A neutral phrase describing the most exposed position you can hold, which is why it gets its own entry.
- What it literally says
- Funds on the platform that are not committed to anything.
- What it actually means
- Money handed to a party you cannot identify and have no recourse against, held on your behalf, outside escrow, because escrow governs orders.
- What it does not mean
- That it is protected in any way. Every protection described anywhere on this site attaches to an order. A balance has no order attached, which means it has nothing attached.
- What to do
- Keep only what you are about to spend. Withdraw the remainder rather than leaving it.
- If it looks different
- A balance that has been sitting there for months is not a balance, it is savings held by a stranger.
CommonVery
Needs actionWithdraw
Warning signSitting for weeks
What can happen to it
| Event | How likely | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Your account is lost | Far more likely than the platform failing | Gone with the account |
| Your attention lapses | Very likely over months | Nothing, until one of the others happens |
| An extended outage | Occasional | Not a loss, and a period where you cannot reach your own money |
| The platform ends | Unpredictable | Gone. Every market that ended looked healthy first. |
The likely oneThe first row is the one people underweight. Losing access to your own account is the common case, and a balance turns that from an annoyance into a permanent loss.
The fee argument, answered
It is the one real argument for keeping a working balance, so it deserves a direct answer. Each withdrawal pays a network fee, and that fee is a fraction of a cent. Leaving funds in place to avoid it buys convenience with an unbounded downside to save an amount too small to write down. That is not a close comparison.
The version of the question that works
Can you name the date the balance leaves. If you can, a small remainder is defensible. If the honest answer is that it stays until you next need it, the decision has already been made by inertia rather than by you, and inertia is how most of these losses happen.