pay the additional fees. When this level is reached, you’ll receive a message in the Stoic app as well as an email.

This means you can incrementally deposit up to $600 more before paying additional fees.

What if I need to withdraw funds?

You can withdraw anytime – there are no lockups!

You don’t even need to do anything in the Stoic app, just withdraw whatever you want from your Binance account.

It’s best to withdraw before 09:00 UTC or after 17:00 UTC because this is the period when Stoic does its daily trading to rebalance your portfolio.

Still, even if you withdraw funds during the rebalancing, the worst that could happen is that the portfolio won’t be properly rebalanced until the next day’s trading.

Because the fees are paid in advance, you can replenish the funds until they reach the original sum and you won’t have to pay any new fees.

Example

Suppose you put in $1,000 on 1 October and pay $50 in fees to 1 October the following year.

Then, a few months later, you decide to take out $100 for a month to stake it on some hot new governance tokens. You withdraw $100 and then put it back into your Binance account a month later – you won’t need to pay any additional fees.

How are returns calculated if I add or withdraw funds?

The returns for your portfolio are always calculated using a time-weighted rate of return. This is to avoid distorting performance due to deposits or withdrawals.

Essentially, to calculate the return on your portfolio, we calculate the return for each sub-period and then multiply those returns.

Example

Alice puts in $1,000 during the first month and gains 10%. She then decides to put in another $2,000 and gains 5% during the second month. Her balance is $3,255.

Bob also puts in $1,000 at the same time and gains 10%. He then decides to take the profit and withdraws $100. During the second month, he gains 5%. His balance is $1,050.

Their results are different yet the performance is the same. The returns should reflect that.

So to calculate the time-weighted rate of return, we simply multiply 1.1 * 1.05 - 1 = 0.155 or 15.5%.

What’s next

We hope this post has answered some of the questions you might have had.

If you still have more questions, please check out the Stoic support section, where you will find a lot of information.

Meanwhile, the latest version of the Stoic app has just launched! It includes the new ‘Deposit and fees’ screen and more.

Now that you know how to deposit and withdraw assets with Stoic, it could be a good time to put in some more seeing as the altcoins haven’t yet caught up with Bitcoin.