Bitcoin Forum

The price of bitcoin reached the highest level observed at any time, on any exchange today, reaching $1,411 on British Virgin Islands-based Bitfinex.

However, far from a rallying cry for bitcoin enthusiasts, the bitcoin price has emerged as an outlier among those offered by its global peers. At this value, bitcoin on Bitfinex was trading more than $130 higher than it was on OKCoin, nearly $100 above its price on Kraken and roughly $90 higher than Coinbase's GDAX exchange.

Notably, the cryptocurrency's price on Bitfinex was also trading more than $100 above the price of the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), an index from which it was recently suspended.

At press time, bitcoin was trading at $1,299, just below its all-time high of $1,325.

At the time of report, the cryptocurrency’s price had pared these gains somewhat, trading at roughly $1,410.00. But, as for what to make of the increase, traders have been less clear.

On one hand, the cryptocurrency's price rallied in spite of the industry's ongoing scaling dilemma and continued banking challenges, while on the other, those very issues have stoked concerns across the ecosystem.

When asked about the sentiment among traders, BTC VIX, organizer of bitcoin trading community Whale Club, said there are now concerns Bitfinex "may never have access to USD clearing again", and that this was creating a "Bitfinex premium" in the market.

The result, he alleged, has been heightened bitcoin buying amid concerns that access to fiat funds at exchanges could decline.

Banking freeze

Indeed, spreads have widened as cryptocurrency exchanges – most notably Bitfinex – have struggled with ongoing banking challenges that are preventing customers from making formerly routine deposits and withdrawals.

However, the exchange is not alone, as OKCoin and BTC-e have also recently reported issues with US dollar transfers.

Earlier this month, Bitfinex announced that it was experiencing delays in its outbound wire transfers as a result of problems involving its Taiwan banks. Bitfinex cited the refusal of Wells Fargo, its correspondent bank-to process these transactions as causing the problem.

Only days after revealing this challenge, the exchange announced that it was refusing incoming wires. At the time, the spread between Bitfinex bitcoin prices and prices on other exchanges widened, rising to more than $90 in some cases.
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-sets-new-single-exchange-time-high/

I wonder how many people are sending coins from other exchanges to Bitfinex in order to "benefit" from the $100 premium.

From Bitfinex's site;

It's not certain yet. It will be pure gambling since there isn't anything that will guarantee Bitfinex to come with a proper (temporary) solution within a reasonable amount of time. Either way, instead of people getting blinded by their greed and take the risk, they should stay far, far away from that exchange. It's not worth the risk.

Actually $100 USD premium is not that huge amount. However, as long as people is making money then its worth a try.  ;D

Current price on Bitfinex: 1420. ATH?

Well, this gets me going. Will it be possible from some of Bitfinex customer, say customer A want to file a lawsuit against them because customer A
cannot withdraw his fiat money from Bitfinex? I'm just finding it filing a lawsuit against Bitfinex is the only way to get your money because they still haven't any resolution yet on the ongoing issue they are facing. No?

People are not making money. If it were possible to withdraw fiat from Bitfinex, there will be no selling at other exchanges.
Everybody would move their bitcoins to Bitfinex. The reason that is not happening, is that it is not possible to withdraw fiat from Bitfinex.

These exchanges are being shunned by the banking industry and the withdrawal to USD thing will seriously drive me crazy. You can take risks,

but these risks are bordering on insanity, if you not in the same countries as these exchanges. I want to walk into these guys offices when

something goes wrong and confront them personally when things goes south.  >:(

You can apply for fraud. If everyone knows that it is impossible to get money from there, then do not anyone turn to police and to court?

I would think this is another ATH as per the thing that happened a couple of years ago on Mt.Gox when they had theirs at $1268 and that was not considered the official one either.
I think this will not be consider the ATH of bitcoin price either.

Yes, it is the same effect as when Mt.Gox had problems.

The price crashed not long after...

So you think it will happen again this time with Bittrex being the new Mt.Gox with this news being publicized?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1874463.0
and since the price is so high the writing is on the wall for this one to happen again.

It's Bitfinex, not Bittrex. Other than that, there are similar patterns, but it's too early on to say anything about this whole situation. It will all depend on when they come up with a viable solution that will allow people to deposit and withdraw USD again. The longer it takes, the more people will move away, and thus the higher the chances are for Bitfinex to pull the plug. I don't have any confidence in Bitfinex at all, but I hope for the people and the market that a solution will be found. No need for more negativity.

Actually, it is a significant amount for those that are interested in arbitrage trading. People already jump on board when it comes to differences of $30-$40, as has been the case with BTC-E since this exchange quite often lags behind the rest of the exchanges. In normal situations, it's basically free money that people make, but this isn't a normal situation.

At this point people will focus on that one time withdrawal opportunity, but if that doesn't come through, then people will have to step up their game. I am more worried about Bitfinex that might halt withdrawals of digital currencies as well. People should just stop wasting time and convert their US Dollars to BTC and cash it out immediately, before that opportunity is gone. What is worse, losing all your funds, or just 8%? Not a difficult choice... Eventually the price that has gone up will compensate the loss.

I think that this case will be completely closed and no dividends or a positive resolution of the claim for the Bitcoin user will not be. Bitfinex ambiguously has an unclean administration who participated in all this. I do not think that filing a lawsuit will solve some problems.

Unfortunately, that's the way it is. This exchange does not have a very good reputation. And most likely after this case, it will lose a lot of users. And this can make the situation worse

With your opinion I also agree and I will say more that no one has yet been satisfied with the quality of the exchange. But there is nothing to do and we are working with what is actually there.