[BETA]Bitfinex.com first Bitcoin P2P lending platform for leverage trading

[Ichthyo]

something I don't quite understand happened. ~1.5 days ago my position looked like this:

...
Also there's nothing in the history about this, no sell as I would expect:

The history has additional tabs for order history and credit history (what you pasted is only the tab for the accounting history)
On the order history there should be an entry for each and every order that was placed and executed, together with the actual price it was filled. In case you got a foced close (e.g. due to an loan going expiring, or a margin call due to a sudden market spike), then you'll see an entry "forced....".

If there is no such entry in the relevant time span, I'd recommend to report it to support@bitfinex.com

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[myself]

could someone help me understand, please?

if this image is from said position ( posted here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119745.msg1867006#msg1867006 )

you see that on position maximum period you have 1 day so the system did what you told him to do keep the position open for 1 day

[molecular]

could someone help me understand, please?

if this image is from said position ( posted here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119745.msg1867006#msg1867006 )

you see that on position maximum period you have 1 day so the system did what you told him to do keep the position open for 1 day

f.ckin' hell! I misunderstood things again . I thought these controls were just to "explore the lending market" and had only influence on the value to the right of it. Darn.

Well, thanks for this extremely valuable info, myself!

[simonk83]

Site down?

[simonk83]

Back now

[Freakshow]

Would someone be so kind to inform me as to what the "Swap" column is under the "Active Positions" in the "Margin Trade" tab ??  If I have USD in the account and BTC, then what needs to be swapped?  Is that going to be subtracted from the P/L in the end?

I already notice that they are subtracting all the fee's from the USD, everytime I sell a BTC in my margin position.  I guess I would have thought that they would have done this at the end of the entire position because it seems like the P/L is not really going to be that accurate then if I am loosing money with each sell, but the P&L isn't going down from that..??

While I am not new to trading, the swap thing is new...

[urwhatuknow]

Would someone be so kind to inform me as to what the "Swap" column is under the "Active Positions" in the "Margin Trade" tab ??  If I have USD in the account and BTC, then what needs to be swapped?  Is that going to be subtracted from the P/L in the end?

I already notice that they are subtracting all the fee's from the USD, everytime I sell a BTC in my margin position.  I guess I would have thought that they would have done this at the end of the entire position because it seems like the P/L is not really going to be that accurate then if I am loosing money with each sell, but the P&L isn't going down from that..??

While I am not new to trading, the swap thing is new...

Freakshow

To say it in a simplistic way the swap is the amount of money  your position has costed you so far (i.e. interest to pay).
This amount will be subtracted from your gains (or added to your losses) once your position is closed.
On the other hand the selling commission is subtracted from the USD account because is considered as "non characteristic" to your trading position.
In other words paying commissions is something you also do in a normal non leveraged trade and therefore (according to GAAP) should not be put into account it the trading page calculation.

I hope this helps

Giancarlo
Customers Relations
Bitfinex Team

[romantic1]

I can log in but just can't trade now !

[oakpacific]

I can log in but just can't trade now !

Confirmed, no trading even on BFX.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Is there a way for BFX to be extended to work with say Bitstamp or BTC-e?

[Sukrim]

Yes, theoretically it is possible, practically they need to negotiate probably with these exchanges (it might look like a HUGE bot and maybe even a DOS attack to the exchange) and also they need to verify accounts I guess. Also they need a trading bot for these additional exchanges in the background that needs to be tested/verified. This takes time on both Bitfinex' (code changes) and the exchange's (verification) side.

They wanted to announce something soon(tm), so I guess there will be at least another alternative to MtGox in the making - I hope for Bitstamp because that would allow me to withdraw to Ripple via a few steps.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Yes, theoretically it is possible, practically they need to negotiate probably with these exchanges (it might look like a HUGE bot and maybe even a DOS attack to the exchange) and also they need to verify accounts I guess. Also they need a trading bot for these additional exchanges in the background that needs to be tested/verified. This takes time on both Bitfinex' (code changes) and the exchange's (verification) side.

They wanted to announce something soon(tm), so I guess there will be at least another alternative to MtGox in the making - I hope for Bitstamp because that would allow me to withdraw to Ripple via a few steps.

Offtopic, but what can you even use XRP for?

[Sukrim]

Ripple transactions. If you feel adventurous you can also try to use them as currency, but I wouldn't recommend that.

I meant ripple in the sense of "the ripple system", not XRP.

[urwhatuknow]

Dear Bitfinex Customers

in the last 48 hours we have been working on empowering and optimizing our platform.
I believe most of the problems are now solved and the "trading experience" is now very good again.
We will keep working on it in the next days, scaling up even more and optimizing some code lines that were slowing down the system.

Now on to 2 mayor announcement:

Insurance on loans:

We made an agreement with an investor willing to put up a reserve in order to cover customers willing to insure their loans.
This reserve amount will start with 50,000 usd and will grow as 75% of the extra commissions generated on insured loans will increase the reserves on a day by day base.
As previously stated insured loans will be charged a commission of 30% on interest maturated instead of the normal 10%.
Of this extra 20% an amount of 15% will be increasing the reserves to cover insured loans ( hopefully making them grow rapidly ) while 5% will go in the pocket of the investor taking the risk.
In case he gets wiped out by a black swan event he will then put up again another 50,000 usd and the whole thing will start all over.
This initial amount allows only about 10% of our current loans to be insured at the beginning and this will be made on a "first come first serve base".
We will add a tick on the loaning page that will allow to opt for insured loans in case the reserves are not all taken yet.
All insured loans will then be 100% reimbursed no matter what happens to the market.
Loans that are generated as non insured can't be insured on a later stage, unless they are first closed and then re-opened again.
On the statistics page we will add a counter that will show the total amount of the reserves and the % of them that are currently being taken. This new system will take place starting from the 1st of May at 00.00 GMT.

New trading partnership:
Starting from saturday the 4th of May at 00.00 GMT we will also offer to our customers the possibility to trade on Bitstamp.
We believe Bitstamp to currently be the best option on the market.
Those guys (Nejc and Damian) are doing a great job and growing rapidly, eating up big chunks of marketshare to MtGox .
With this move we hope to be able to add some liquidity to our orderbook and to prevent problems in case MtGox will have to shutdown its trading platform again.
(Knocking on wood).

That's pretty much it for the moment.
As usual any question will be more than welcome.

Keep smiling

Giancarlo
Customers Relation
The Bitfinex Team

[Sukrim]

Would it be possible to also pledge (5 digit+) USD amounts for this "reserve fund" and also get 5% of fees for that?

Edit: Answered via PM, thanks. TL;DR for me: Possible, but too risky for me right now.

[GraphicImpulse]

How long do Bitcoin withdrawals take? Bitcoins stuck on Bitfinex. Not even entering blockchain.

[unclescrooge]

Hello GraphicImpulse,

Withdrawals are made manually as there is no hot wallet on our servers.

Normally we make them once a day however I have processed yours just now.

Have a nice day
Raphael

[myself]

Raphael is time to make the text on withdraw page bigger 

[superbit]

Would it be possible to also pledge (5 digit+) USD amounts for this "reserve fund" and also get 5% of fees for that?

I was wondering about doing this too, but is there any added benefit?  Since you are now taking the risk of the loans getting wiped out and you are getting a lower % then if you just had the money lent out yourself directly insured or uninsured.


You are better off just taking out an insured loan and paying 30% of the interest.


Are the uninsured loans pooled?  I don't think they are but it seems it would help diversify the risk.  If a couple of people end up getting decimated, it could be spread out over all the non-insured lenders.

[Sukrim]

Would it be possible to also pledge (5 digit+) USD amounts for this "reserve fund" and also get 5% of fees for that?

I was wondering about doing this too, but is there any added benefit?  Since you are now taking the risk of the loans getting wiped out and you are getting a lower % then if you just had the money lent out yourself directly insured or uninsured.

My reasoning was that I don't have to care that much about making sure my loans are actually filled (in case there is more demand than supply for insured loans). Also people taking insured loans might look to have higher than average/VIR returns to make up for the difference a bit, so I guess there would also be a bit higher return than just 5% of VIR.

What I would still find interesting is how a lack swan event would be dealt with:

Example:
100k USD are right now at risk, the market takes a sudden 60% nose dive and trades are executed far too late --> 100k potential USD are turned to 40k real USD, a loss of 60k USD.
There were 20k insured loans, 50k in total in the "insurance fund" and 80k uninsured loans.

I would think that it works like this:
The lenders of the 20k insured loans get back 8k USD from Bitfinex + the remaining 12k USD from the insurance fund. The insurance fund now holds 38k USD and insured lenders are happy.
The lenders of the 80k uninsured loans get back 60% less from Bitfinex and 0 USD from the insurance fund --> 28k USD in total.

^^^ Is this example correct? Would Bitfinex still try to cover some funds out of good will or because it maybe was partly their fault too? Might insured loans instead be fully covered only from the insurance fund (50k --> 30k USD and the 80k lenders receive 40k USD instead of 28k USD)?