is Bitfinex still trusted?

[Ewinsane]

for me bitfinex is still trusted because after hacking problem they provide more security for it and i hope no one can be hack it again and there is a lot of people using bitfinex.  

[1713422443]

1713422443

[Wind_FURY]

I added some btc to Bitfinex but then I heard that it was hacked recently.

Is this exchange still trusted? What are your thoughts?

Well if you are doubt on bitfinex because of hacking issue, more better don't use their service and personality i am believe on them because they have fixed the bugs on their service.

somehow i am agree with densuj said and there is many good exchangers you can trade with like kraken, bitstamp, btc-e or else, but i think kraken is a good option for you. as long as you don't use all of your bitcoin in one exchanger then you are fine to go with trading, so you can trade with many exchanges.

btc-e is one of the oldest exchanges and is trusted but it is not better than others such as kraken. the only thing good about btc-e (in my opinion) is the fact that they are not asking for verification and also they have many different methods of fiat deposit/withdrawal that can be helpful to people in many different countries that can not or do not want to let their bank know they used a bitcoin exchange.

I disagree with your statement. BTCe is in some ways better than Kraken. It is run and operated in the way of how Bitcoin services should be. It operates outside of any legal boundaries and anyone using the exchange is assured that no government department will come sniffing for their users information.

So you think Bitcoin exchanges are more protected because they are more legitimate just because they adhere to some laws? Then look at what happened to Bitfinex and Bitstamp. They were hacked for a combined amount of more than $10M stolen. Did the government help get back the stolen coins?

actually it doesn't operate outside of any kind of legal boundaries, it is based in Russia and it will abide by Russian law and if they need to they will come sniffing for their users information and nothing can stop them.

and no following the law doesn't mean government is insuring anything about the exchanges. it only means they are following the law

and when i say kraken is better than btc-e, it is just my opinion and i am not comparing then based on security or insurance, but mostly based on the type of service they are offering and how they handle their site.

Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

[deisik]

I added some btc to Bitfinex but then I heard that it was hacked recently.

Is this exchange still trusted? What are your thoughts?

Well if you are doubt on bitfinex because of hacking issue, more better don't use their service and personality i am believe on them because they have fixed the bugs on their service.

somehow i am agree with densuj said and there is many good exchangers you can trade with like kraken, bitstamp, btc-e or else, but i think kraken is a good option for you. as long as you don't use all of your bitcoin in one exchanger then you are fine to go with trading, so you can trade with many exchanges.

btc-e is one of the oldest exchanges and is trusted but it is not better than others such as kraken. the only thing good about btc-e (in my opinion) is the fact that they are not asking for verification and also they have many different methods of fiat deposit/withdrawal that can be helpful to people in many different countries that can not or do not want to let their bank know they used a bitcoin exchange.

I disagree with your statement. BTCe is in some ways better than Kraken. It is run and operated in the way of how Bitcoin services should be. It operates outside of any legal boundaries and anyone using the exchange is assured that no government department will come sniffing for their users information.

So you think Bitcoin exchanges are more protected because they are more legitimate just because they adhere to some laws? Then look at what happened to Bitfinex and Bitstamp. They were hacked for a combined amount of more than $10M stolen. Did the government help get back the stolen coins?

actually it doesn't operate outside of any kind of legal boundaries, it is based in Russia and it will abide by Russian law and if they need to they will come sniffing for their users information and nothing can stop them.

and no following the law doesn't mean government is insuring anything about the exchanges. it only means they are following the law

Who told you that btc-e is based in Russia?

As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria (and maybe, the Netherlands). It is often thought of as a Russian exchange and most likely its roots are Russian in fact, but we don't know that for sure since its owners are basically unknown to the wide public. And I agree that operating exchange in such a way is quite along the Bitcoin way. As history shows, exchanges that seemingly chose to cooperate with the government get eventually hacked or outright scammed (Cryptsy, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, to name a few)

[pooya87]

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Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

they are shamelessly admitting that they will release information of their users to any authority that asks: "if and when it is requested by government agencies that . BTC-e disclose information relating to user activity and/or contact information we will comply."

~As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria ~

LOL, if it was that easy to find out where they are really located it wouldn't have been based on their servers, instead based on their registered company which is in London. they have another managing company in Cyprus! and they have banks in Russia, and many other places.

[deisik]

~
Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

they are shamelessly admitting that they will release information of their users to any authority that asks: "if and when it is requested by government agencies that . BTC-e disclose information relating to user activity and/or contact information we will comply."

~As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria ~

LOL, if it was that easy to find out where they are really located it wouldn't have been based on their servers, instead based on their registered company which is in London. they have another managing company in Cyprus! and they have banks in Russia, and many other places.

How do you know that *they* have accounts in Russian banks?

I mean how do you know that these accounts are actually registered for the legal entity behind btc-e? I just quickly went through the exchange site itself, and I didn't find any mention of this entity at all! But maybe, I missed it. Anyway, since there are many options for withdrawing rubles which obviously involve bank transfers (e.g. withdrawals to Russian banks such as Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Russian Standard Bank), they do have accounts opened in these banks but who is behind these accounts remains largely unknown. Maybe, Putin is behind btc-e

[numismatist]

At least Bitfinex continues on refunding BFX

[wahb]

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Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

they are shamelessly admitting that they will release information of their users to any authority that asks: "if and when it is requested by government agencies that . BTC-e disclose information relating to user activity and/or contact information we will comply."

~As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria ~

LOL, if it was that easy to find out where they are really located it wouldn't have been based on their servers, instead based on their registered company which is in London. they have another managing company in Cyprus! and they have banks in Russia, and many other places.

How do you know that *they* have accounts in Russian banks?

I mean how do you know that these accounts are actually registered for the legal entity behind btc-e? I just quickly went through the exchange site itself, and I didn't find any mention of this entity at all! But maybe, I missed it. Anyway, since there are many options for withdrawing rubles which obviously involve bank transfers (e.g. withdrawals to Russian banks such as Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Russian Standard Bank), they do have accounts opened in these banks but who is behind these accounts remains largely unknown

to me i think yes bitfiex recover its position and not it is trading in a very very good mode.

[Wind_FURY]

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Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

they are shamelessly admitting that they will release information of their users to any authority that asks: "if and when it is requested by government agencies that . BTC-e disclose information relating to user activity and/or contact information we will comply."

~As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria ~

LOL, if it was that easy to find out where they are really located it wouldn't have been based on their servers, instead based on their registered company which is in London. they have another managing company in Cyprus! and they have banks in Russia, and many other places.

How do you know that *they* have accounts in Russian banks?

I mean how do you know that these accounts are actually registered for the legal entity behind btc-e? I just quickly went through the exchange site itself, and I didn't find any mention of this entity at all! But maybe, I missed it. Anyway, since there are many options for withdrawing rubles which obviously involve bank transfers (e.g. withdrawals to Russian banks such as Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Russian Standard Bank), they do have accounts opened in these banks but who is behind these accounts remains largely unknown. Maybe, Putin is behind btc-e

Many here look like they underestimate the way BTCe is run. The people who run it have already figured everything out. From how to evade the laws and what loop holes to use to avoid imprisonment. They are also protected by the most important item of all, their anonymity. Maybe Satoshi is behind BTCe.

[pooya87]

~
Do they? Who are the Russian authorities and regulators going to catch? The owners are anonymous. Where is the business permit of BTCe? Where are their servers located? It is run in the spirit of Bitcoin and no, Kraken is not better and will never be better than BTCe. Period.

they are shamelessly admitting that they will release information of their users to any authority that asks: "if and when it is requested by government agencies that . BTC-e disclose information relating to user activity and/or contact information we will comply."

~As far as I know its servers are physically located in Bulgaria ~

LOL, if it was that easy to find out where they are really located it wouldn't have been based on their servers, instead based on their registered company which is in London. they have another managing company in Cyprus! and they have banks in Russia, and many other places.

How do you know that *they* have accounts in Russian banks?

I mean how do you know that these accounts are actually registered for the legal entity behind btc-e? I just quickly went through the exchange site itself, and I didn't find any mention of this entity at all! But maybe, I missed it. Anyway, since there are many options for withdrawing rubles which obviously involve bank transfers (e.g. withdrawals to Russian banks such as Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Russian Standard Bank), they do have accounts opened in these banks but who is behind these accounts remains largely unknown. Maybe, Putin is behind btc-e

one of their accounts are in Cбepбaнкa Poccии which is an state owned bank in Moscow. and when you have such an account you no longer are unknown entity.
but anyways, i am not here to defend btc-e or bash it. i have been using it and it has the same risks as any other exchange out there.

~
Many here look like they underestimate the way BTCe is run. The people who run it have already figured everything out. From how to evade the laws and what loop holes to use to avoid imprisonment. They are also protected by the most important item of all, their anonymity. Maybe Satoshi is behind BTCe.

what the hell are you talking about? imprisonment? since when running a bitcoin exchange has been illegal?

[deisik]

How do you know that *they* have accounts in Russian banks?

I mean how do you know that these accounts are actually registered for the legal entity behind btc-e? I just quickly went through the exchange site itself, and I didn't find any mention of this entity at all! But maybe, I missed it. Anyway, since there are many options for withdrawing rubles which obviously involve bank transfers (e.g. withdrawals to Russian banks such as Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Russian Standard Bank), they do have accounts opened in these banks but who is behind these accounts remains largely unknown. Maybe, Putin is behind btc-e

one of their accounts are in Cбepбaнкa Poccии which is an state owned bank in Moscow. and when you have such an account you no longer are unknown entity.
but anyways, i am not here to defend btc-e or bash it. i have been using it and it has the same risks as any other exchange out there

It is the same with any bank out there, not just with Sberbank

You obviously miss my point completely. I don't mean to say that the banks don't know the identity of people or the companies that opened these accounts, I say that they may appear to not be affiliated with btc-e. You may use a lot of fly-by-night companies as intermediaries between you and your clients if you want to retain anonymity. Sberbank's chairman, Herman Greff (an ethnic German, by the way) has (or had) some bitcoins himself, so I wouldn't be surprised if Sberbank turned out to be behind btc-e at the end of the day

~
Many here look like they underestimate the way BTCe is run. The people who run it have already figured everything out. From how to evade the laws and what loop holes to use to avoid imprisonment. They are also protected by the most important item of all, their anonymity. Maybe Satoshi is behind BTCe.

what the hell are you talking about? imprisonment? since when running a bitcoin exchange has been illegal?

Just in case, the btce-e.com domain is not accessible from Russia (Russian users should use another address)

[Wind_FURY]

what the hell are you talking about? imprisonment? since when running a bitcoin exchange has been illegal?

But since when is running a Bitcoin exchange legal too? Everything is in the grey area and there is nothing that will stop the government from slamming your door down and arrest you. Remember Charlie Shrem? I bet you do. He was imprisoned for running and "illegal" payment processor. What stops the people from using Bitcoin exchanges to launder their money? That is another angle law enforcement can look into. With BTCe the owners are safe from any indictment because they are hiding under the shroud of anonymity.

[Carmen_Sandiego]

After the events surrounding Bitfinex, I started to rely less on exchanges, since Bitfinex itself was considered one of the best. Shortly thereafter, there were problems related to Coinbase, not technical problems, but legal problems. But it seems like things are under control at the moment. Anyway, I would not leave money standing for too long in an exchange.

[pooya87]

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Just in case, the btce-e.com domain is not accessible from Russia (Russian users should use another address)

i just tried it with a Russian IP address and i successfully accessed btc-e.com and there was no problem with the access and/or log in.

[deisik]

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Just in case, the btce-e.com domain is not accessible from Russia (Russian users should use another address)

i just tried it with a Russian IP address and i successfully accessed btc-e.com and there was no problem with the access and/or log in

Are you sure that you are using exactly this address (https://btc-e.com) for accessing btc-e?

Please check this address again and that you don't use a proxy, vpn, anonymizer or something to that tune. Some add-ons for Firefox allow you to use anonymizers only for specific sites (you might be using one). You can see for yourself here that the access to the exchange is blocked for Russian users according to a court ruling. Obviously, that was a moronic decision by any means (as the whole idea of limiting access to sites in Internet), but it is there

[Wind_FURY]

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Just in case, the btce-e.com domain is not accessible from Russia (Russian users should use another address)

i just tried it with a Russian IP address and i successfully accessed btc-e.com and there was no problem with the access and/or log in.

Ok so you found the IP address of their site. Can you take it down? How sure are you that they do not have backup servers? Also how can you stop them? They are anonymous and can start another exchange with a different name. Unlike Bitfinex we know who the founders are and where to find them.

[chaser15]

I added some btc to Bitfinex but then I heard that it was hacked recently.

Is this exchange still trusted? What are your thoughts?

Once an exchange already got some problems in the past, please considered that for future use and for reference purposes about standards in choosing bitcoin exchange.

They are operating now but in the future Im expecting some big fraud activity with them. Im really dissapointed in their last problem and convert all my funds into tokens. I leaved that exchanges already and transfer to another one.

[deisik]

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Just in case, the btce-e.com domain is not accessible from Russia (Russian users should use another address)

i just tried it with a Russian IP address and i successfully accessed btc-e.com and there was no problem with the access and/or log in.

Ok so you found the IP address of their site. Can you take it down? How sure are you that they do not have backup servers? Also how can you stop them? They are anonymous and can start another exchange with a different name. Unlike Bitfinex we know who the founders are and where to find them.

It is not the exchange IP's

The IP you see in the shapshot (i.e 83.239.58.162) is the poster's IP, his Internet provider is Rostelecom, the largest Internet provider in Russia (actually, the company belongs to the Russian government). The btc-e.com IP is 104.23.131.83, and access to this IP was restricted by the St.Petersburg court ruling, so you can't access the exchange by that address from Russia (at least through official Internet providers). The poster probably uses an anonymiser or proxy server (maybe, a vpn) to reach the exchange (or he is downright accessing btc-e through one of their alternative addresses, i.e. not .com address)

[amaral1977]

People are claiming that since the hack security have been improved, bugs fixed, and the service is running smoothly. On the other and it´s still a bit cloudy if it was indeed a hack or an inside job.

Keep the coins in your own wallet and only put the coins in exchanges if you are really planning on trading. Don´t use it as a wallet just to old the coins.

[deisik]

People are claiming that since the hack security have been improved, bugs fixed, and the service is running smoothly. On the other and it´s still a bit cloudy if it was indeed a hack or an inside job

Once bitten twice shy

I would still not trust them. I read here about some guy who had been using his Bitfinex account as a web wallet (don't ask me why he was doing that) even after the exchange had got hacked. Not surprisingly that he ended up with his funds being locked by the exchange. He was desperately trying to withdraw his funds but he didn't write whether they returned the funds or not. The lesson to take home is that after something fishy happens stay away from it as far as possible

[davidgdg]

To answer the original poster's question:

1. Clearly as a matter of fact, yes:

a. Bitfinex currently commands between 30% and 50% (varying from day to day) of the entire USD/BTC exchange market. A large number  of traders clearly trust the exchange. The exchange is highly profitable and its USD/BTC book is the deepest there is.

b. Customers (includiing me) who were hacked have since exchanged tokens for US$ 50 million equity in the company. Again this suggests a high degree of confidence.

2. As regards their current levels of security, the hack was achieved by exploiting a vulnerability in Bitgo which (not surprisingly) Bitfinex no longer use.

3. More broadly, you can take two views. One is that if an exchange has been hacked then that shows its security is poor and so it should never be trusted again. The other view is that a hacked exchange is likely to take every possible step to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.  I take the second view, but both views are legitimate.

4. Given the scale of the hack, losses to customers were minimal. The original haircut was 37% but BFX tokens are now trading at almost 85 cents in the dollar so the net loss at current figures is 0.15 x 37% = ~ 5% which seems likely to fall to zero before the end of the year.

5. Personal/contact details and information are available for all key personnel. I find that reassuring and quite unusual in this industry.

Just my thoughts.