How GCX works

1. What the exchange does

GCX matches binding orders for physical commodities and records the trade that results. Both sides get the same written record: product, quantity, price, currency, and the delivery point they agreed on.

Settlement and delivery happen between you and your counterparty, under your own contract. The exchange is the place where the price is found and the agreement is witnessed — not a party to it.

2. Markets and orders

An order lives in exactly one market: one product, one currency, one unit of quantity. Orders in different markets never meet, however close the price looks.

Delivery points must overlap. An order for Rotterdam meets an order for Rotterdam, or one that accepts any port; two orders naming different cities do not meet.

An order also names a delivery basis under Incoterms, and — where the basis does not already fix one — a mode of transport. This is a term of the order, set when you place it, not something you negotiate after a match: an order for EXW does not meet an order for DDP, however close the price. FOB, CFR and CIF mean sea carriage and fix the transport mode themselves; the other six leave transport open, and you choose it.

An order is binding while it stands. Withdraw it whenever you like — until it matches. Once it matches, it is a trade, and the deposit rules below apply.

You will never trade with yourself, and never with a colleague at your own company. Volume you draw against yourself is not volume, and the engine refuses it.

3. What a trade costs

The exchange charges a fee on each matched trade, taken from each side separately. It is a share of the trade value, with a floor and a ceiling.

Fee rate

0.50% of trade value

Never less than

$ 0.00

Never more than

$ 500.00

Trades priced in another currency are converted at the official daily fixing published by the Bank of Russia for the trade date. That rate is recorded with the trade, so the same figure can be checked afterwards.

The fee is charged in US dollars from your platform account at the moment the trade is made. It is the exchange's revenue and is not returned.

4. Your platform account

The account funds the fee and the deposit — nothing else. Payment for the goods never passes through it.

Balance needed to place an order

$ 10.00

Smallest top-up

$ 10.00

Largest single top-up

$ 10,000.00

If your order disappears from the book, this is usually why: the balance no longer covers what the trade would cost. The order is set aside rather than deleted. Top the account up and it goes back on the book at its original place in the queue.

You can top up through RollyPay. Funds appear on the account as soon as the payment is confirmed.

5. The deposit, and what happens if a trade falls through

When two orders match, both sides put up a deposit. It is held, not spent: the money stays yours. It is released in full — to both sides at once — only once a round of documents is accepted by the side reviewing it. Not at any point before that.

Deposit

0.50% of trade value

Never less than

$ 10.00

Never more than

$ 500.00

A matched trade goes through two steps, each with its own clock:

Step 1 — both sides confirm the trade

24 hours

Step 2 — exchange and accept documents

5 days

The first clock starts when the orders match, not when the first side confirms — otherwise whoever confirmed first would be shortening the other's time. The second starts once both sides have confirmed: the seller submits documents, the buyer accepts them or returns them with a comment explaining what is missing, and the clock keeps running until a round is accepted. The delivery basis and the mode of transport are not negotiated at any step — they were set on the order and travelled onto the trade unchanged when it matched.

If a deadline passes, the side whose move it was loses its deposit to the exchange. The other side gets its deposit back in full. If both sides were still owed a move, both lose. Nothing else follows: there is no penalty beyond the deposit, and no mark against your account.

Every step and every deadline is visible on the trade itself, and you are notified before and when a clock runs out.

You do not have to wait out a deadline to leave. At any point while deposits are held, you can withdraw from the trade outright: your own deposit is forfeited and your counterparty's is released back to them — the same result a missed deadline would produce when the move was yours alone, just today instead of in days. Where the move was owed by both sides, the two differ: a missed deadline forfeits both deposits, while withdrawing forfeits only yours and gives your counterparty theirs back. Where the move was owed by your counterparty alone, the two are the reverse of each other: letting that deadline pass forfeits their deposit and releases yours in full, while withdrawing forfeits yours and releases theirs — so leaving early is the costlier of the two for you. Your counterparty is notified the moment you do it.

Until both sides have confirmed the trade, you can instead propose cancelling by agreement. If your counterparty agrees, both deposits are released back to their owners and no one is at fault — you can withdraw the proposal yourself at any time before they accept it. Once both sides have confirmed, this door closes: a confirmed trade is left only by withdrawing. Either way, the fee already charged on the trade is never returned.

6. What you will be told

The notification centre records everything that happens to your orders, trades and account: a match, a confirmation from the other side, documents submitted, signed or sent back, a deadline approaching, a deposit released or lost, a top-up credited, an order set aside for want of funds, an order expired because its shipment week began.

Anything that needs a move from you, or that moves your money, is also sent by email. Fee charges are not emailed — they would arrive on every trade, and the account statement already lists them.

7. What the exchange does not do

It does not tell you who your counterparty is. Before the match and after it, the platform identifies each of you only as the buyer or the seller: no name, no company, no address. Whatever the other side needs to know about you, you tell them yourself — in the documents you attach to the trade. Keep every exchange there: the documents and the comments left with them are the only record the exchange can produce in a dispute, and anything agreed outside the platform it neither sees nor confirms. Bank accounts are deliberately not kept or shown here: they belong on the invoice you exchange as a document, and an account number displayed by the exchange and editable at will is exactly how payment-redirection fraud works.

It does not hold the money for your goods, and it offers no escrow. It does not deliver, ship, inspect or insure anything. It does not vet your counterparty's ability to perform, and it is not a party to the contract you sign with them. Payment, shipping documents, quality disputes and everything that follows are yours, exactly as they were before you used the exchange. It does not read, verify or judge the documents you exchange. It does not let you renegotiate the shipment week, the delivery basis or the mode of transport once a trade is made — all three are set on the order and carried onto the trade unchanged, and no step of the trade can change any of them. It does not require you to sit out a deadline in silence to leave a trade — you can withdraw at any point while deposits are held, or propose cancelling by agreement, as described above.

What the exchange does is narrow on purpose: it finds the price and records what was agreed. See also the User Agreement.