Bitfinex - FRAUD, price manipulation, fake transactions

[aoluain]

Well for me I know that this whole scene is unregulated so
there are no consequences for the exchanges to do whatever
they want with the markets.

Its trading, everyone is in it to make a few gains its just the
exchanges have control of some of the strings.

We all know that shady things could be taking place,
but what else can we do if we want to trade?

[1715267510]

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[1715267510]

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[1Referee]

I actually wrote a post yesterday where I noticed this sort of behaviour at Bitfinex, where massive buy or sell orders pop up to temporarily make the market go into a certain direction, without these large orders getting bought or sold into. I personally don't see anything being wrong with this, unless it turns out that it is coming from Bitfinex itself. That being said, after everything that happened with Bitfinex, or better said, after everything they have put their customers through, only an idiot would make use of that exchange again. It actually surprised me that they managed to regain a huge load of their volumes again. I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

[mayax]

I actually wrote a post yesterday where I noticed this sort of behaviour at Bitfinex, where massive buy or sell orders pop up to temporarily make the market go into a certain direction, without these large orders getting bought or sold into. I personally don't see anything being wrong with this, unless it turns out that it is coming from Bitfinex itself. That being said, after everything that happened with Bitfinex, or better said, after everything they have put their customers through, only an idiot would make use of that exchange again. It actually surprised me that they managed to regain a huge load of their volumes again. I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

you will be amazed of how many idiots(sheep) are around...

[stompix]

It's been like that for a long time.
Remember all the fake volume from China and the excuse about the 0 trading fees?

The worse thing is the thing will get uglier and uglier.
In the altcoin market they are all faking volumes to be the first in terms of volume for every coin and sites that rank exchanges based on this are first to blame then users acting like lemmings.

But nothing you can do, nothing that really should be done.
As long as it is no illegal in the country where the exchange is operating we will all have to live it it.

[maokoto]

When you have the power to do things and none can put a finger on them... you'll end doing something. Banks have done so many things too. Seems something to take for granted. However, the exchanges also give us a good service and we are to thank them for that.

[no0dlepunk]

Come on! What is wrong with price manipulation huh? we have to embrace that because we don't have any choice but to utilize exchanges. What you have to do is to take advantage of it, buy every time that price goes down.

Man, you have to ride the waves! that what makes our thing fun! this game is for the strong (strong hands) 

[mayax]

As if other exchange never manipulate price, volume or total trade. Whales or few altcoin developers also do this to earn profit. But i think smart traders won't be fooled by this kind of manipulation and people shouldn't use exchange which knows to manipulate things or have shady reputation.

almost all the exchangers are doing that. I think Gemini and Coinbase are not doing it anymore. Being regulated, it's harder to play with your freedom. They heard that it's not so good in jail

so, people should try to use regulated exchangers instead of shady ones(Bitfinex is one of them).

[illyiller]

But nothing you can do, nothing that really should be done.
As long as it is no illegal in the country where the exchange is operating we will all have to live it it.

But where an exchange is "operating" is up to interpretation. Poloniex and Bittrex operate from the US and serve US customers. Bitfinex is organized in different places (probably to keep the owners out of prison if shit hits the fan), but also serves US customers. Generally this means (to US civil and law enforcement authorities) that an exchange is operating in the USA.

Isn't spoofing and similar manipulation illegal under SEC rules? How about CFTC? I'd imagine so, but I wouldn't know where to begin looking.

[Giebaymax]

Things like this have often I see and honestly I feel sorry for those who have participated in the exchange especially those who already have a balance, from this experience that I take is I do not want to have a balance in exchange so I have other assumptions to keep it in the wallet other to avoid things like friends say..

[marky89]

People trading on this and some other platforms know what they're getting into when they get there. I didn't see any solid evidence that Bitfinex is actively participating in their own markets. However, exchanges are mostly unregulated. If you want to trade on regulated places only, that's fine, and there are places for that.

I listened to a Whaleclub interview with Phil Potter where he said openly that he traded on his own exchange. I don't recall him going into much detail, but one would have to think he (as a top executive) has a lot of information (positions, stops) to use against traders. They could certainly be front-running customers, or worse. The regulated exchanges are illiquid, so they just follow Bitfinex. I just hope that Bitfinex isn't the next Mt Gox.....

if the users accept that, they deserve to lose all their funds.

I mean, someone must be very arrogant or ignorant to accept the fact that an exchanger  manipulates the price as he wants. it's not only Bitfinex. 99% from the exchangers have FAKE volumes and the sheep(their clients) accept that.

I don't think it's so black-and-white. Unfortunately, most people getting into cryptocurrencies don't understand the legal nuances around exchange regulation. They also likely don't know about order book manipulation. And unfortunately, there is often a tendency for new entrants to this market (at least for small investors and traders) to seek out altcoin markets because they "missed out on Bitcoin." This often has them rushing to exchanges like Poloniex and Bitfinex once they've gotten some money into the system and bought some bitcoin.

Yes, "buyer beware" and all that, but I don't think these people are necessarily arrogant. And it's very easy to be ignorant in this space. Maybe we all need to get burned once or twice before learning our lesson. I wish there were another way, though....

[deisik]

But nothing you can do, nothing that really should be done.
As long as it is no illegal in the country where the exchange is operating we will all have to live it it.

But where an exchange is "operating" is up to interpretation. Poloniex and Bittrex operate from the US and serve US customers. Bitfinex is organized in different places (probably to keep the owners out of prison if shit hits the fan), but also serves US customers. Generally this means (to US civil and law enforcement authorities) that an exchange is operating in the USA

I'm not sure if you are quite correct on this

If they see that your IP comes from the US, they ask you whether you are from the US. I'm using a VPN service myself to reach Bitfinex (though I'm not from the US), and once say this warning where I had to confirm that I'm certainly not from the US. I don't know what would happen if you claimed to be from the States. So anyone more knowledgeable is welcome to chime in on this. Regarding the topic raised, all exchanges (regulated and unregulated alike) are using dirty tricks to earn a couple of bucks here and there. Even bigger exchanges like Nasdaq or CBOE had been caught front-running the orders of their clients in the past

[stompix]

But nothing you can do, nothing that really should be done.
As long as it is no illegal in the country where the exchange is operating we will all have to live it it.

But where an exchange is "operating" is up to interpretation. Poloniex and Bittrex operate from the US and serve US customers. Bitfinex is organized in different places (probably to keep the owners out of prison if shit hits the fan), but also serves US customers. Generally this means (to US civil and law enforcement authorities) that an exchange is operating in the USA.

Isn't spoofing and similar manipulation illegal under SEC rules? How about CFTC? I'd imagine so, but I wouldn't know where to begin looking.

The US unfortunately is a bad example from where to start..cause they do what they want when they want where they want.

It pretty much depends how they are looked at based on their activity as most are just running a currency exchange and I don't think there is anyone here who can claim that the price of bitcoin has been manipulated with solid proofs to stand in court.
If I'm selling you coins at 500$ can you accuse me of manipulation?

We need a better legislation that will stamp something on bitcoin (currency , asset etc) so we could have laws about trading.
It's a void here and will probably go on for years.

[LeGaulois]

If it's true I won't be surprised as spoofing in finance is not something that can not be denied. It does exist as for example
http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/regulation/cftc-fines-algorithmic-trader-2-8-million-for-spoofing-in-the-first-market-abuse-case-brought-by-dodd-frank-act/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-02/high-speed-trader-accused-of-commodity-market-spoofing-

So why not can't they do it in the crypto market in severals exchanges?

Isn't spoofing and similar manipulation illegal under SEC rules? How about CFTC? I'd imagine so, but I wouldn't know where to begin looking.

I think It is illegal only for US stock markets https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-analyst-identifies-clear-spoofing-pattern-at-bitfinex#comment-3458611804

[marky89]

But nothing you can do, nothing that really should be done.
As long as it is no illegal in the country where the exchange is operating we will all have to live it it.

But where an exchange is "operating" is up to interpretation. Poloniex and Bittrex operate from the US and serve US customers. Bitfinex is organized in different places (probably to keep the owners out of prison if shit hits the fan), but also serves US customers. Generally this means (to US civil and law enforcement authorities) that an exchange is operating in the USA

I'm not sure if you are quite correct on this

If they see that your IP comes from the US, they ask you whether you are from the US. I'm using a VPN service myself to reach Bitfinex (though I'm not from the US), and once say this warning where I had to confirm that I'm certainly not from the US. I don't know what would happen if claimed to be from the States. So anyone more knowledgeable is welcome to chime in on this.

IIRC, this was implemented when they relaunched after the hack last year. They did it because they disallowed US customers from engaging in trading of the BFX token (with the exception of liquidating it). They also disallowed US customers from accessing margin on the exchange. But they still allowed US customers back then, and they still allow them today. I haven't logged into my account in a month or two to confirm, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that this has changed.

[countryfree]

Fake volumes? Market manipulations?
Pump and Dump groups are very real, and they've been around for years. You just have to stay away from the small new altcoins which can easily be pushed up with little volume.

[gentlemand]

I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

It's not really a USD exchange any more as you can't input or extract USD.

It's bizarre how short everyone's memories are. They were ravaged with outages and haircuts yet they still came back for more.

They've still said nothing about the hack, still haven't provided an audit that was promised months ago, when they lost banking they said they were going to be opening new trading pairs like CHF a week or two later. Er, nope.

Regardless of this spoofing in crypto is not illegal so it's going to happen. It's a bit less cool if it's the exchange themselves doing it with dollars that they've magically conjured into existence with Tether.

[romani245]

I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

It's not really a USD exchange any more as you can't input or extract USD.

It's bizarre how short everyone's memories are. They were ravaged with outages and haircuts yet they still came back for more.

They've still said nothing about the hack, still haven't provided an audit that was promised months ago, when they lost banking they said they were going to be opening new trading pairs like CHF a week or two later. Er, nope.

Thanks for putting this into perspective for me. I was thinking of re-adding Bitfinex into my bundle of exchanges to diversify the 3rd party risk, but it's not worth it. This place is a ticking time bomb.

[mayax]

I seriously thought it was done an over with Bitfinex, in terms of being the largest USD exchange.

It's not really a USD exchange any more as you can't input or extract USD.

It's bizarre how short everyone's memories are. They were ravaged with outages and haircuts yet they still came back for more.

They've still said nothing about the hack, still haven't provided an audit that was promised months ago, when they lost banking they said they were going to be opening new trading pairs like CHF a week or two later. Er, nope.

Regardless of this spoofing in crypto is not illegal so it's going to happen. It's a bit less cool if it's the exchange themselves doing it with dollars that they've magically conjured into existence with Tether.

because there was no hack. it's was an inside thing. the lost the banking and they will never get it back.

yes, the people are ..pffff...    I cannot find words. that's why sometimes I say that they deserve to lose their funds so that they can learn the lesson.  how can you use a such exchanger? just because they have a "better" API like BTC-e?   

[dashingriddler]

Uh.
This does not look too good:
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@cryptoblood/new-bitfinex-exchange-coming-all-things-ethereum

[mayax]

Uh.
This does not look too good:
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@cryptoblood/new-bitfinex-exchange-coming-all-things-ethereum

Bitfinex is like BTC-e; part of the "same" gang