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

[mjr]

Some of the services that I really love, and feel free to suggest others that you like are:

1. Coinapult (not available in the US, unfortunately), but I used to work for them, and helped build their locks product

Used them to send coins more than a year ago, total disaster, bitcoins went missing, had real trouble to sort things out with the party that should receive coins. Highly NOT recommended, use with caution.

A lot has changed in a year...I would recommend taking a look again.

[1715564561]

1715564561

[1715564561]

1715564561

[1715564561]

1715564561

[gog1]

I do agree that the FRR acts as a damper...but who is to say it wouldn't work the same way in reverse? It is not inherently downward pressure, it is simply a damper on movements in general. If we were in a huge bull market, a real one, like the rise to 1200, wouldn't the FRR stop the rates from falling as more and more fixed rates were taken above the FRR?

I'm not sure I follow you there - fixed rate swaps above FRR don't get taken unless there's enough demand to get the amount offered at FRR down to near-zero. After a big rise in demand that pushes the going rate up high, the FRR might continue to stay high for a while as the average slowly descends, but it wouldn't be able to resist downward motion.

Hm, unless there were a huge body of swap demands placed at FRR, enough to keep all the 'passive' swap providers' funds occupied and make it difficult for a trader to get funding unless they go over the top and place their demand higher than FRR. But I feel like that's an unlikely scenario in all but the most extreme cases. Would only be a possibility in the absolute hyper-manic phase of a bubble (or the equally hyper-manic period during the 'first bounce' out of a crash, where people line up to place bets on the bubble resuming), whereas FRR as-is seems to have it's typical rate-depressing effect even in times of small-to-moderate price rises.

To some extent, I'm happy to see the rate collapse - hopefully, it'll make BFX realize everything that is wrong with FRR as their cut from the lending fee is drastically reduced as well despite total swaps only being reduced by a small fraction!  Hopefully, that'll get the ostrich's head out from the sand!

[qxzn]

Either way, overlap happens, usually, due to differences in time preferences. All that is offered is 2 days, all that is requested is 30 days, for example, so no match occurs.

The order book would be easier to read if you separated out the time preferences into different order books. I.e. have a 2-day order book, a 30-day order book, etc. This would also make it more resemble conventional fixed-income instruments.

[Timetwister]

At this USD lend rate, it's hard to justify having the money there. It's time to look for a better investment.

[Barabbas0]

Either way, overlap happens, usually, due to differences in time preferences. All that is offered is 2 days, all that is requested is 30 days, for example, so no match occurs.

The order book would be easier to read if you separated out the time preferences into different order books. I.e. have a 2-day order book, a 30-day order book, etc. This would also make it more resemble conventional fixed-income instruments.

This exactly. Bonds are showed separately for a reason. Money has time-value. Money 2 days from now is worth different than money 30 days from now or 30 years from now. There's a whole science of trading yield curves.

[DoubleSwapper]

Yeah, guys. We're at an all time low now in USD swap rate. The effective compounded interest rate has never before been consecutively below 10 % p.a. for more than 24 hours. And we are still at +21 m in total swap amount. I am wondering whether new lenders are still moving into business at that rate. The adjusted risk is not worth it imho. It effectively costs me about 1 % of the original amount to get USD onto BFX. An investment I would recoup in 1 to 4 days when I started lending on BFX. Now it would take more than a month with the clear possibility of the rate dropping further to like 5 % p.a.. And there are other problems to consider as well: Not everybody in Bitcoinland comes from the US so exchanging your local currency into USD incurs significant risk of change in currency exchange rates against you which either needs to be hedged (more costs) or taken into account. While currency exchange risk is virtually nonexistent at interest rates of 50% to 370 % p.a. like we are used to 10 % p.a. in profit can easily be wiped out. The Euro for example dropped nearly that in the last 6 months relative to the dollar. Who is to say that this doesn't reverse eating all lending profits.
For the upside potential, well, if bitcoin doesn't reverse its downtrend heavily interest rates won't bump for quite some time or possibly ever and any bumps will probably be smoothed long-term as long as the retarded FRR feature is in place. There is also more and more competition that lets you trade on margin (less serious, secure and well-made than BFX though (yeah, I'm talking about these disgusting chinese futures bucketshops)) so the natural swap demand might continue to decrease even if the supply stays the same.

Just a fair warning to all potential liquidity providers. BTC swaps have gotten quite a bit more attractive though (more than double the USD rate at the moment with quite the possibility of the underlying asset to drop 5 % on a bad day though).

....

What you will seemingly always fail to realize is that the FRR arbitrarily decides where this race to the bottom starts because it builds an upper ceiling for the practically achievable rate. When we had the btcusd run-up to 470 6 weeks ago the swap offer orderbook was completely wiped out up to 1 % per day. The FRR that had previously given out millions for scraps (0.08 %) without scaling upwards a single bit because of the increasing demand then continued to shell out the lenders' money for scraps anyway barely adjusting to the vastly different market conditions. The FRR maximum was at like 0.13 % quickly dropping down to 0.09%.

Why in the world would I as a swap provider want an algorithm to lend out my money for 0.1 % when I could get 0.9 % at that time? What if the FRR which never rose beyond 0.13 % didn't pile up at 0.09 % (it only did so because of the faulty algorithm it uses) but at 0.6 %? Maybe then we would now be at 0.15 % and not at 0.03 % having wasted 90 % of our upward potential (0 % - 1 %).

[noggin-scratcher]

Not everybody in Bitcoinland comes from the US so exchanging your local currency into USD incurs significant risk of change in currency exchange rates against you which either needs to be hedged (more costs) or taken into account.

I can vouch for that. My tracking of all my swaps includes monitoring the fluctuating GBP/USD exchange rate, and that easily makes bigger swings in my overall gain (as measured in GBP) than the daily payments do... although with a tendency to swing up and down to little overall effect in the longterm, whereas the swap payments maintain a slow ratchet upwards. But if sterling suddenly found some of its old strength I'd be looking at negative returns really quickly.

It also adds a barrier to moving money in/out - the currency exchange rates offered by the retail banks I have an account with to withdraw into are nigh-universally terrible, quite possibly costing me several percent of the total transferred. I'm getting close to the "fuck it, I'm going elsewhere" point, but I really don't want to do that international transfer more often than necessary. Probably means I'll stay longer than I should, then continue to stay out even as rates pick back up again.

[gog1]

Yeah, guys. We're at an all time low now in USD swap rate. The effective compounded interest rate has never before been consecutively below 10 % p.a. for more than 24 hours. And we are still at +21 m in total swap amount. I am wondering whether new lenders are still moving into business at that rate. The adjusted risk is not worth it imho. It effectively costs me about 1 % of the original amount to get USD onto BFX. An investment I would recoup in 1 to 4 days when I started lending on BFX. Now it would take more than a month with the clear possibility of the rate dropping further to like 5 % p.a.. And there are other problems to consider as well: Not everybody in Bitcoinland comes from the US so exchanging your local currency into USD incurs significant risk of change in currency exchange rates against you which either needs to be hedged (more costs) or taken into account. While currency exchange risk is virtually nonexistent at interest rates of 50% to 370 % p.a. like we are used to 10 % p.a. in profit can easily be wiped out. The Euro for example dropped nearly that in the last 6 months relative to the dollar. Who is to say that this doesn't reverse eating all lending profits.
For the upside potential, well, if bitcoin doesn't reverse its downtrend heavily interest rates won't bump for quite some time or possibly ever and any bumps will probably be smoothed long-term as long as the retarded FRR feature is in place. There is also more and more competition that lets you trade on margin (less serious, secure and well-made than BFX though (yeah, I'm talking about these disgusting chinese futures bucketshops)) so the natural swap demand might continue to decrease even if the supply stays the same.

Just a fair warning to all potential liquidity providers. BTC swaps have gotten quite a bit more attractive though (more than double the USD rate at the moment with quite the possibility of the underlying asset to drop 5 % on a bad day though).

....

What you will seemingly always fail to realize is that the FRR arbitrarily decides where this race to the bottom starts because it builds an upper ceiling for the practically achievable rate. When we had the btcusd run-up to 470 6 weeks ago the swap offer orderbook was completely wiped out up to 1 % per day. The FRR that had previously given out millions for scraps (0.08 %) without scaling upwards a single bit because of the increasing demand then continued to shell out the lenders' money for scraps anyway barely adjusting to the vastly different market conditions. The FRR maximum was at like 0.13 % quickly dropping down to 0.09%.

Why in the world would I as a swap provider want an algorithm to lend out my money for 0.1 % when I could get 0.9 % at that time? What if the FRR which never rose beyond 0.13 % didn't pile up at 0.09 % (it only did so because of the faulty algorithm it uses) but at 0.6 %? Maybe then we would now be at 0.15 % and not at 0.03 % having wasted 90 % of our upward potential (0 % - 1 %).

there's no point debating this - hopefully, FRR hurting of their bottom line will bring them to their senses

[Barabbas0]

And ultimately, if it causes lenders to leave, it's a bad idea. The whole point of all this is to provide a way for margin traders to borrow USD. If there's no lenders then there won't be liquidity when the borrowers need it. BFX needs to do something soon. The easiest would be to outright disable FRR, however that's a temporary solution at best.

[noggin-scratcher]

And ultimately, if it causes lenders to leave, it's a bad idea. The whole point of all this is to provide a way for margin traders to borrow USD. If there's no lenders then there won't be liquidity when the borrowers need it. BFX needs to do something soon. The easiest would be to outright disable FRR, however that's a temporary solution at best.

BFX are of the expressed and understandable opinion that they're not in the business of guaranteeing a return to swap providers.

If people leave then the remaining pool of funds will become more expensive to use... if that happens to coincide with a sudden reason for increased demand then maybe it'll get a little crazy before those who left get themselves organised to return. As someone putting money into swaps I somewhat welcome the idea; even just one mad week of stupidly high rates would renew my flagging spirits.

Whatever happens, it'll sort itself out in the end - if the demand is there without the supply to fill it then rates will rise until they're sufficiently enticing, even if there's some "stickiness" in both directions (people hanging on past the point where they start to feel unhappy with the return, or taking time to arrive as and when rates come back up).

[Barabbas0]

And ultimately, if it causes lenders to leave, it's a bad idea. The whole point of all this is to provide a way for margin traders to borrow USD. If there's no lenders then there won't be liquidity when the borrowers need it. BFX needs to do something soon. The easiest would be to outright disable FRR, however that's a temporary solution at best.

BFX are of the expressed and understandable opinion that they're not in the business of guaranteeing a return to swap providers.

BFX are great at demonstrating they have no idea how markets work. This debate isn't about guaranteeing returns to swap providers. It's about providing a fair market place that maximizes participants.

If people leave then the remaining pool of funds will become more expensive to use... if that happens to coincide with a sudden reason for increased demand then maybe it'll get a little crazy before those who left get themselves organised to return. As someone putting money into swaps I somewhat welcome the idea; even just one mad week of stupidly high rates would renew my flagging spirits.

That's a solution!? Stupidly high rates are what causes margin traders to leave. It should be an appropriate and consistent rate. Right now it's a violent feast/famine cycle. What causes that? Lack of lending liquidity. When a whale clicks buy on margin, they suck up all the liquidity driving up rates to ludicrous levels for an extremely temporary time.

Whatever happens, it'll sort itself out in the end - if the demand is there without the supply to fill it then rates will rise until they're sufficiently enticing, even if there's some "stickiness" in both directions (people hanging on past the point where they start to feel unhappy with the return, or taking time to arrive as and when rates come back up).

No. It won't. If it would "sort itself out in the end", it would be sorting itself out now. The situation's getting worse and worse everyday. BFX should be encouraging lenders for when there's actually a bull run and they'll be needed.

[HowardF]

I would also mention, BFX is no longer the only game in town when it comes to P2P margin lending.  And the other sites doing it don't have any kind of FRR to manipulate the market.  I've always been a huge fan of BFX's, but business is business, and if they don't do something to fix the broken system they have in place with FRR, I'm pretty sure at least some of my $ will be moving on soon.

[Barabbas0]

I would also mention, BFX is no longer the only game in town when it comes to P2P margin lending.  And the other sites doing it don't have any kind of FRR to manipulate the market.  I've always been a huge fan of BFX's, but business is business, and if they don't do something to fix the broken system they have in place with FRR, I'm pretty sure at least some of my $ will be moving on soon.

Care to mention competitors? I know BTC-E offers margin trading, but I think they lend out client funds without their knowledge.

[artenais]

OKcoin ( .com ) recently launched but without API, and the order book is still small. If you happen to have connections in China there's OKcoin ( .cn ) with a 700k order book and the HUOBI Lend for BTC with 1100 BTC OB. That is outside corporate investing directly with exchange sites, but it is reserved for very large account and CN firms.

Hope it helped.

PS :. On a side note i think that BFX must implement a scaling fees and a minimum ask lend. Seeing less than .01 in the OB is kinda depressing.

[HowardF]

Care to mention competitors? I know BTC-E offers margin trading, but I think they lend out client funds without their knowledge.

OKCoin.com is the most interesting right now.  They are just getting it off the ground, so its slow, but they are working on getting their API up and running, so MarginBot will be supporting it soon.  At this point, their traffic is a bit too low to be useful, but I think this will likely change, especially if BFX doesn't quickly realize how badly FRR is hurting their platform, and people start moving their margin investments to greener pastures.

[gog1]

OKCoin only allows large accounts to do P2P lending - they took that ability away from the small time investors.

[medicine]

I would also mention, BFX is no longer the only game in town when it comes to P2P margin lending.  And the other sites doing it don't have any kind of FRR to manipulate the market.  I've always been a huge fan of BFX's, but business is business, and if they don't do something to fix the broken system they have in place with FRR, I'm pretty sure at least some of my $ will be moving on soon.

Great to hear another exchange is getting into p2p lending.  I just messaged OKCoin and they are charging 20% fees on earned interest.  I asked for a justification for the high rate in comparison to Bitfinex, but they didn't offer anything. 
Considering I think 15% is a little high already I may think twice about sending money over to OKcoin in the short term.
Peace

[gog1]

can someone confirm if OKCoin reopen their P2P lending to everyone?  Or is it just to institution depositing a ridiculous sum - last I ask, they want $50 million CNY!!!

ok, just signed on, seems like they reopen the feature - the loan book is quite shallow

fee + the insurance is quite high

[artenais]

can someone confirm if OKCoin reopen their P2P lending to everyone?  Or is it just to institution depositing a ridiculous sum - last I ask, they want $50 million CNY!!!

ok, just signed on, seems like they reopen the feature - the loan book is quite shallow

fee + the insurance is quite high

You are confusing P2P lending with P2P corporate lending. P2P corporate provide the large amount of the margin liquidity for a fixed return price, intended for high-risk margin traders. The P2P lending OB covers the "small-trader" market and thus require less money  to get in.

[wilfried]

how to get old trades from bitfinex by api?
https://api.bitfinex.com/v1/trades/BTCUSD?timestamp=1419929037


it always fetches 1000 trades from now to history....

BITFINEX PLZ, WOULD YOU MIND TO CLARIFY, I ALREADY ASKED A FEW TIMES


thx