Bitcoin Forum

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Service Changes for U.S. Customers
August 11, 2017
Bitfinex is making changes to the services we provide to U.S. individuals. These changes impact the verification process and trading of certain digital tokens for U.S. customers. Some changes are effective immediately, and others will be gradually implemented in the coming weeks.

Suspension of U.S. Individual Verification Requests

We regret to announce that, effective immediately, we will no longer be accepting verification requests for U.S. individuals.

We have for some time considered pulling away from the retail marketplace in the U.S., and now with a current backlog of verification requests and ongoing difficulties in providing USD deposit and withdrawals for U.S. individuals, we feel that the time has come to begin disengaging from U.S. retail customers.

Several factors have gone into this decision:

While we have been able to normalize banking for some corporate customers and individuals in certain jurisdictions, compliant banking solutions for U.S. individuals remain elusive. We have been slowly and selectively inviting users in particular jurisdictions who meet set criteria to start using banking channels that have come online. This process is ongoing.
A surprisingly small percentage of our revenues come from verified U.S. individual accounts while a dramatically outsized portion of our resources goes into servicing the needs of U.S. individuals, including support, legal and regulatory.
We anticipate the regulatory landscape to become even more challenging in the future.
Bitfinex is not based in the United States. Exchanges based in the U.S. are better positioned to properly service retail U.S. customers.
We are thankful to all of our loyal U.S. customers that have consistently traded with us but, unfortunately, we have an obligation to our whole customer base and to our shareholders to make rational resource allocation decisions.

Furthermore, over the next 90 days, we will be discontinuing services to our existing U.S. individual customers. We will be communicating further with affected users on timing and specifics. Our intention is to reduce disruption as much as possible for our U.S. customers.

We will continue to take advice and implement further changes as circumstances warrant.

Restrictions on U.S. Persons Trading Certain Digital Tokens

Pursuant to the recent report of investigation issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitfinex is taking the proactive step of barring U.S. customers from trading certain digital tokens that may be deemed securities in the eyes of the SEC.

The restriction will generally apply to ERC20 tokens issued through "ICOs" and will go into effect at noon UTC on Wednesday, August 16, 2017. No trading of these tokens will be allowed for U.S. customers. At the time of this post, the tokens active on Bitfinex that will be subject to this restriction are EOS (EOS) and Santiment (SAN).

Once again, we regret any inconvenience this change in policy might create, but we believe this to be a prudent measure given the regulatory uncertainty surrounding such digital assets.

If no US residents trade in an exchange and that exchanging service runs away with people's money, none of the law enforcement agencies in the

US would bother to pursue the scammers. since Trump woke up just recently, they now are feeling and seeing the effects of ICOs on their economy.

In other words, no more pump and dumps as usual business in Bitfinex which is a blessing in disguise, mostly Americans were manipulating markets

And cashing out billions of dollars in the process. I'm not saying they are going to scam people but they could do so much easier and without any

Concerns of being prosecuted globally. I expect their volume of trades decrease in about 3 months from now by at least %30.

They say their volume from US customers is minimal, so it'll be interesting how the mass exodus of US customers impacts their trading volume.  Also, I wonder what it'll do to some of the prices since customers may be cashing out since some other exchanges don't support the same currencies.  For instance; my understanding is IOTA is only traded on Bitfinex so any US customer will have to cash out.

Any suggestions on an exchange I should move to?  Poloniex would have been my choice except their recent outages has me spooked.

This "mass exodus of US customers" will hardly impact their trading volume. Most of today's cryptocurrencies are heavily traded outside North America.

The US's aggressive enforcement of seizures across international jurisdictions has long been a contentious issue not just within the bitcoin community but also within very specific industry sectors offering financial custodial services (such as traditionally secretive offshore banks). Switzerland is a prime example. They used to be a neutral and untouchable banking enclave for decades. This is no longer the case and US persons banking there can expect their account balances shared with the IRS. The primary motivating factor seems to be Uncle Sam's aggressive drive to collect taxes from Americans who find (criminally) creative ways to hide their wealth. Singapore and Hong Kong used to be just as highly regarded as Swiss banks. Their banks now refuse to open accounts for Americans or anyone considered to be taxable residents of the US.

We anticipate the regulatory landscape to become even more challenging in the future.

This is why banks and bitcoin struggle to maintain a receptive and lasting relationship. For as long as banks and exchanges fear being sanctioned by regulatory authorities and for as long as risks and costs far exceed manageable thresholds, this exclusion of Americans will continue in the future.

Not surprising considering the fact that the US has been very strict on bitcoin recently. Other countries have loosened up the rules but some politicians seem to want to eliminate cash and bitcoin from the economy altogether by putting strict capital controls.


I think perhaps "surprisingly small" is a bit of a stretch, but it's true that dealing with US regulators is a hassle.

Does anyone know if people in the US will be able to withdraw bitcoin from their account in the future, or is there a set date for bitcoin withdrawals to stop functioning for US citizens as well?

I mean in the future if you want to use bitfinex, you still can. Just use VPN, it's just that you can't get a verified account.

According to the post, they say they'll be reaching out to US customers with their plan to offboard US customers.  I believe it'll happen over the next 90-days.  As for the VPN route, I thought about that but not sure if it's worth it because if I don't know what they'd do if I dorked up and logged in one day without VPN.  I enjoyed the passive income on Margin Lending and my experience there has been really good... but I think it's time to pack up and move all my coin to wallets and say trading is only an occasional activity now.  I don't know where to go.

This doesn't belong in this section, it belongs in the discussion or ann section, move it to the proper section.

To tell you the truth, bitfinex dont want US government to seize their asset in case if there's money laundering in it, just like BTC-Es case!