Chapter 4 of 6 / the money has not appeared
The balance is not what I expected
Less than you thought, and the first explanation that comes to mind is that something took it. Work through the boring arithmetic first, because it is almost always the boring arithmetic.
What it usually turns out to be
| Cause | How often | What settles it |
|---|---|---|
| Funds committed to an open order | Very common | Look at your orders. The money is locked, not missing |
| The rate at the moment it credited | Common | A market credits at the rate when it confirmed, not when you sent |
| The network fee on the way in | Common | You sent an amount, the network took some of it |
| A market fee on a purchase | Common | Check the order breakdown rather than the total |
| Somebody else in the account | Uncommon and urgent | Check the message log and login history first |
Working it out in order
- Add up what is committed to open orders. That money still exists and is not spendable.
- Look at what actually arrived, not what you sent. The two differ by the network fee.
- Check the rate used at crediting if the market holds a different unit than you sent.
- Read the order breakdowns, where the market fee and the item price are separate lines.
- Then, if it still does not add up, treat it as an access problem and go to the message log.
The two kinds of fee people confuse
| Fee | Who receives it | Who sets it | How it scales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market fee | The platform | The platform sets it | Usually a percentage plus something fixed |
| Network fee | Whoever confirms the transaction | Supply and demand at that moment | By size of the transaction, not by its value |
The second row is why moving a small amount can cost a noticeable fraction of it while moving a large amount costs the same few cents. It is also why the argument for leaving a balance to save on withdrawal fees does not survive being written out.
When to stop doing arithmetic
If the difference cannot be explained by any of the above, stop treating it as an accounting question. Read the message log before the balance, change the password from an address you have checked yourself, and look at the aftermath chapter.
Keeping a record that makes this easy
Write down what you sent, what arrived, and what each order cost, in a file of your own. It takes seconds per order and it turns this whole page into a two minute check rather than an afternoon of suspicion. Most people reconstructing this after the fact discover the balance was right and their memory of what they sent was not.
It also gives you the thing that matters if an order goes to a dispute later, which is dates and figures written down at the time rather than recalled under pressure.