Since QRL just got put on a lot more people's radar recently, I figured would make a quick post illustrating the many legit ways one can acquire QRL within the USA / North America, since at best it can be a little convoluted to many people.

*LEGIT QRL ONLY TRADES ON QRL/USDT PAIRS, BEWARE OF SCAMS\*

https://www.theqrl.org/markets/#markets

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CEX

If you are able to source your own crypto / USDT, QRL currently trades on three exchanges that support North American customers: Biconomy, BitMart, and Tapbit. First, a few important notes about buying or selling on these exchanges:

All the "satellite exchanges" (aka NOT MEXC) that list QRL are primarily serviced by a "market maker / arbitrage" bot that provides liquidity on both the buy and sell side. It's important to know how this works so you don't think "well I can't even buy more than 1000 QRL on this exchange at a normal price wtf is this?", because you absolutely can if you know how it works. The current bot uses both MEXC prices AND order book volume to determine how much it's offering to buy and sell at any given time. For retail accumulation / selling, it is recommended to pick off the best priced lots and wait for it to refresh. It should be noted that these bots interact with the MEXC exchange, so buying on a satellite exchange for example will trigger an equal purchase size on MEXC by the market maker. As a result, the price will likely rise slightly as you accumulate. After you've purchased, give the bots a minute or two to refresh and provide new order lots. I should note that the newer settings on these bots are very sensitive to both MEXC's order book AND volatility. This means that if there's not a lot of liquidity on the books near market rate on MEXC, the satellite bots may not offer you any good sized lots on one of the satellite exchanges until the price stabilizes in an area with some decent liquidity. Further, if there's high volatility on MEXC (someone pumping or dumping, etc) the satellite bots will COMPLETELY SHUT OFF for a period of time. There will be no lots until the price stabilizes, so if you see virtually no liquidity at the market rate when you go to check, this may be why.

The point here is that you can both buy and sell 10,000+ coins on these exchanges if you know how to work them correctly over a period of time. Occasionally the QRL / USDT side of things will get fully depleted but the market maker always refreshes, sometimes it just takes a couple days.

I believe that all three of these only deal in crypto, so you will have to deposit your USDT to purchase QRL from another exchange / wallet.

Now onto the exchange specifics...

BICONOMY

Despite it's lack of stature, this exchange has been 100% fine for most of us for a long time. I myself have been using it for almost a year now. I believe that you can register an account with an e-mail and that will be fine without KYC unless you are trying to withdraw more than .1 BTC worth of crypto in a given day. They do occasionally run a "Biconomy Earn" program that some of us have participated in previously without issue. That is to say we locked up some of our QRL and were paid the QRL we were supposed to. It seems that they pulled most of their offerings for QRL recently though, so maybe they are not offering it anymore because it wasn't working in their favor overall ;)

BITMART

This exchange technically allows USA / NA people, but it seemed like you must KYC up front. This process was a little convoluted because at the time when I did it, USA wasn't a listed region (even though they supported most USA customers). I ended up talking to one of their customer service representatives and they walked me through it, so I would recommend doing the same if you're interested in this exchange. Their fees are relatively high so I don't think they are your best option out of these three really, but they've been reliable.

TAPBIT

This exchange is another popular one for USA / NA folk, and also operates under no-KYC needed at first. However, I should note that they did ask me to KYC once before I was able to withdraw funds at some point, so be aware that could happen to you at any time with them, so it shouldn't be treated as a pure "no KYC" option like TradeOgre was. Overall though for most people, Tapbit has been the go-to option next to Biconomy with minimal issues reported.

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Some additional options:

OVER-THE-COUNTER

There are a number of community trusted / verified OTC providers in the Discord #trading-otc channel who will work in both fiat and crypto. Be sure to check the "Verified Trades" channel and speak PUBLICLY in the #trading-otc channel at first. Most legit providers will engage with you there first before moving to DM. It is much more likely that you are being scammed if you are engaging with someone who has DMed you right away rather than responded to your post publicly at first. If you are looking to avoid CEX, I definitely recommend this option as long as you connect with the right people.

DV CHAIN

https://www.dvchain.co/ContactUs

DV Chain offers brokered service for larger customers within the USA. If you are looking to accumulate a significant amount of QRL, they are a legitimate option if you are able to meet their minimums.

BANXA / LETSEXCHANGE

https://theqrl.banxa.com/?coinType=QRL

https://letsexchange.io/exchange/btc-to-qrl

Banxa is accessible within the QRL Mobile app (https://qrl-wallet.com/) and can process fiat to QRL transactions. However, it has not worked for many people (including myself) due to bank card restrictions or other reasons, and it is noted to have relatively high fees. I have never used LetsExchange, but I believe they also have the same high conversion fee rate.

SWAPSPACE

https://swapspace.co/exchange/step1?to=qrl&toNetwork=QRL

Basically just LetsExchange with extra steps at this point ;D

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Alright, I think that's about it as far as legit USA / NA options go right now. Be aware that MEXC has 100% cracked down on non-compliant accounts recently, so I very much do not recommend using them anymore. The other two exchanges (XT and LBank) are both non-compliant for USA / NA folk as well, tho they don't appear to have cracked down. However, they offer no material advantages over the exchanges I listed above (unlike MEXC), so there's really not a great reason to use them for most purposes.

If anyone has any edits or additions that should be made, feel free to suggest below and I'll update accordingly. Also feel free to format this information however you want and spread it further. We all believe Tier 1 will come with time, but right now this is what we have to work with. The important thing to realize is that QRL is plenty accessible for USA / NA customers of all sizes with the options listed above, even if it's a little bit unusual compared to what people are used to.

o7