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

[mjr]

lol, mjr, do you even know what the word "liquidity" means? You demonstrate your incompetence every reply.

You really don't add a lot to this conversation, so I am not going to "feed the troll" anymore...

Liquidity, is the ease with which you can acquire or get rid of something. In this case, it is a swap. Considering that there is around 2.5 million dollars of USD swaps available at the FRR, you can say that it is relatively liquid. In other words, I can very easily obtain a swap, and I can relatively easily offer a swap. The fundamental thing you are missing is that because it is liquid, if you cease offering your funds, no one will care...because of the mountain of funds at the FRR. It made up 75% of the offers on the book last I checked. So, if the fact that lots of people offer swaps at the FRR means that you don't offer swaps, then it seems we don't have a problem, because there are still lots of swaps available. If they were to cease offering their swaps at the FRR, you would not have a problem, and could offer your swaps freely, again not a problem. So in either situation, there is plenty of swaps available to enable margin trading.

That is the whole point of a market. If those swaps are all taken, and there are no offers on the book, any individual can choose to set a high rate and get filled with the very next margin order. So more funds will be added to take advantage of the sudden spike in demand. Since there is a lot of supply, and it is not being taken very rapidly, that is why I would say there is a surplus of supply.

HowardF created a bot that is meant to keep your money active, because as he says in his thread...

"MarginBot is  a PHP based Margin Lending Management Bot for the Bitfinex API.  It will do it's best to keep any money in the "deposit" wallet lent out at the highest rate possible while avoiding long periods of pending loans (as often happens when using the Flash Return Rate, or some other arbitrary rate). There are numerous options and setting to tailor the bot to your requirements."

So, he is trying to keep the funds being used constantly, and even says that if you choose the FRR, your funds are not as likely to be used. They will sit and wait, gaining you no return. So if anything, the FRR basically acts as a buffer FOR spikes in demand, because it is not very likely to be used as long as bots like HowardF's exist...

Anyway, I don't really think you understand much of how markets work, but I do hope you at least understand that you don't have to trade or offer swaps at Bitfinex...there are plenty of options out there. You should go explore those...

[Barabbas0]

lmfao, is that why there's spikes in the historical rates charts? If you paid attention to your own exchange would see money leaving the lends in droves. You've lost 10% in the past week alone. This means the next spike will only be more violent.

I have no idea what you're trying to gain by calling me greedy and a troll. Act like a damn professional and fix your problems instead of hiding from them and blaming others.

[Xiaoxiao]

Anybody care to explain how the "claim" button works?

[noggin-scratcher]

Anybody care to explain how the "claim" button works?

I'm not certain, but I appear to be the first one here, so I'll try... I think that's a mechanism to allow you to take a profit in the currency that you bought rather than closing it back out into the other half of the pair that it started as.

So if you have a USD swap and a long position that's in profit, you can 'close' to convert all the BTC back into USD, pay off the swap, and keep the USD profit, or you can 'claim' to convert just enough BTC into USD to pay off the swap, and keep the remaining BTC as profit.

[mjr]

Anybody care to explain how the "claim" button works?

I'm not certain, but I appear to be the first one here, so I'll try... I think that's a mechanism to allow you to take a profit in the currency that you bought rather than closing it back out into the other half of the pair that it started as.

So if you have a USD swap and a long position that's in profit, you can 'close' to convert all the BTC back into USD, pay off the swap, and keep the USD profit, or you can 'claim' to convert just enough BTC into USD to pay off the swap, and keep the remaining BTC as profit.

That is exactly right, it basically turns a margin position into a balance on one of your wallets.

[noggin-scratcher]

So tell all the people CHOOSING to use the FRR "Stop being an idiot and start breaking that pile up into multiple tranches". You are conflating Bitfinex, the person offering this option, with the multiple people who are offering funds. We are not offering funds, those users are. If they CHOOSE to use the FRR, then it seems like a choice that they want to make (at least it is their expressed intent, if not their stated preference).

On the one hand... yeah, fair enough, you have a point there. On the other, I can't express my frustration with these people in a form that they're ever going to see, so my next best outlet is the nearest representative of the company that's enabling and somewhat encouraging their frustrating behaviour. You make an excellent lightning rod, and I hope I'm not slipping across the line into personal attacks.

I still remain unconvinced that the behaviour of the FRR is what people would choose if they had a truly free choice; I suspect it's winning out because it's the easiest available option for automation. Aside from third-party bots it's very close to the only way to lend without paying close attention to the swap market on a daily basis, which holds appeal on an entirely separate dimension from whether it actually behaves sensibly as a 'fund'.

[mjr]

So tell all the people CHOOSING to use the FRR "Stop being an idiot and start breaking that pile up into multiple tranches". You are conflating Bitfinex, the person offering this option, with the multiple people who are offering funds. We are not offering funds, those users are. If they CHOOSE to use the FRR, then it seems like a choice that they want to make (at least it is their expressed intent, if not their stated preference).

On the one hand... yeah, fair enough, you have a point there. On the other, I can't express my frustration with these people in a form that they're ever going to see, so my next best outlet is the nearest representative of the company that's enabling and somewhat encouraging their frustrating behaviour. You make an excellent lightning rod, and I hope I'm not slipping across the line into personal attacks.

I still remain unconvinced that the behaviour of the FRR is what people would choose if they had a truly free choice; I suspect it's winning out because it's the easiest available option for automation. Aside from third-party bots it's very close to the only way to lend without paying close attention to the swap market on a daily basis, which holds appeal on an entirely separate dimension from whether it actually behaves sensibly as a 'fund'.

I don't mind, I totally understand your points, and believe me this is not the first or only instance where people as a whole seem to make decisions that make no sense to me. I mean...Keeping up with the Kardashians exists. So, while I definitely understand, I do know that a lot of people in general are looking for any returns.

I think that with so many people getting burned on margin trading, at least SOME of those people would much rather get some positive returns, while taking much less risk. So, in general, as the demand for long positions fades (until the next bull run) and the supply of available USD for swaps increases, in general, rates probably would go down. If anything, I am looking into the BTC swap market right now.

I set up HowardF's bot, and I really like it (not a huge fan of php, but it works really well). I am wondering if we offer that option to more people, and make them aware of it, if they would voluntarily switch from using the FRR to using a bot instead...

I honestly think it would make for a better market, BUT, I don't think most people will be happy with the result. I know of a lot of people who are very interested in the swap market, and all that supply just means that rates stay low. So, I was able to set up the MarginBot very easily using elastic beanstalk (the cron job part is a little tricky, but still possible). I was thinking that if Bitfinex were to announce or in some way support MarginBot, maybe more users would choose to go that route. It still allows them to "set it and forget it", but at least then they can put in a minimum (i personally think that that number will be set to 0 for most people, but others disagree).

I am perfectly fine with being a lightning rod, and I know that markets are not efficient, and that they can remain irrational a lot longer than one can remain solvent. Hopefully, if we at least make people aware of a tool, they might choose to use it.

[gog1]

I had been extremely disappointed with FRR throughout - for those who wants to say market knows best; I have only this story to offer - when LTC lending was first added, the FRR was 0% and people are stilling will to lend, at 0% - completely irrational!!!!!

I picked up on that issue and actually emailed Ralphy to say this is absolutely wrong and some kind of floor should be setup if there are no actual reference possible due to lack of fixed rate loan.  He instituted the 2% rate annually, which works out to 0.0055%, and look at LTC's FRR rate - it has been hovering around that mark with a couple of extremely short spike ever since - talking about efficient market / market knows best / no artificial wall here!

For those who say it's the 'dummies' problem to be willing to lend at 0% - yeah, obviously, they 'suffer' but they drag everyone down with it!  The plain refusal to recognize the FRR is an artificial wall that hurts almost everyone - yeah, BFX included, left me speechless.

Anyway, it is what is.

[HowardF]

If the strategy of having everything in one wall is an optimal one is up to discussion. In the end FRR is the only rate where you can get higher returns after the market for funds goes up. Maybe it'll get less and less attractive over time, now that there are undercutting bots around that try to sneak in more fixed rate loans - if the return from the few spikes where rates go up a lot is worth getting 0 for the money you have wound up in open offers remains to be seen - I personally am relatively sceptic about that, at least the default MarginBot algorithm seems to perform very similar to 30 day autolend FRR while adding more work on your end.

I can pretty much promise MarginBot's returns will be MUCH better then FRR when there are big flash runs.  It will catch those runs with significant portions of your money, and lend out at or near the top, while FRR will still be lending at a low average.  The problem is we don't have many runs like that, because the market is crap, and there's to much money available for margin.  If we're lucky we get one good run every 2 months.

(from my results by the way, I'm also fairly sure MarginBot is currently beating FRR by quite a bit in returns, and it doesn't take any effort to maintain at all.  10 minutes to set up, then it'll run all on its own for years and years.  I log into it maybe once a week, just to check my returns charts.)

I have no doubt that MarginBot will beat the pants off of the FRR. It is designed to do that. You yourself have shown that it is EASY to set up, it generates more returns, and requires very little work. IF the users cared enough to research other options, then it seems like a no brainer to switch to using your margin bot. They don't seem to care enough...judging by the funds sitting at the FRR.

As I have said in the past, if everyone were to cease using FRR and switch to your bot, there would be more competition for returns, because that 75% of the available funds being offered would now actually be trying to get filled. That is how MarginBot gets better returns, by trying to keep your funds actually being used. It seems like a LOT of the people using the FRR are not getting any returns right now, because there is quite a bit of supply in front of them.

Long story short, your marginbot is available to anyone who wants to use it, probably offers better returns than FRR, can be "set and forget", and yet FRR remains a large portion of available margin. I think that a cursory search, maybe 15 minutes of research and thought would lead me to switch over to your bot, and it seems like a large portion of people offering swaps haven't put in that 15 minutes...

By the way, I believe that you said the default minimum for your bot is .065%? I couldn't find the post where you mentioned it. What would happen if everyone used your bot and left the default value on? A wall? What would happen next? Would people start placing offers in front of that wall? Would we still arrive at exactly where we are now? I think so...

It is funny, because "efficiency" means lower rates, and people argue that the FRR is not efficient. It is playing dumb with your funds. So, people seem to want someone who will compete harder with them. Someone who is really smart trying to beat them to offering a swap. This is what I don't understand. In no area would I prefer to have tougher competition if my goal is to maximize my success. I might hope for that if I enjoy the competition, but not if my goal is to maximize my success.

(let me quickly point out my reply above was actually to Sukrim's FRR / MarginBot post, not just an attempt to add to the FRR sucks discussion.  My opinion is out there, I'm done talking about FRR)

but, to quickly answer your other question, yes the default minimum is currently .065% on MarginBot, though I feel like most people have changed it.  Either way, there wouldn't be a wall in quite the same way there is with FRR at that point if everyone used MarginBot, for 2 reasons. 

1. Its a settable option. Some (probably large percent) would choose something different (put the option in front of people, and even the laziest will at least think about it, don't give them any options and they'll just say good enough, and I'm happy to point you to detailed research google did to show exactly this point)
2. Spread lending.  The way the bot works, it doesn't dump all the money into one bin.  It spreads the balance across multiple points and rates.  The current implementation of this in MarginBot would probably have to improve some if the FRR suddenly disappeared, but it works well with the realities in place as they are, and would be easy to change should those realities change.

I will also point out MarginBot is not a replacement for the FRR as it stands, it was designed pretty much with one thing in mind, to compete with FRR.  If FRR were to go away, MarginBot would likely behave very strangely and unpredictably.  But if that were ever to become the new reality, I can easily design the bot to deal with those new realities, as I'm currently doing with an eye towards other markets that don't have an FRR system (or, sadly, any volume to speak of).

[bricky]

Finally, some non-FRR discussion. I am glad you are excited about this. I am too! I am working on the simulation environment exactly for that reason. It will give users the ability to test, and try strategies. I believe access will be limited to users who request it and are approved, but I think most people here are exactly the sort of users we want to encourage to test it out.

The API will remain the same, at least the current version (I think we will have a new version of the REST API at some point) and there will be other ways to access the backend. We are going to have the FIX gateway, and the websockets API.

The API will not be affected, because we have a "bridge" that will ensure that the backend can understand the current messages. Of course, all of this requires very rigorous testing. We are moving forward incrementally, and trying to stress test each piece, and run as many "corner cases" to try to catch as many bugs as possible before setting up the simulated environment.

So, basically, although the backend will be completely new, the frontend and the API should continue to function exactly as before. Thanks so much for your comments, I wish more people had responded to that part of my post... 

Great!

When there's a procedure in place for requesting access - let us know.

And thanks once again

[mjr]

If the strategy of having everything in one wall is an optimal one is up to discussion. In the end FRR is the only rate where you can get higher returns after the market for funds goes up. Maybe it'll get less and less attractive over time, now that there are undercutting bots around that try to sneak in more fixed rate loans - if the return from the few spikes where rates go up a lot is worth getting 0 for the money you have wound up in open offers remains to be seen - I personally am relatively sceptic about that, at least the default MarginBot algorithm seems to perform very similar to 30 day autolend FRR while adding more work on your end.

I can pretty much promise MarginBot's returns will be MUCH better then FRR when there are big flash runs.  It will catch those runs with significant portions of your money, and lend out at or near the top, while FRR will still be lending at a low average.  The problem is we don't have many runs like that, because the market is crap, and there's to much money available for margin.  If we're lucky we get one good run every 2 months.

(from my results by the way, I'm also fairly sure MarginBot is currently beating FRR by quite a bit in returns, and it doesn't take any effort to maintain at all.  10 minutes to set up, then it'll run all on its own for years and years.  I log into it maybe once a week, just to check my returns charts.)

I have no doubt that MarginBot will beat the pants off of the FRR. It is designed to do that. You yourself have shown that it is EASY to set up, it generates more returns, and requires very little work. IF the users cared enough to research other options, then it seems like a no brainer to switch to using your margin bot. They don't seem to care enough...judging by the funds sitting at the FRR.

As I have said in the past, if everyone were to cease using FRR and switch to your bot, there would be more competition for returns, because that 75% of the available funds being offered would now actually be trying to get filled. That is how MarginBot gets better returns, by trying to keep your funds actually being used. It seems like a LOT of the people using the FRR are not getting any returns right now, because there is quite a bit of supply in front of them.

Long story short, your marginbot is available to anyone who wants to use it, probably offers better returns than FRR, can be "set and forget", and yet FRR remains a large portion of available margin. I think that a cursory search, maybe 15 minutes of research and thought would lead me to switch over to your bot, and it seems like a large portion of people offering swaps haven't put in that 15 minutes...

By the way, I believe that you said the default minimum for your bot is .065%? I couldn't find the post where you mentioned it. What would happen if everyone used your bot and left the default value on? A wall? What would happen next? Would people start placing offers in front of that wall? Would we still arrive at exactly where we are now? I think so...

It is funny, because "efficiency" means lower rates, and people argue that the FRR is not efficient. It is playing dumb with your funds. So, people seem to want someone who will compete harder with them. Someone who is really smart trying to beat them to offering a swap. This is what I don't understand. In no area would I prefer to have tougher competition if my goal is to maximize my success. I might hope for that if I enjoy the competition, but not if my goal is to maximize my success.

(let me quickly point out my reply above was actually to Sukrim's FRR / MarginBot post, not just an attempt to add to the FRR sucks discussion.  My opinion is out there, I'm done talking about FRR)

but, to quickly answer your other question, yes the default minimum is currently .065% on MarginBot, though I feel like most people have changed it.  Either way, there wouldn't be a wall in quite the same way there is with FRR at that point if everyone used MarginBot, for 2 reasons. 

1. Its a settable option. Some (probably large percent) would choose something different (put the option in front of people, and even the laziest will at least think about it, don't give them any options and they'll just say good enough, and I'm happy to point you to detailed research google did to show exactly this point)
2. Spread lending.  The way the bot works, it doesn't dump all the money into one bin.  It spreads the balance across multiple points and rates.  The current implementation of this in MarginBot would probably have to improve some if the FRR suddenly disappeared, but it works well with the realities in place as they are, and would be easy to change should those realities change.

I will also point out MarginBot is not a replacement for the FRR as it stands, it was designed pretty much with one thing in mind, to compete with FRR.  If FRR were to go away, MarginBot would likely behave very strangely and unpredictably.  But if that were ever to become the new reality, I can easily design the bot to deal with those new realities, as I'm currently doing with an eye towards other markets that don't have an FRR system (or, sadly, any volume to speak of).

I personally love the MarginBot, I set it up super easily using Elastic Beanstalk, and it works great so far. We may disagree on what rates people will choose as their minimum. I set mine very close to 0, because something is better than nothing, and I would rather have my funds in use 99% of the time, because whatever you get today, can also be offered tomorrow. In other words, waiting on a better rate in the future lessens the effect of compounding. Anyway, I really think it is a good thing, and I, personally, hope that more people use it. I was wondering, do you plan on offering BTC management as well? Given that the rates have "swapped" places (no pun intended), some people might find it very useful to be able to do the same for the BTC side of things.

I was wondering if we here at bitfinex could help in any way. We love when people in the community build tools that help everyone, and try to support and encourage that, BFXData is an example. I mean, on the one hand, if everyone currently using the FRR simply chose to switch to the bot, it would end this whole pointless debate. I don't know why it would act strangely though, if the FRR were to go away...it should just keep placing orders spread across the range of the bottom and top. Anway, I just wanted to say thank you, I appreciate the work you put into the MarginBot, and if we can help with your project, lets discuss it.

[Barabbas0]

It seems to me converting FRR lenders into bot users is a compromise now? I agree with it for reasons mentioned elsewhere; it breaks up one massive order into many small ones. It will allow the market to adapt more easily to liquidity spikes, rather than letting the FRR dam break.

I would reiterate the recommendation that swaps get their own books based on duration. 2 day and 30 day offerings entail completely different risks, including opportunity and interest rate risks, that make them incomparable, just as bonds, or options, or futures, with various expiration dates get traded separately. The time value renders them totally different instruments.

If MarginBot gets put on a repository, I'll see if I can help by merging any of my code.

[SebastianJu]

Im not sure if i asked this already. Can swaps paid back in full before the time ends you took the swap for? If so, does one have to pay the full times interest then? Im only wondering how one could handle short margin trades. For example someone thinks bitcoin will rise only until the end of day or so.

[Barabbas0]

Im not sure if i asked this already. Can swaps paid back in full before the time ends you took the swap for? If so, does one have to pay the full times interest then? Im only wondering how one could handle short margin trades. For example someone thinks bitcoin will rise only until the end of day or so.

The lends are callable, meaning the borrower can return the loan at any time. I think interest is computed every 4-6 hours, but only paid out daily. I could be wrong.

[HowardF]

I personally love the MarginBot, I set it up super easily using Elastic Beanstalk, and it works great so far. We may disagree on what rates people will choose as their minimum. I set mine very close to 0, because something is better than nothing, and I would rather have my funds in use 99% of the time, because whatever you get today, can also be offered tomorrow. In other words, waiting on a better rate in the future lessens the effect of compounding. Anyway, I really think it is a good thing, and I, personally, hope that more people use it. I was wondering, do you plan on offering BTC management as well? Given that the rates have "swapped" places (no pun intended), some people might find it very useful to be able to do the same for the BTC side of things.

I was wondering if we here at bitfinex could help in any way. We love when people in the community build tools that help everyone, and try to support and encourage that, BFXData is an example. I mean, on the one hand, if everyone currently using the FRR simply chose to switch to the bot, it would end this whole pointless debate. I don't know why it would act strangely though, if the FRR were to go away...it should just keep placing orders spread across the range of the bottom and top. Anway, I just wanted to say thank you, I appreciate the work you put into the MarginBot, and if we can help with your project, lets discuss it.

Actually, I don't think we disagree as to what rates people would set.  I imagine most people would set it very low.  What people set it at isn't as important as the fact people CAN set it for preventing buildup of walls ( unless everyone somehow decides to choose the same setting ).  One thing I could easily add to the bot is a simple tool-tip that converts your daily rate to a compounding annual rate, and maybe even an estimate of worst case actual returns,  so people could get a quick glimpse of how much they'll actually be making.  I think for most people its difficult to work out in their head how much 0.02% /day actually works out to. ( Though doing this will probably make people realize how much more than they think this really is, encouraging them to accept even lower numbers... hmm... maybe thats a bad idea  )

As for BTC and LTC, I used to actually have it working in the bot before I released it to the public, so it would be pretty easy to build back in.  At the time I was putting the interface on the bot though, BTC and LTC rates were so low, and had been for so long, I didn't even feel like it was worth the extra hour of work to add interface lines for them.  In a future version, I may revisit this.

I'm hoping to work on the bot some over the weekend, but I'm currently traveling, and competing in a Seven Day Rougelike competition ( http://7drl.org/ ), so I barely have enough time to even post this as is.  Once I start working on it again, I may well want to talk further about working more closely with Bitfinex to get MarginBot as good as it can be.  I'll also definitely want to be on the list to get test access to the new API when its available.

[mjr]

It seems to me converting FRR lenders into bot users is a compromise now? I agree with it for reasons mentioned elsewhere; it breaks up one massive order into many small ones. It will allow the market to adapt more easily to liquidity spikes, rather than letting the FRR dam break.

I would reiterate the recommendation that swaps get their own books based on duration. 2 day and 30 day offerings entail completely different risks, including opportunity and interest rate risks, that make them incomparable, just as bonds, or options, or futures, with various expiration dates get traded separately. The time value renders them totally different instruments.

If MarginBot gets put on a repository, I'll see if I can help by merging any of my code.

https://github.com/HFenter/MarginBot

I am not saying that we should convert anyone, I am saying that other options currently exist. If it is better than FRR, people should use it, and that basically ends this without even needing bitfinex to change anything...again, the users are the ones CHOOSING to use the FRR. If the FRR was universally despised, it would have no one using it, and you wouldn't have a problem with it. The problem is that 75% of the funds DO use it. Instead of asking Bitfinex to change things, and take away something that people are actually using, if you offer them something better (I think the MarginBot is better in that it is customizable, and I believe it has been shown to get you better returns) then they will have no reason to use the FRR. As I pointed out, it takes maybe 15 minutes of research to realize you can get a bot to manage your swaps and you can basically "set it and forget it".

I was picturing something like how we have a link to BFXData, a link to the marginbot and its instructions with a short explanation. Maybe its because the users who put their funds out at the FRR don't read this forum, or don't care, but if we make it easier for them to see other options, maybe they will take advantage of them. I cannot wait to see what happens, because as I stated before, I would rather take anything today, so that I can take advantage of compounding. Any day in which funds aren't actively used, you lose that days returns, but also all the returns that could have been generated on those returns. So, if I were to set the minimum at .065, none of my funds would be used. Just personal opinions, but I am curious how people will choose.

[HowardF]

Im not sure if i asked this already. Can swaps paid back in full before the time ends you took the swap for? If so, does one have to pay the full times interest then? Im only wondering how one could handle short margin trades. For example someone thinks bitcoin will rise only until the end of day or so.

The lends are callable, meaning the borrower can return the loan at any time. I think interest is computed every 4-6 hours, but only paid out daily. I could be wrong.

Interest is computed hourly, with a minimum of 1 hour payout as I understand it. (Ex:  if you have the swap for 1 hour and 1 minute, you pay 2 hours interest)

[mjr]

Im not sure if i asked this already. Can swaps paid back in full before the time ends you took the swap for? If so, does one have to pay the full times interest then? Im only wondering how one could handle short margin trades. For example someone thinks bitcoin will rise only until the end of day or so.

The lends are callable, meaning the borrower can return the loan at any time. I think interest is computed every 4-6 hours, but only paid out daily. I could be wrong.

Computed hourly, paid daily. The funds can be returned at any time before the expiration of the swap. You can only set swap lengths from 2-30 days.

[mjr]

I personally love the MarginBot, I set it up super easily using Elastic Beanstalk, and it works great so far. We may disagree on what rates people will choose as their minimum. I set mine very close to 0, because something is better than nothing, and I would rather have my funds in use 99% of the time, because whatever you get today, can also be offered tomorrow. In other words, waiting on a better rate in the future lessens the effect of compounding. Anyway, I really think it is a good thing, and I, personally, hope that more people use it. I was wondering, do you plan on offering BTC management as well? Given that the rates have "swapped" places (no pun intended), some people might find it very useful to be able to do the same for the BTC side of things.

I was wondering if we here at bitfinex could help in any way. We love when people in the community build tools that help everyone, and try to support and encourage that, BFXData is an example. I mean, on the one hand, if everyone currently using the FRR simply chose to switch to the bot, it would end this whole pointless debate. I don't know why it would act strangely though, if the FRR were to go away...it should just keep placing orders spread across the range of the bottom and top. Anway, I just wanted to say thank you, I appreciate the work you put into the MarginBot, and if we can help with your project, lets discuss it.

Actually, I don't think we disagree as to what rates people would set.  I imagine most people would set it very low.  What people set it at isn't as important as the fact people CAN set it for preventing buildup of walls ( unless everyone somehow decides to choose the same setting ).  One thing I could easily add to the bot is a simple tool-tip that converts your daily rate to a compounding annual rate, and maybe even an estimate of worst case actual returns,  so people could get a quick glimpse of how much they'll actually be making.  I think for most people its difficult to work out in their head how much 0.02% /day actually works out to. ( Though doing this will probably make people realize how much more than they think this really is, encouraging them to accept even lower numbers... hmm... maybe thats a bad idea  )

As for BTC and LTC, I used to actually have it working in the bot before I released it to the public, so it would be pretty easy to build back in.  At the time I was putting the interface on the bot though, BTC and LTC rates were so low, and had been for so long, I didn't even feel like it was worth the extra hour of work to add interface lines for them.  In a future version, I may revisit this.

I'm hoping to work on the bot some over the weekend, but I'm currently traveling, and competing in a Seven Day Rougelike competition ( http://7drl.org/ ), so I barely have enough time to even post this as is.  Once I start working on it again, I may well want to talk further about working more closely with Bitfinex to get MarginBot as good as it can be.  I'll also definitely want to be on the list to get test access to the new API when its available.

Ah, I understand, and sorry if I misrepresented your position. I think some people dislike the walls, and others thinks it just drives the rate down.

That is awesome, it would even be cool to maybe calculate whether it makes sense to convert in order to take advantage of better rates intraday (just ideas).

You would definitely have access to any simulation/playground environment, as I would imagine most of the people here would. You guys are the ones who really dig deep into how bitfinex works, etc. To start, I was thinking of adding in a link similar to the one we have for BFXData, but maybe we should wait and discuss later.

Have fun at your competition, I am also going to be travelling later today, but if you want, you can email me, etc.

[HowardF]

I was picturing something like how we have a link to BFXData, a link to the marginbot and its instructions with a short explanation.

Yeah, this would be great.  Just let me get a bit more "noob friendly" landing page up that gives better help setting the bot up for people who aren't as tech savvy.  I've been planning to do this soon anyways.

Maybe its because the users who put their funds out at the FRR don't read this forum, or don't care, but if we make it easier for them to see other options, maybe they will take advantage of them.

I think this is exactly right.  If I had to guess, 99% of the money set to FRR has probably been there for a long time, when  rates were much better and people didn't have to think about it.  And back in those days, even if people did think about it, there weren't many options.  The bots only started coming out a couple months ago.