Bitcoin Forum

They have suspended all FIAT deposits as well as USD withdrawal.

April 13 Announcement: https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/199

April 17 Announcement: https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/200

Reddit on Panic: https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/65vygu/bitfinex_stopping_money_deposits_while_we_develop/

I don't know about that but people can't say they haven't been warned. There has been many so called alerts that should make people steer clear.

Let's hope not but we must be realistic a little bit here. It's not secret that It's not recommended to hold anything in exchange for a long period of time so It sort of the users fault unless It happened suddenly. It's being a few months since they got hacked and they got recovered like a week ago If IIRC as they have the necessary funds to pay the users back using the issued tokens, I doubt they will take the risk of playing around with their users, they could lose them once for all.

I would be really careful over there at the moment. Something seems very suspicious!
Right now the premium for BTC exists most likely because buy BTC to get the f*** out from finex.

Is it possible that banking cartel is punishing them together for suing Wells Fargo?

I don't think Bitfinex was ever due a happy ending. I also don't think there'll ever anything of the magnitude of Gox again.

But crypto withdrawals are fine. We certainly would've heard if they weren't.

Maybe we should send Roger Ver to Hong-Kong to check them out and tell us everything is ok. LOL

As much as MPOE-PR (Mircea Popescu) was hated she/he was usually right when he called bullshit (and that's why people hated him). He had Bitfinex pegged in 2013: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=230182.0

I really miss MPOE-PR. He's the only person that I've ever known that could call you a nigger and make you happy about it.

We all don't know. But chances are everywhere even for a legit exchanges that runs for a long period of time.

I was a Bitfinex enthusiast back then and this my first major exchanged that deals with my trading activity. But after the incident of hacking issues which include their new own token after the site up (I think before the halving), I stopped dealing with this site and began to work on another exchange (currently @ Bitstamp and Poloniex). Also in the past prior to my bitcoin activity, there are been recorded issues about their security (hacking, breaching etc.) but I ignored them since I really like the site.

Since there is no proven scam activity in their part as of now, I suggest to make some precautions on how to deal with your balances at Bitfinex after their operations will be back to normal.

From my point of view, it isn't a Mc Gox sign, but more and more banks and governments are starting to wake up and want to either control or get their share of Pie around the crypto world.

For those who are panicking at the moment and prefer to stand out, the best way would be to withdraw available cryptocurrencies and to change them to USD at another website while the situation is uncleared.

It honestly would not be surprising to me in the least if there was something going on in Bitfinex that resembles Mt.Gox's collapse to be entirely honest. They got hacked earlier, and while they're trying to make a comeback from that chances are it isn't going to work very well. If they manage to keep their exchange alive then good for them, but I'm doubting it more and more now.

smell like cheap coins ... http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img923/9972/YrRyKO.gif

Can you trade fiat to crypto and withdraw it? If so at least there's a way to run as far away as possible from that exchange.
Though I don't think they'd be turning into after surviving a $65m hack.

Bitfinex has been signalling many warnings before they were hacked, and even this year. If people still choose to support that exchange, then they will need to face the consequences of their actions. There are so many decent exchanges, why do people constantly need to trade exactly there where red flags are popping up? It's a signal that people with common sense take very seriously, and will protect them from making wrong moves. But as always, there are enough people that lack common sense and the ability to see risks.

Basically that. I wouldn't even be surprised to see that if people start selling their fiat for Bitcoin on a massive scale (regardless of the premium), and cash out their coins afterwards (which on a smaller scale is the case already), that Bitfinex might even halt Bitcoin withdrawals as well. I can't understand people that are still using that exchange after the "hack" that took place. Smart people convert all their fiat to Bitcoin and cash out everything, where those that play happy user will most likely pay a hefty price (once again) for their ignorance.

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/721353photo20170417211343.jpg

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1169661.msg18629608#msg18629608

Anyone have any idea how much of an affect this will have on price of bitcoin if things do get to Gox 2.0 level, considering there are other viable exchanges?

That is too funny. I appreciate your hard work.

MtGox is totes fine. ROFL

Yeah, I think so.

Bitfinex is going to either clear up its name again as surprisingly as it did with the BFX token sale, or it's going to go scam. And I believe that it is going to be the next week that's going to be the most important for Bitfinex.

Obviously not a wise thing to hold anything on bitfinex right now, get everything out as fast as you can. Also apparently tether.to is also owned by bitfinex so... Don't invest.

Can't for the life of me understand why people still use Bitfinex?


“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

― George W. Bush

isn't it a little strange that the completion of paying back of the tokens coincides with the inability to withdraw dollars?



that's an interesting question. look at all the crap that's happened recently and see where the price is still at. i think what it's telling us is that bitcoin is now bigger than any one country or company and the short term hits are shrugged off pretty fast.

Yes, just another mt gox  :o

My opinion is that if you still have your money in bitfinex after the hack then you definitely had this coming. Even more so now with them discontinuing bitcoin withdrawals. I'd be very wary of this exchange at this point.

Lol thanks for the laugh.  :D

Quite right... ;D ;D ;D

I'd say "Don't take any chances".

Pull your money out and use another exchange. If and when they enable fiat withdrwals, then by all means use them again. But better to be safe than sorry.

The problem with mt gox was that despite a long lead up with signs things were going wrong, some people just didn't want to believe there was a problem. Back then there weren't many exchanges you could use, I think there was only bitstamp and btc-e as alternatives, and some people ironically were worried about btc-e simply because they were run by anonymous russians, whereas they "knew" Karpeles and felt they could trust him.

Don't put faith in people, instead look for certain signs in the operation. Fiat withdrawals being blocked by banks means that someone has reported them for fraud (wires arn't blocked for any old reason). Fiat withdrawals blocked for other reasons might mean the exchange has spent people's money. If the fee for bitcoin withdrawals rises sharply, it means they discouraging withdrawals because they are short of coins and may be hacked.

Be careful out there!

I lost my trust on them since they have been hacked before and i don't want to get some problem if the hacking again will be happen Again and also i really got a bad feeling on how bitfinnex gonna deal with this issue since people are doubting now for their credibility since im very sure that people are afraid for this one the go the same on what happen on mt.gox.

Will all due respect to you sir, but I think we are not ready to imply something like that.
Bitfinex has shown us some signs that actually do not attract anyone to this exchange, im sure that people are trying to do their best to bail-out from that place, but I think it is still too early to say that Bitfinex is the same as mt.gox.
First of all, Mt.gox was basically holding the biggest part of the market back then, that is why it also had such a big influence on the bitcoin price ( when BTC was something new, revolutionary ).
Right now, we would not see such a big price drop, because Bitfinex does not plays such an important role in bitcoin trading as mt.gox did back then, so it would prevent us from loosing money on holding BTC.

I really don't understand and as of now i really don't know what will happen to bitfinex. I'm really hoping this wont be like mt.gox and this could be fixed. In the other hand lets just be positive for what will be the outcome.

They could move out of Taiwan. There's nothing to hold them there anymore. Maybe the servers are elsewhere anyways.

LMAO!

But seriously if an exchange disables deposits and withdrawals or if their bank freezes funds not letting Bitfinex pull their customer's money out then theres something suspicious happening here.

Can anyone know how much BTC are being withdrawn from Bitfinex right now?

Has it been confirmed they ve halted withdrawals as well? I ve read only about wire deposits not working.

It was dollar withdrawals that were stopped first, then it became dollar deposits a while after. Crypto's still fine as are CHF and HKD withdrawals. I'm not sure what fiat deposits are possible right now.

For real? Hahaha i don't believed on this bitfinex had already bhad records to those past users where they paused those bitcoins seriously? this is really impossible to happen no one can turn into mt. gox for sure.

"Fool me once, fool me twice"?
Bitfinex should have been bankrupt after their previous "hack", but instead they tried to save their company by taking customer's funds to "share the losses".
There are enough options to use another exchange, and yet, people keep using the one that had it's "secure" multisig hacked.

Apparently OKCOIN is also suspending wire transfers. I reckon something is going on with the Banks in the Far East.

Here is an image of the OKCoin announcement:

https://i.redd.it/0n1mvdm9kesy.jpg

And here is the Reddit thread about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/666s9e/okcoin_is_also_having_usd_transfers_disrupted_are/

So it is not just Bitfinex - it's all the eastern exchanges.

It's good that they've stopped deposits.  It'll stop people from putting even more money in when it goes to shit (which could really be pretty soon).

As many people should pull out now as possible with a Bitcoin withdrawal, but they could always stop those at some point as well.  It really is a pretty desperate situation.  Luckily though the price wouldn't take so much of a hit if Bitfinex failed since it has much less trading volume as a percentage of the total than Gox did.

Well i am not using this page.Currently i have no problem to sell my btc.

Bitfinex by volume is the largest exchange at this point. It won't be as severe as was the case back then with Mtgox when the price crashed from nearly $1200 to deep under the $200 level, but that doesn't mean we will be walking out undamaged. It's annoying that it has become somewhat of a certainty to see one or more exchanges go down once every few years. I just hope that when withdrawals become available again that people will start looking for a different exchange.

It is hard for me to agree with the theory that bitfinex is similiar to mt.gox case, because we can see that bitfinex suffers because of freezing their bank accounts in the USD, by the government, and mtgox was pretty much faking the details and stats.

Also, mt.gox had insanely big influence on bitcoin price, because it was pretty much the only really widely used exchange, and also because that was a very loud case.

As we can see, bitfinex has not changed the bitcoin/usd rate significantly.

iam not understand why bitfinex close deposit and withdraw use USD transfer wire
why bank account bitfinex is blocked, i think is bad issue bitfinex exchanger

I receive notice also once i opened my account at Bitfinex. I don't know what will happen next but luckily i wasn't able to transfer my funds to bitfinex, and i do wonder why they got suspended, did anybody here know the reason behind it?

i think bitfinex has failed to do something about AML in case. in the homepage, when you are not logged in, you can barely see the stuff inside. the design of the bitfinex website is not detailed and suspicious. ??? hopefully you still can withdraw.

Sure theyll say that its still ok because HKD and CHF withdrawals are fine. But you have to think, how many people make wire transfers using HKD or CHF? Not much I presume since most of the banks mainly offers USD, EUR and GBP wire transfers because they are the most acceptable fiat currencies worldwide.

What are the wallets of Bitfinex? Lets observe whats happening with the exchange.

This. Most of their customers are Americans I think. The Europeans tend to use either Kraken or Bitstamp, and the Chinese use the Chinese exchanges.

The way I understand it is that the banks in Taiwan (where bitfinex has their accounts) got pressure from an American bank not to deal with bitfinex anymore.
So basically it's not that bitfinex has not enough money, it's more the fact that nobody want's to deliver it for them.
Of course it's not easy for them to be cut off from the fiat system.
We'll all see soon enough how this turns out, but my hopes are that bitfinex can find a solution to that problem.

They are ok for now since im pretty sure that they are doing their very best to get back the trust again of their users. But we can't erase the doubts on our minds that they will follow the track of mtgox since they have been compromised before and theirs a lot of possibilities that the same hacker would broke in again and steal some money on bitfinnex again. But same as you said lets just observe this one for now but for thinking to deposit on their well its different story for me to tell.

I'm hoping they can get this issue resolved. And it doesn't just deal with BFX, but also Tether and some others. Seeing how they get around this fairly rough patch is going to be a hint as to what to look forward to in the future.

Thats doubtful. If I was a Bitfinex customer your post or word alone wont convince me from withdrawing all my coins out of there. There were popular people from the BTC community who said Mt.Gox was fine and the community trusted them until it was too late. If you are really sure that theyre ok I would then like to see you deposit all your BTC there.

Since BTCe and OKcoin have started suffering the same issue, this might be a bit wider problem not restricted to Bitfinex only. Hope this gets resolved soon, BTC price started increasing again, we dont need this kind of panic.

Yes, they will find some right solutions very soon. But I do feel it would be too early to assume bitfinex for a mt.gox kind of collapse.

I believe mt.gox's collapse will remain as a peculiar case in rest of cyrptocurrency's history because mt.gox held major share of exchanges then and bitcoiner's almost used mt.gox as their wallet with both bitcoins and fiats. Now there are enough awareness among traders for not keeping balances within exchanges and we are into era of multiple established exchanges hence any problem with bitfinex will not infulence bitcoin prices unlike what we had with mt.gox's.

Problem with Bitfinex is that this exchange has been planning its actions in such a way, that you can't really consider it to be coincidence all the time. Even when this isn't solely related to Bitfinex -- people get in panic if something happens at the side of Bitfinex. It very well explains why exchanges as OKCoin and BTC-E don't experience inflated prices due to traders there not being able to cash out particular fiat currencies. People fear Bitfinex.

Of course everyone panics when something happens at Bitfinex. It hasn't even been a year since 120,000 Bitcoins were stolen from them.
They did make it right though. Instead of filing for bankruptcy and closing down like many other exchanges would do they gave out temporary tokens which have been fully replaced/refunded now.
But why even use Bitfinex when there's Poloniex.

As far as I am aware Poloniex doesn't offer direct fiat  <=> cryptocurrency trades. They use USDT instead.
Tethered dollars have limited functionality, so this is  the main reason Bitfinex is superior for vast majority of customers who don't care about altcoins.

People have been refunded value wise. If you had 1000 BTC for example, and at that time the price was sitting at $600 -- the haircut of 36% would mean they took 360 BTC from you, and just refunded the value of the coins, and not the coins themselves. I would at no point agree to such a thing. Of course, it's better than Bitfinex not paying anything at all, but it's a nasty practice as people don't believe it was a back.

Other than that, there are many exchanges to choose from, but people for some reason decide to stick with that exchange. It's a wrong choice, but eventually they will realize that as well, but then it's already too late. People mostly only learn when it costs them a whole lot money -- this situation isn't any different....

I heard OKCoin is having the same issue but not BTCe. This is beginning to become a big probem if thats confirmed. If one of the older exchanges like Bitstamp is also affected then nothing is stopping the banks to go after the other smaller exchanges. Maybe this started from the Chinese banks.

How do you mean that all this started from the banks, Chinese banks? I can't understand are you talking about overtaking or they are trying to destroy competition? This can easily be some conspiracy theory, what if this is just inside job, that is the first thing that falls on my mind.
Anyway I would like yo hear more about this theory, what is the interest of the banks in this case?

According to the following article, this is down to Taiwanese Banking Reforms:

http://www.livebitcoinnews.com/taiwanese-banking-reforms-cause-issues-bitfinex-bitcoin-companies/

I think for betfinex the issue will stay for long time due to bank issue just lets hope that bitfinex will not be the same as other hack exchange site before like other mention MT.gox just lets hope that it will not the same as other crash or down  site and the reason is they are hack..
If it will be announce soon that bitfinex is totally gone and never resolve the issue it will be affected a lot in the market. expect for price drop.

What I mean is the example the Chinese banks are showing might have given the other banks the idea to start doing the same thing. Banks cant allow anyone from moving money from one country to another with out having the risk of being used in a criminal's group money laundering schemes. The BTC network is one of the best channels to do money laundering on in case you dont know.

And of course Wells Fargo... They are free to refuse transfers, but could show some good will and do it. If they have a chance to disrupt some Bitcoin sales they will always take it.

If the news are true there's no reason to panic and there won't be another MTGox scenario. Let's wait for the Taiwanese banks to tidy their back yards and see what happens.

There cold storage still shows what BTC they have i'm guessing they have all the funds and the banks are being awkward. Keeping an eye on the situation though.

I've been trading a while. I didn't lose money at Mt. Gox, I think I was on Cryptsy at the time. I lost a little on the Bitfinex hack. Anyway, my bigger concern has become the exchanges are not just exchanging anymore. They've been making clear manipulative movements that I think will ripple out like Mt. Gox as loss of confidence if nothing else. Also, the iFinex vs. Wells Fargo lawsuit is possibly revealing the relationship between Coinbase, and Bitfinex. For the record I already hated Wells Fargo, but the first thing that stuck out was the jurisdiction section that mentions officers and offices in San Francisco, Coinbase HQ. They also share very close offices in the UK, where Bitfinex holds Tether, and Coinbase process CC tx. I think it's common knowledge among most BTC users the banks are tied together, but not the exchanges? It's possibly a stack of giant coincidence. There's a little Jerry Fletcher in my head screaming this is going to unfold all bad for the BTC/USD pair. That's my 2 Satoshi, I'm out for a while. 8)

Bitfinex is solvent. They are strong brand and keeping their business running is far more profitable than bankruptcy.
After all they recovered from that hacking incident. Recently they managed to pay off 100% of of BFX Tokens they issued as temporary solution.
Banks are to blame here, they are seeking ways to undermine trust in cryptocurrency IMO.

Wouldn't doubt it, and even if it was happening at the moment we wouldn't even know because everything would be behind closed doors when doling out such punishments.

Bitfinex should know not to go up such a huge bank with such a large amount of influential people in it and around it, really poor choice.

Still I think these issues with a bank is bound to happen with an exchange of their side and I think this is going to all end pretty soon when the bank sees how much in fees and such they're going to miss out on when they find another bank who's going to pick BFX up as a customer.


Well, Banks don't want Bitcoin to thrive so this could be them attempting to limit it.

Solvency doesn't help with respect to fiat, though. They haven't said they hold enough USD/CAD/etc. to cover all debts, just cryptos. I'm wondering about the fiat side as well, mostly because the bank ditching them may have also resulted in a forfeiture of funds.

I think bitfinex is bitcoin price always exstrem high, same today is bitcoin price over 1300 dollar
someday bitfinex can same accident Mt.gox

It's going up because there's no way to withdraw USD, but you can withdraw BTC. So people with their USD stuck there are paying high costs to be able to withdraw their money (as BTC).

Why would you make such a fuss? they have head quarters and offices you can even know where their staff live, besides they are only unable to process fiat deposits and withdrawals not intentionally but by force because of banks the enemies of bitcoin. you can withdrawal any crypto.

Traders trying to exchange their already deposited fiat for bitcoin or other coins how exactly? I mean who is selling to them? because if you sell anything for fiat you are still unable to withdrawal that.

Just take out whatever coins you have there for time being until they solve their issues with banks, it's not like they're the only available exchanging service in the world, though it could be a tactic of sorts a strategy to sell coins at high prices.

I'm keeping an eye on this one. There are some red flags, but I have at Bitfinex less than 0.2BTC so it's not that painful.

If you are feel insecure, you could always 'hedge' some coins at Will Bitfinex be the next MtGox @ 2017  (https://fairlay.com/market/will-bitfinex-be-the-next-mtgox-2017/) betting. More or a less this is like a Get out of Jail almost free card.

It seems things re cooling down a bit. No next Mt.Gox. I assume one can withdraw BTC from Bitfinex?

Cryptos were never affected -- just fiat. So yes, you can deposit/withdraw BTC just fine. As well as any other crypto. For fiat, looks like they are doing (planning, if they still have issues getting a bank) to do one-time withdrawals per person so you can pull all your fiat in one swoop.

Yes.

But their cold storage wallet used to have 121k btc but is down to 74k btc:

https://blockchain.info/address/3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r

Can you please post the known BTC addresses of Bitfinex? Lets observe whats going on with them and how much larger the BTC withdrawals are vs. deposits.

Another article with more info: https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto-drama-15417cbcdf7b (https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto-drama-15417cbcdf7b)

It's all because the US started imposing stricter AML requirements for USD transactions since the beginning of April. Taiwanese banks don't fully comply with the new rules, so now any BTC company that uses a Taiwanese bank has these problems. They have to either find a new bank or wait for their current bank to comply with the new, stricter rules.

Again, this isn't just Bitfinex, but also OKcoin, Xapo, BTC-E and others. Let's hope they find a solution soon.

Sounds like they need to move opperations out of taiwan. What i'm seeing today is the spread between them and stamp is coming down i think we have some good news coming soon.

Thats more like a blog and an opinion piece from somebody who either maybe wants to calm things down or he's trying to take th attention from the real issue. The real issue is if USD deposits and more importantly withdrawals are coming back or not. If its not, try to guess what would happen.

Spread coming down? It's still more or less $90 in difference. If there is good news incoming, and the price shows a major movement prior to the announcement, it may very well be insider trading.

Right now absolutely nothing indicates a change in the current situation. It's not easy to relocate your operations to a different country as each country has other laws that an exchange must work under.

I won't be surprised to see this situation last for a few more weeks, which will only give traders there more incentive to buy at whatever premium in order to get their funds out of that exchange. Result ~ $1400 incoming.

Everyone of us should also take notice of the volume. The price keeps going up but the volume is low in all the exchanges. That could be very dangerous if whales start to dump, there wont be that much support to catch the fall.

The premium was up to $120 at its peak. The chief strategy guy of bitfinex said yesterday they will be allowing the 1 time USD withdraws in a week or so which should bring premium down further.  Remember you can still deposit crypto but you cant get fiat in.  If they do the 1 time withdraws confidence will return and i expect some people will take the punt and deposit crypto to sell for a premium.

I can't seem to find anything backing up what you are stating. Mind linking me to that statement?

If people are able to cash out again, whales will make sure the premium is gone in a matter of minutes, because if they don't do so, others will. It's basically the only option for them. ;)

Other than that, it seems highly unlikely that Bitfinex will do so. It's clear that their bank(s) isn't (aren't) willing to do business with them anymore. Bitfinex will only have the opportunity to move their money to a different bank, and that's really it.

If they succeed in that, people will then be able to cash out and deposit fiat again. At least, that's how things normally go in the situation of a bank looking to cut all ties with whatever entity. Either way, I'll be waiting for your link(s).

The statement's actually on their own site. It's in the message they sent a few days ago. Are you not actually reading what they say? Note: you have to click "I've read" or whatever to even access the site, so it'd behoove you to actually pay attention, :).

The guy hangs out at that whalepool teamspeak thing and said in a week or so people will be able to cash out USD via a 1 time type deal.  If you've got a taiwan bank account enjoy making free money on arbs mean time.

I focused too much on yesterday as he specifically mentioned that date, which directly explains why I didn't find anything.

I read through the statement posted on April 20 which indeed indicates that people will have a one time opportunity to cash out USD, per person.

Either way, I should have paid attention to what's going on. If I did, I would have known this much sooner. I admit my wrong here.

Why is Bitfinex not trying to get the message across as far and wide as possible? This looks very doubtful. Maybe they either dont want a lot of people to know theyre allowing a one time fiat withdrawal or theyre not really sure if they can make it happen.

Good point. It's not on their twitter account, and they haven't done an official blogpost on it:

https://twitter.com/bitfinex?lang=en

As far as i know, their current banks are perfectly willing to do business with them, it's just that the new USD AML regulations don't allow those Taiwanese banks to move USD to other places (i.e. the bank accounts of Bitfinex customers). As soon as those banks comply with the rules the problem will be gone. Only that could take a long time, so i think Bitfinex would be better off finding a bank outside Taiwan.


You can still get fiat in by buying USDT on Kraken (cheap now at 0.93 USD per USDT) and withdrawing it to your Bitfinex account where it will be deposited as USD 1:1. But the effect is the same as buying USDT on Kraken and selling when the price is back to normal.


There must be plenty of Taiwanese customers who can do this, we should be seeing the price gap getting smaller and yet it's not happening?

This is I think the new strategy from banking system as they're trying to manipulate people into adopting Tether/ USDT. can we now assume that USDT is the trojan horse of banks to make us use it as alternative to fiat with the same value and being stable?
Or is it the other way around? maybe the people behind the USDT intentionally caused the bitfinex drama by doing shady activities to make the banks to block their accounts so people start using the digital dollar instead?

USDT itself is a major scam in the first place. I would avoid those exchanges who are in business with Tether like i would avoid cancer. Pegging a crypto currency to USD with a 1:1 rate doesn't look possible to me. It is not possible in a profitable way at least. Sooner or later tether will be destroyed.

Actually  according to coinmarketcap, it is already destroyed. It should have stood at 1:1 but now it is 1:0.91 and failing. Last time i checked it was 0.92.

0.01$ soon.

As long as USDT isn't traded on exchanges and is only used in the background, invisible to users, to move fiat between exchanges, it can stay at 1:1. Now, in response to the Taiwanese banking mess that resulted in Tether not being able to back tether anymore (at least for the time being), Kraken has allowed traders to trade the USDT/USD pair and that is the only reason why it's not at 1 USD anymore. I wish Kraken hadn't done that and had instead just halted USDT deposits and withdrawals, then USDT would still be at 1 USD and people wouldn't post all these unfounded conspiracy theories.

Well consider all the finex people who have pushed the price into premium with millions and millions of dollars.  Once those millions of the people who want out have dried up then the price will come down.  It was $120 max though so we are already down $20-$30 depending on the time of the day.  I should think we have 1-2 weeks left of the huge huge premium imo.

I hope it won't but to be safe take out your money out of it. There is already a lot of bad calls from this exchange site. It was hacked and now dollar withdrawal problems. There are other exchanges, move your in there and do your trades there. If it suddenly goes gox and your money is in there, there is no one to blame but yourself.

@Bonez0r
It's very difficult to get accurate information as one news site says one thing, and another one says something completely different. It's very confusing for basically everyone.

I think it's just them posting the same article, but they slightly tweak it into something else to make it look like it's their own article. It's basically a form of plagiarism, but they don't care it seems.

Yes there is nobody to blame if you have money there sure, i have money there and i will take what happens. I had money in gox also but more.  These days i dont keep sums on exchanges that will hurt me in a big way.  I have been keeping up with whats happening though and im like 95% confident everything will be fine.

Then this raises a lot of doubts and concerns. When an exchange starts doing questionable things you know something is going on with them that we cant see. I will not be taken aback if the owners run away and hide with their customers' money. I mean whats new?

They're regulated, they follow KYC/AML, and they've been transparent so far. I see zero issues. They have even promised everyone can withdraw the USD they have deposited, just won't be able to deposit more. It's not like they're allowing more deposits while talking about having issues.

Ok lets give them some time to sort all their problems out. But how long should we wait until we consider that theres really something wrong? 6 months? 1 year? If they wait that long we could see many of their customers crying out scam.

Well, exchanges are always risky to keep your money on. They do seem a lot more reliable than Mt. Gox though.

Theyre all reliable until the day they lock your money in and not allowing you to withdraw your own money. I dont think youre a client of Bitfinex. If you really have money there what you would be doing is to keep quiet and try to get your money out as fast as you can before they lock BTC withdrawals too.

Not really...

Mt Gox was THE most popular and viewed as the safest and reliable exchange that was in the bitcoin world back in 2012-2013. Nobody ever could have predicted that Mt Gox was going to crash - it all seemed to function smoothly a few months before.

At least they are not blocking bitcoin withdrawals, if they did that would have basically been the end.

Still though you have to pay a premium to get your bitcoin withdrawn because the price is heavily inflated.

Although I have to add that they claim to have retained full liquidity and there are no issues with the funds themselves - they claim that the funds are in their full possession instead of in Mt. Gox's case they claimed to be hacked. So there's good news for the Bitfinex bitcoin holders out there - although it really depends on whether you believe them or not.

I first got into Bitcoin in early/mid 2013. At that point Gox was still touted as the go to place.

After five minutes of googling I discovered the following - In a far off land, check. Completely unregulated, check. Previously hacked, check. Passwords showing up in the browser, check. Legal problems, check. Run by some incomprehensible weirdo on a beach ball, check.

it was perfectly obvious to me that it was a dangerous shit hole so I never went anywhere near it. You would have to have been stunningly dim to trust it. And I'm not saying that with the luxury of hindsight.

I remember when it first started to really look like it was dying. People were saying it was too big to fail. It was still a handful of assholes in a rented office. My feeling that Bitcoiners don't have much to do with the real world persists to this day.

Obviously there was little or no alternative for a long time and Bitcoin wouldn't be where it is without it, but I still went straight to Localbitcoins and stayed there.

And I find it pretty depressing that somewhere as shady as BFX still plays a major role to this day. It should be gone by now.

I think comparing BFX to Gox is a little unfair. Are there some similarities? Sure. But this is the crypto realm -- there are GOING to be similarities, no matter what site you look at. Gox went down because they were insolvent. BFX (at least if their word is correct) is not. Not to mention you can still deposit/withdraw BTC and other cryptos without issue.

You're right, but it was more of a screed about not trusting any exchange which blatantly has no comebacks.

BFX have managed to stay in the game but I've never been able to understand why they won't be more transparent.

Do you mean transparency as in their identities/locations? If so, I've seen that pattern across the crypto realm as well -- maybe related to the businesses being in other countries where social standards are different than in the Western societies? Not really sure on that.

Yup. But also lack of audits, zero updates on the hack other than saying it's 'sensitive', the CEO admitting he trades on the exchange himself, not knowing who anyone is or where they are, their involvement in Tether which is basically a giant regulatory and legal hack that won't survive any genuine pressure or scrutiny, their weirdly convenient string of outages when the market was heating up, and not telling anyone that their banking had failed for nearly two weeks.

None of that is good enough in this day and age.

Heres an interesting story line to think about. What if Bitfinex was handed a lawsuit by the Taiwanese government because it claims that the exchange broke AML laws and theyre running an illegal money processor?

That would give us another Gox-like situation, I expect.

actually i don't know what is going with gox as i am not already join in bitcoin in that year. but for bitfinex, i think and i hope they can solve their problem so members don't think too much about become scam sites. and if we take a look with their statements in here :


i think they are trying to solve and find solutions for customers so their members can continue trading in their sites. so lets give them a time to think about it and let them find the solutions and if we have a good idea to help, then we can send them an email and tells what our idea.

Do they still do not allow BTC or Ether withdrawals? I know fiat is out of the question ATM but is crypto moving out possible?

Cause if fiat is the only issue, that s a banking problem. If crypto s locked down as well, that s clear insolvency.

Why use the word "still"? Moving crypto in or out has never been a problem. The only thing you can't withdraw or deposit is fiat (unless you count USDT).

Cause I was told crypto does not work either. If what you say is true, then there s no need to compare them to Mt.Gox. Having liquidity issues and having issues with banks not cooperating and not supporting crypto projects re completely different issues.

Lets hope they resolve these issues soon.

I've never seen anyone say crypto doesn't work. They even stated that crypto is not and will not be an issue (nor have I had one). The entire situation is just dealing with a bank. They still have all the USD, they just need a bank to allow them to send/receive again. Think of it like them holding everyone's fiat in cash -- they have it, they just need a way to move it.

Why they are not move to other bank instead and find a bank that allow to accept send and receive..
So i think looking for other bank is not a problem if they are have concern about their customer and they dont have plan to scam anyone
they should find as soon as possible to move to other bank that accept send and receive outside.. 
Just lets hope that they are doing good or it will be the same as mt.gox.. 

It's not just them that have a problem. Many other payment companies that deal with Taiwan have the same problem. Taiwan is being frozen out of international banking until they improve their regulations. Unless they can find somewhere outside Taiwan they're going to have problems. I assume the reason they bank through there is because it's hard for them to get conventional banking elsewhere. It's not going to be easy.

If they are holding a large number of money it will be hard to them to fix this issue it takes time or spend more time to solve their bank issue..
Just lets hope that it will not be the same as other exchange site that was crash and gone after some issue like hack or under ddos attack and gone after few days of fixing,. and never give the money back from their customer..

Even if the banking problem remains, I assume they can find a way to do a one time transfer to give everyone their fiat back. They were talking about doing it through their law firm.

I strongly believe that Bitfinex doesn't mind this whole situation to last a longer while as it will allow them to buy more time. Seriously, do you consider it to be coincidence that not long after they paid off their "hack" debt, that they halted USD withdrawals? Even more precise -- is there any victim of the 36% haircut that got refunded in the way that they have got their USD balance credited back?

Yeah it might be a little bit unfair to compare Bitfinex with Mtgox but the sting of losing your money because you fully trusted Bitfinex is very the same and very comparable to the sting youll feel losing your money somewhere else.

Are there any more updates on their banking situation? Is Bitfinex going to move the funds to a new bank? Do they even have a new bank ready to accept them as a client? Its taking too long if the problem is a simple banking problem. Maybe someone should contact the Taiwanese bank to see if Bitfinex's account is frozen.

Banking problems are never "easy" when you are dealing with international transfers. Even getting a bank to allow international transfers usually requires jumping through hoops. Then add in the Taiwanese issues and it's compounded.

I think nobody in crypto economy would benefit from additional inflation of this issue. So let s keep as it is, stay positive and hope it ll get resolved quite soon. I really do not think they will turn into another Mt.Gox.

Then would that mean theres a chance all the users' funds thats being held by Bitfinex will be frozen for a longer period of time than we have anticipated? What if 90% of all Bitfinex users leave the exchange and withdraw everything they have in BTC, ETH, LTC and ETC? Maybe thats the reason why those cryptocurrencies are being pumped.

They're not insolvent in cryptos. If everyone withdrew all the BTC on the exchange, they (BFX) would still have BTC left over, for example. The only things affected are fiat. How they will get that part resolved I don't know. Luckily, I don't use them for fiat.

Thats good for their users. But it will be bad for Bitfinex if the first word of an indefinite freeze of their funds comes out. No person would he stupid enough to wait for 3 years with the risk of not getting their money out. The better option would be to withdraw now via cryptocurrency with high volume and avoid coming back to the exchange.

Yes looks bitfinex show a marks like a few moments before mtgox collapse.

Meanwhile, the BTC price difference (and the price difference between USD and USDT) is down to less than 2%. So for those who still have fiat on Bitfinex and want out, it will only cost you 2% now, as opposed to 9-10% earlier. Or you can wait until the difference is 0%. I think the shrinking difference is the result of growing confidence that Bitfinex will indeed solve this problem and give people access to their fiat again soon.

The better thing to do would be to keep holding BTC because the price is still going up. Take the opportunity now while its there. The big crash will be coming sooner than we think. I would hate to be trapped in Bitfinex during a crash.

Has it been confirmed they ve halted withdrawals as well? I ve read only about wire deposits not working.

I am still wondering that it is so quiet about the issues at Bitfinex... but then again, it was also not a big deal with Gox back in the days. No money anymore for 2 weeks and the first thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179586.0 started.

One single protester in front of their doors - I mean, really? One?

They only halted deposits/withdrawals in FIAT. Not sure why people keep pushing the idea that this is affecting coins as well -- it isn't, hasn't, and they've said it won't.

+1 to this. As if you people WANT to create another Mt.Gox. Stop this FUD, only Fiat is in question ATM.

It's a common thing that people here don't read much further than the title of a thread or article. They just read that Bitfinex doesn't allow deposits and withdrawals, but completely miss the crucial underlying information that tells them the exact and complete story. It's annoying, but there is not much that can be done about this. Just point people at how things really are -- which is exactly what you did. :)

I dont think so. They are one of the most highly legitimate and trusted bitcoin exchanges right now even though they got hacked recently. Most of the people though they wouldn't be able to repay the stolen funds but amazingly they seem to have paid back almost all the money through the issue of BFX Tokens.

If bad things happen consecutively,  Some people will panic and start jumping to their own conclusions .  Honestly, Halting withdrawals is not rare, it also happened to kraken furthermore bitfinex is just halting withdrawals and deposits in fiat, You don't need to worry that much but being hacked is a different thing, it just proves that there is a flaw in them and we don't know if they successfully removed them . Can't blame people if tbey start to get cautious .

Nobody is giving the idea that its affecting cryptocurrencies. The big worry here is how long would it take before fiat deposits and withdrawals are allowed again at the exchange. If this problem takes more than 1 year then Bitfinex will have to halt trading and let their clients withdraw in BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

I think some people are getting the situation confused with what is happening on the Chinese exchanges.

Bitfinex (based in Taiwan): have halted all deposits and withdrawals in Fiat

OKCoin and all the Chinese exchanges: have halted all deposits and withdrawals in cryptocurrency (and this has been the case since mid February).

The western exchanges (bitstamp, GDAX, Gemini, Kraken) are all fine and you can deposit and withdraw both fiat and cryptocurrency.

I don't know if the surging price of btc makes bitfinex hold the funds of their investors since if they would let people withdraw what they have it can affect the + rally of bitcoins at this point(just my pity opinion). And we should leave this exchange since they have been compromised already and this second time around is kinda little bit suicide for the people who keeps deposting in their. And how could people settle on them will their so many exchange existing today.

Havent you been reading the news about BTC? Bitfinex's bank in Taiwan thats holding all their client's funds and maybe also funds for their operating expenses are locking the those funds. No one can withdraw fiat from Bitfinex but BTC is allowed.

Please read up before you log in here.

Yeah, and that is really worrying... but it seems most people are fine with it. My advice: get out of Bitfinex NOW - take the opportunity of the extremely low spread to Bitstamp at this moment (1776 to 1798 USD/BTC).

I got out of bfx already but not because I believe they are going to fail. I did because when they solve their banking problems they probably will force the typical AMLKYC crap on us and lock our coins if we don't provide our docs. Margin trading there with no docs was nice but things have an end. Too bad I missed on this recent price rise.

Thats a big minus on me totally since im pretty cautious about giving my private docs on some certain site thats why i never try to trade at them eventhough their alts prices are pretty good to buy and potential on arbitrage trades. Im pretty sure those people who spend more in that exchanges are pretty much worried since bitfinnex are showing some signs that they will fall down. Hope it will not affect for the current price rise.

You can bet it at Fairlay. The chance is slim for turning into a mtgox.

Has Bitfinex resumed FIAT withdrawal?

There is no official news yet but rumors are the deal is nearly done in late stages of bank negotiations.  Bigger players can still move money in and out apparently. Hopefully something this week or next i should think.