All of this went down in November 2025. By that point, the market was already coming off the euphoria: Bitcoin slid down from its October peak above $120k into the $90–100k range and closed the month around $90k, showing a drop of almost 18% — the worst month since 2022. Ethereum got stuck below $3k, Solana was drifting roughly in the $150–180 range, and Avalanche slipped down to around $13–18. No fun pumps — a classic “the market cooled off” setup: the mood was sour, everything looked more like a drawn-out correction and consolidation.
And against that backdrop, I had a month where +$10,000 landed on top of my PnL — not thanks to some “rocket” or genius idea, but simply because of how I pay fees and where I run my volume.
How I suddenly found an extra $18k in the “fees” line
I have a weird habit: at the end of the month, I always look not only at the final PnL, but also at the “trading fees” line.
In fact:
● total turnover for the month — about 18,000,000 USDT;
● my average fee across different exchanges was around 0.1%, i.e., the basic retail level;
● total fees — about 18,000 USDT, just written off as operating expenses.
At some point, a simple, unpleasant realization hit me: I trade like a wholesaler in terms of volume, but I pay like a small retail user who just placed their first order.
What changed when I tuned VIP to my own numbers
I’m not a fan of the magic of the word “VIP”. In any exchange VIP program, the essence is the same: if you generate turnover and maintain a balance, you stop paying the retail sticker price per trade, you get decent discounts, and sometimes extra perks like tournaments, cashback, and a personal manager.
I sat down with spreadsheets and rebuilt my routing. Instead of scattering my volume across several platforms, I consolidated the main turnover on WhiteBIT, pulled the average balance there up to ~60,000 USDT, and hit the level in their table called Unstoppable (VIP 5): balance from 50k, spot volume from 2M over 30 days.
On spot this means a simple thing:
● before that — 0.1% maker / 0.1% taker (Basic, level 0);
● on VIP 5 — 0% maker / 0.07% taker.
With my trading style, roughly 40% of trades are executed as maker, 60% as taker. The effective average fee comes out around 0.042% instead of 0.1%.
The math here is boring but honest:
● before optimization:
18,000,000 × 0.1% = 18,000 USDT in fees;
● after:
18,000,000 × 0.042% ≈ 7,560 USDT.
The difference is 10,440 USDT.
I didn’t change my strategy, didn’t switch to other coins and didn’t jump into a new segment — the fee just stopped biting off more than ten thousand a month from me.
Another trader’s story: “I want to get VIP faster and understand what’s more profitable for me.”
In parallel with me digging through my own numbers, I had a story on WhiteBIT that illustrates very well how this works not only for me.
There’s a trader who was already actively trading a solid, combat-ready volume there. His first request was as honest as it gets: “I want to get VIP faster and understand what’s more profitable for me.”
According to his stats:
● monthly turnover — about 6,000,000 USDT,
● average balance before optimization — around 20,000 USDT,
● yet in practice he was paying the same 0.1% on spot as a basic user.
So every month he was just leaving about 6,000 USDT to exchanges in fees without even trying to optimize it. We sat him down with a personal WhiteBIT VIP manager. The manager did three normal, non-magical things:
● laid out the logic of the levels – that VIP is determined by two parameters: 30-day volume and average balance, both in USDT equivalent, and the real level is always equal to the weaker of the two;
● looked at his trade history: where he already had enough volume for a higher level and where his balance simply wasn’t reaching it;
● drew a route: raise the average balance to ~20k, stop smearing turnover across other exchanges, move part of the hyper-aggressive entries into a mode where he more often acts as maker rather than only as taker.
As a result, according to WhiteBIT’s table he reached Brainy (VIP 3): balance from 20k, spot volume from 500k, spot fees — 0.04% maker / 0.085% taker.
Given his style (30% maker, 70% taker) the effective rate became about 0.0715%.
Let’s count:
● before: 6,000,000 × 0.1% = 6,000 USDT;
● after: 6,000,000 × 0.0715% ≈ 4,290 USDT.
Same 6M in turnover and the same coins, but instead of 6,000 he started paying ~4,300 USDT in fees — around 1,700 less per month just on rates. Add a couple hundred from tournaments and promos — and there you go, +2,000–2,500 USDT on top for a single conversation with a manager and a refusal to live on the default 0.1%.
How VIP works on an exchange in general, and what’s different about WhiteBIT here
If you strip all the marketing off VIP, you’re left with a simple thing: the higher your monthly turnover and the higher your average balance, the less you pay per trade.
With WhiteBIT this is set up transparently. There’s Basic (level 0) with base 0.1% / 0.1% on spot — what any newcomer pays. Then come the tiers: for Brainy (VIP 3) you need an average balance from 20k and spot volume from 500k, with fees already at 0.04% maker / 0.085% taker. For Unstoppable (VIP 5), which I was aiming for myself, the threshold is a balance from 50k and volume from 2M, and the spot maker is 0%, taker — 0.07%.
The level is calculated by two parameters at once — 30-day volume and average balance; if one pulls higher and the other lower, the weaker one is what counts. Volume includes spot, margin, futures and Convert trades across the main account and subs. The average balance is calculated from snapshots of Main / Trading / Collateral, Earn, and deposits are not included in the formula. As soon as you reach the minimum requirements for VIP 1 (100k in volume and 10k average balance), the discounts turn on automatically; if you drop below, the level is recalculated on the first day of the next month at 01:00 UTC.
A separate bonus — you can transfer your status from another exchange: send confirmation of your turnover and balance, get a comparable VIP for a month and then maintain it according to the WhiteBIT table.
Why is it worth playing this game
VIP is not “for everyone”. If you move less than ~100,000 USDT a month — the savings will be at the coffee, not car level, and what matters more is not the status but your trading. With a volume from 1,000,000 just multiply it by 0.1% and see how much you’re gifting the exchange every month for the basic rate.
In the 5–20M zone you get into the mode where my own “+10k month” appeared: the difference between 0.1% and a VIP rate turns into thousands of dollars if you don’t smear your volume across five platforms and keep a decent average balance. And if you’re too lazy to calculate all this — that’s a direct reason to go to a VIP manager and let them spin your numbers instead of inventing a status for yourself.
Instead of a conclusion
This text is not about a magic button — “pressed VIP and made ten grand”. My +$10,000 that November appeared simply because with a turnover of about 18M I stopped paying 0.1% like retail and pulled my volume and balance up to specific VIP levels. The trader from the case got about +$2,000 on the same principles but with smaller volumes. Someone with similar conditions will get more, someone less, and with small turnover — almost nothing, but the math is the same.
In a month when the market cooled off, for me this difference was worth about +$10,000 — from here it’s your move to calculate your own.
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