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

[nmersulypnem]

we are evaluating different proposals and ideas, but at the end of the day if we implement a system it must make sense.
To prove we have access to a certain amount of coins doesn't mean anything.
How can each of you be sure about the total number of coins we say we have on behalf of our customers?
Every customer just knows how many coins he has, but can never be sure of what is the total we claim.
Is seems easier than what it really is.....

Any suggestion is as usual more than welcome

....
In theory, the gain in trust by customers will result in increased transaction fees earned by Bitfinex. Those increased fees would more than offset the additional cost of Audits and Trustee fees. If Bitfinex were the first exchange to adopt the standard, that could be huge for you, and possibly make it the top exchange. Even though Bitstamp is "headquartered" in London, their use of a Slovenia banks makes me really wonder about them.

A couple of things...

1. What percentage of liquidity are we still getting from Stamp on average? 
2. How much of Finex's holdings are kept in the Stamp account at any time on average?

For the remaining concerns, the simplest solution is to simply hire someone like Andreas Antonopoulos to come validate your BTC balances, fiat balances (ie witness you login to your bank), Stamp balances, your facility security, infrastructure locations/connectivity, cold storage, etc... like he did for Coinbase last week.  A regular auditor wouldn't have the experience to validate many of these effectively.

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[richmke]

1. What percentage of liquidity are we still getting from Stamp on average? 

I do not see Bitfinex integrated with Bitstamp anymore. I think all the liquidity is at Bitfinex only.

2. How much of Finex's holdings are kept in the Stamp account at any time on average?

With the platforms no longer integrated, there is no reason to hold BTC there.

For the remaining concerns, the simplest solution is to simply hire someone like Andreas Antonopoulos to come validate your BTC balances, fiat balances (ie witness you login to your bank), Stamp balances

That is a typical financial audit, which any accounting firm can do. The key is to get a world wide recognized firm, not a local CPA with no name recognition. Too much potential for abuse (buying the opinion) with a no-name firm. This also needs to be done on a regular basis (at least quarterly, preferably monthly).

, your facility security, infrastructure locations/connectivity, cold storage, etc... like he did for Coinbase last week.  A regular auditor wouldn't have the experience to validate many of these effectively.

That is a different type audit, and yes you need a specialist for this. This only has to be done once every year or so.

[nmersulypnem]

1. What percentage of liquidity are we still getting from Stamp on average? 

I do not see Bitfinex integrated with Bitstamp anymore. I think all the liquidity is at Bitfinex only.

Not correct.  We are still integrated with Stamp (read the last release notes). The orders are all just blended on the screen and labelled as BFX, but many still are from Stamp.

For the remaining concerns, the simplest solution is to simply hire someone like Andreas Antonopoulos to come validate your BTC balances, fiat balances (ie witness you login to your bank), Stamp balances

That is a typical financial audit, which any accounting firm can do. The key is to get a world wide recognized firm, not a local CPA with no name recognition. Too much potential for abuse (buying the opinion) with a no-name firm. This also needs to be done on a regular basis (at least quarterly, preferably monthly).

I agree that only a well known (big four) audit firm should be used, but in the interim Andreas can give us a good level of confidence on almost all the points I mentioned in a very short time, for low cost.  Again - follow Coinbase's lead until a more robust solution is accepted industry wide.  It's important to put fear to rest and get on with business.

[HairyMaclairy]

The point being there needs to be a trusted third party doing an audit.

I would prefer not Andreas - too hard to sue any individual if they have been bought off.  Much easier to sue PWC.  No reflection on Andreas just a statement of fact that individuals aren't good for liabilities over $100 million.

And this doesn't need to be hard. Add up all the fiat in the bank accounts and all the fiat held by customer accounts. Then add up all the btc in cold storage / hot wallet / on account with BSP and all the btc credited to customer accounts.  Done.

Of course your BSP holdings are exposed if BSP is running a fractions reserve but that's another audit.

There are plenty of bitcoiners working inside the big 4 accounting firms - they can get their head around it.

[HairyMaclairy]

And for the record I don't accept code based solutions for fiat - far too easy to cook the books.  A code based solution might be acceptable for btc but frankly I have my doubts there too.

The *proof* of solvency by Mark Karpeles back in 2011 where he moved 42424242 btc could easily have been generated by collusion with a couple of whales.

And we have already seen that Roger Ver's "audit" of Gox in 2013 where he looked at a bank statement and then made a YouTube video about it was not worth the paper it was not written on.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

The *proof* of solvency by Mark Karpeles back in 2011 where he moved 42424242 btc could easily have been generated by collusion with a couple of whales.

You could collude to fool auditors too, right?  Or do they look at the entire transaction history?  That seems like a boatload of work.

I don't know how expensive an auditing firm is, compared to the revenue/profit BFX makes.  
I would already be very happy with a cheap code-based approach to prove the BTC solvency.  That would already be a big step-up from current "industry" practices.

[nmersulypnem]

I agree a proper "big four" audit is in order.  I threw out the Andreas idea as just a stop-gap measure because it's quick, cheap, and somewhat effective.  Also, he has the experience, and can check some of the crypto related things that a normal audit might not, give some security tips, and also look at the site security.  If these guys are working out of a basement....

[Bonez0r]

...copies of
the relevant identification documents. These must be certified by a solicitor (or notary, or court officer) and there may be a
small fee payable for this

I want to verify my account, as I have a lot (in %) of my money on BTX. But I'm not willing to pay 100+ € for a notary certification nor a trip to my capital for a stamp
The closest I can get a an official 'proof of address'-document in dutch (in which my name is shown), issued by my town hall. Will that do?

Eitherway, I would feel more secure if BTX has some kind of ID information about me. So how can I do this?

When i read the form i somehow missed the part about the notary cert/stamp, so i just sent in the required scanned documents without those things. I never received any complaints from Bitfinex and verification was completed two days later. You need one proof of ID (i used an ID card (scan both sides)) and one proof of address (i used a tax bill and a bank statement, but only a bank statement is needed).

[Indamuck]

Just a head’s up for everyone:

The company has warned about this, but I’ll say it again: make sure you are logging in via the bitfinex.COM website. (Put the correct link on your toolbar, and make sure you use it every time.)

I had been a little sloppy, and was occasionally attempting to access my accounts via phishing sites like “bitfinex dot biz” If you do a yahoo or MSN search for “bitfinex” a link to the phishing site will be advertised right on top. The phishing site will capture all of your login credentials, including your OTP, and attempt to use them to withdraw BTC from your account.

Late Friday I stumbled into this and had a small account cleaned out in the blink of an eye. Damn they are fast!

Long story short, I've been reassured that BFX is taking measures to ensure others don’t get tripped up with this. Their response/effort is satisfactory in my view, and I continue to keep my BTC & cash at BFX, in confidence that things will continue to improve.

Let’s all be careful out there.

[F-bernanke]

Just a head’s up for everyone:

The company has warned about this, but I’ll say it again: make sure you are logging in via the bitfinex.COM website. (Put the correct link on your toolbar, and make sure you use it every time.)

I had been a little sloppy, and was occasionally attempting to access my accounts via phishing sites like “bitfinex dot biz” If you do a yahoo or MSN search for “bitfinex” a link to the phishing site will be advertised right on top. The phishing site will capture all of your login credentials, including your OTP, and attempt to use them to withdraw BTC from your account.

Late Friday I stumbled into this and had a small account cleaned out in the blink of an eye. Damn they are fast!

Long story short, I've been reassured that BFX is taking measures to ensure others don’t get tripped up with this. Their response/effort is satisfactory in my view, and I continue to keep my BTC & cash at BFX, in confidence that things will continue to improve.

Let’s all be careful out there.

This is why E-mail withdrawal verification is needed!

[nmersulypnem]

Just a head’s up for everyone:

The company has warned about this, but I’ll say it again: make sure you are logging in via the bitfinex.COM website. (Put the correct link on your toolbar, and make sure you use it every time.)

I had been a little sloppy, and was occasionally attempting to access my accounts via phishing sites like “bitfinex dot biz” If you do a yahoo or MSN search for “bitfinex” a link to the phishing site will be advertised right on top. The phishing site will capture all of your login credentials, including your OTP, and attempt to use them to withdraw BTC from your account.

Late Friday I stumbled into this and had a small account cleaned out in the blink of an eye. Damn they are fast!

Long story short, I've been reassured that BFX is taking measures to ensure others don’t get tripped up with this. Their response/effort is satisfactory in my view, and I continue to keep my BTC & cash at BFX, in confidence that things will continue to improve.

Let’s all be careful out there.

Don't take this the wrong way, but why would someone Google the name of a website instead of just typing in ".com" at the end of the name?

[HairyMaclairy]

The *proof* of solvency by Mark Karpeles back in 2011 where he moved 42424242 btc could easily have been generated by collusion with a couple of whales.

You could collude to fool auditors too, right?  Or do they look at the entire transaction history?  That seems like a boatload of work.

If someone is standing there watching you push the keys on the keyboard while you push 500k coins across the blockchain it's a lot more convincing than a transaction that occurs the same time as an IRC conversation.  

You only need to show you control the private keys. 

[Sawadekub]

By clicking the button below, I confirm that I have sent a wire transfer with the correct transaction reference and I accept that some fees may be applied by the banks involved in the transaction. No fee will be taken by Bitfinex.


normally there is a 10usd fees for deposit.. are they still there or gone now? because it says no fee will be taken by bitfinex

[Sukrim]

You maybe confuse deposits (pushing money to Bitfinex from your account) with withdrawals (pulling money from Bitfinex to your account)?

[Sawadekub]

normall putting and withdrawal bitfinex will charge 10usd.. what about deposits now?

[Sukrim]

normall putting and withdrawal bitfinex will charge 10usd.. what about deposits now?

No so far as I know they never charged for deposits. Why should they?!

[CambioBTC]

Always having to "REFRESH"
the BitFinex order page urks me,
can't you guys PUSH the data ?

[Sukrim]

Always having to "REFRESH"
the BitFinex order page urks me,
can't you guys PUSH the data ?

Just run http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitfinex/btcusd in a different window, the data on bitfinex itself is often old anyways.

[CambioBTC]

Always having to "REFRESH"
the BitFinex order page urks me,
can't you guys PUSH the data ?

Just run http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitfinex/btcusd in a different window, the data on bitfinex itself is often old anyways.

+1, Thanks

[ledmaniak]

Is it just me or has bitcoinwisdom a huge lag with bitfinex? Sometimes it takes several seconds before my order is visible in the orderbook.