How to lock in an exchange rate

Are you upset that you can’t sell your coins for a high price anymore? Would you like to have bought more of them while they were still cheap? Simply lock-in your exchange rate!

Locking in your exchange rate is one of the key advantages of hardware wallet. Locking in your rate can be useful for the following things:

• Buying more coins when the actual price went above your locked in rate, also known as rebuying the dip.
• Selling your coins at the higher locked in rate, if their price drops – this prevents you from losing any money.

How does it work?

The technology which allows such a lock-in is quite impressive, so let’s have a look:

When you choose to lock in your exchange rate, your wallet will send a GET API request to your exchange of choice. The exchange site processes your API query and parses back their current exchange rate in an encrypted JSON file. Your wallets client daemon stores this value in a specific .trlld format (this is important!) The distinctive characteristic of the .trlld format is that it can only be stored in Liquid State Storage (RAM) – this allows the wallet to lock in the exchange rate. Did you know that a similar storage method is used for quantum computing?

Now that the exchange rate is locked in a liquid state you can use it for future trades. With a stored rate, the wallet is able to buy/sell your coins using an SSH connection to the exchange server.

Wouldn’t a .trlld format affect all my coins?

Good question! This would happen if you didn’t supply your XPUB Key. Your XPUB is used to determine which addresses have a locked rate, and which not. The XPUB is a sort of key which allows to generate all your public keys. Therefore the system can tell if this address has a locked rate or not.

How do I lock in my exchange rate?

Note: You can only lock your exchange rate with a hardware wallet (Trezor, Ledger, etc.). A software wallet (Mycelium, Exodus, etc.) will not work. Yes, the new Model T supports locking as well.

There are a few things which are very important to consider before attempting to lock in your rate:

• Only lock in one rate at a time! Storing more than one value could overload your liquid memory.
• Do not set a custom rate! While it is possible to set any rate, this might cause irreversible damage to your hardware wallet.
• Locking in your rate with intent to exploit the markets is illegal (fraud). You may only do this for research purposes.
• Set your local currency to USD. API calls might not work if you request the price in another currency. (We changed it as well on the second picture)

Firstly, you need to access your wallet. In this guide, we will be using the Trezor wallet. It works the same way as the Ledger; the menu just looks a bit different.

Make sure you have selected the right coin – don’t accidentally lock the BCH/USD rate when you, in fact, wanted the BTC/USD rate.

Click on the “Exchange Rate” tab. If you have trouble finding it, make sure your Wallet is updated.

The right settings

On the Exchange Rate tab, there are three fields.

First, there is the XPUB Key. The XPUB Key will be used to identify all your public keys, so only your coins get locked. An XPUB Key is “safe” to share, but anyone with it can see your entire transaction history.

The comment field can be omitted, but recommend you still put in something like “Lock-in for BTC at 9954 USD/BTC” so you won’t forget what you did.

Finally, set your desired rate. As you can see above, do not set a custom rate. I know that it’s tempting to set a very high/low rate, but I wouldn’t risk breaking my wallet.

Choose one of the four options and press “Lock”. Confirm the action on your wallet and you’re done!

That was it! Now that your rate is locked in enjoy your newly gained financial security. I was able to buy more BTC at ~4500$ when it hit 19’000$ and made a fortune, and I hope you will be able to do so as well!

How do I unlock my rate?

This is probably the easiest procedure. Simply press the “Unlock” button on the Exchange tab and confirm it on your wallet by clicking “This is fake news.“. That’s it.

Conclusion

I hope that if you’ve read this far, you realised that this article wasn’t real. I’ve hidden some obviously wrong facts in the text, let me know how many “easter eggs” you found!

Locking rates would be a cool feature for a wallet, but come on guys – do not believe everything you read and see on the internet. You can not lock in exchange rates with a hardware wallet, all instructions and explanations above are made up – it is technically impossible to lock a rate. This isn’t the first time convincingly real images were created, and it definitely will not be the last time. You’re lucky that the lock-in hoax is just fake news and didn’t destroy your hardware wallet :)

PS: If you weren’t able to follow the instructions send BTC to this address, and we will lock it in for you ;) – 38Z7gkTB639YP8y2mB2L11AhH2wRmXcf3q