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

[Xiaoxiao]

Does anyone know why the Bitfinex facebook page is so inactive?
https://www.facebook.com/bitfinex

Last post was in June 2014. Is it not an official page?

Location is set to Lyon, France which is quite odd, considering Bitfinex is in Hong Kong.

I think it is because one of the administrators was located in France at the time of the creation of that page.

[Xiaoxiao]

I know liquidation price is only "indicative".  So what is the best way to pinpoint at what price your position will be liquidated?

[noggin-scratcher]

Small idea for some fairness improvement?


Currently, there's a pretty big "asymmetry of power" between a lender and a swap user: once the swap has been taken, there's nothing a lender can do. But the taker can return it anytime of his choosing. Tough to plan for re-lending funds as a lender. The intention fo lending funds for 30 days (to not have much managing to do) does not work in reality because of that. No FRR can fix that, most FRR swaps never get lent out, unless there's big swap demand increasement, like in the last days.

Also at the moment, even if returned immediately, at least the first hour of interest of a swap has to be paid.

How about charging the first 1/48th of the time period at the time of the swap taking instead of just the first hour? That would make exactly no difference for 2 day swaps. But it encourages not to use 30 days as default for swap users who dont plan to use it anywhere near that time frame anyways.

This might increase convenience.

The asymmetry is inherent to the nature of the arrangement - you promise a trader control of some funds until they choose to release them. Granting lenders any more power to recall their funds would open the potential for traders to be forced onto more expensive swaps than they'd agreed to. Unless... I guess a feature could be imagined whereby a lender asks for their swap to be closed and replaced with a new one of the same duration, with the lender agreeing to pay the difference between the rates if the new swap is more expensive.

In general though the problem you're trying to solve (that traders will take out a swap for long periods then return it sooner) isn't really a problem - traders already pay a premium for 30 day swaps because there are fewer of them available and they normally start at higher rates than 2 day swaps. They're not necessarily going to know how long their position will be open for at the outset, but they're paying for the guarantee that the rate they pay stays stable, regardless of how long they end up needing the swap for.

It sounds like in your ideal scenario, traders would always take a swap pre-agreed for exactly the length of time they need it for, but that's not information that exists when the swap is taken, and besides... if traders changed their behaviour to only take a 30 day swap when they "mean it", you'd just see far fewer 30 day swaps being taken at all.

[DebitMe]

Small idea for some fairness improvement?


Currently, there's a pretty big "asymmetry of power" between a lender and a swap user: once the swap has been taken, there's nothing a lender can do. But the taker can return it anytime of his choosing. Tough to plan for re-lending funds as a lender. The intention fo lending funds for 30 days (to not have much managing to do) does not work in reality because of that. No FRR can fix that, most FRR swaps never get lent out, unless there's big swap demand increasement, like in the last days.

Also at the moment, even if returned immediately, at least the first hour of interest of a swap has to be paid.

How about charging the first 1/48th of the time period at the time of the swap taking instead of just the first hour? That would make exactly no difference for 2 day swaps. But it encourages not to use 30 days as default for swap users who dont plan to use it anywhere near that time frame anyways.

This might increase convenience.

The asymmetry is inherent to the nature of the arrangement - you promise a trader control of some funds until they choose to release them. Granting lenders any more power to recall their funds would open the potential for traders to be forced onto more expensive swaps than they'd agreed to. Unless... I guess a feature could be imagined whereby a lender asks for their swap to be closed and replaced with a new one of the same duration, with the lender agreeing to pay the difference between the rates if the new swap is more expensive.

In general though the problem you're trying to solve (that traders will take out a swap for long periods then return it sooner) isn't really a problem - traders already pay a premium for 30 day swaps because there are fewer of them available and they normally start at higher rates than 2 day swaps. They're not necessarily going to know how long their position will be open for at the outset, but they're paying for the guarantee that the rate they pay stays stable, regardless of how long they end up needing the swap for.

It sounds like in your ideal scenario, traders would always take a swap pre-agreed for exactly the length of time they need it for, but that's not information that exists when the swap is taken, and besides... if traders changed their behaviour to only take a 30 day swap when they "mean it", you'd just see far fewer 30 day swaps being taken at all.

I actually had an idea that would fix this and even got quotes to get the website made, but let me know what you guys think.  My idea is to provide liquidity for the lender by pooling funds into one account, and lending out roughly 90% of the pooled funds, while sharing interest over all deposits.  This should allow enough liquidity for people to withdraw their funds whenever they want, but still earn interest.  Obviously, that number can be tweaked to get the right amount that would need to be withheld, but I believe that with a bot to handle the lending to make it optimal for the pool, you could make up the interest lost on the 10% of funds not lent out, so that users really wouldn't notice a loss of any income and could withdraw whenever they felt like.

Thoughts?

[Mythoughts]

The asymmetry is inherent to the nature of the arrangement - you promise a trader control of some funds until they choose to release them. Granting lenders any more power to recall their funds would open the potential for traders to be forced onto more expensive swaps than they'd agreed to.

Correct. I'd not give lenders the chance to close it early, that would wreak havok.

In general though the problem you're trying to solve (that traders will take out a swap for long periods then return it sooner) isn't really a problem - traders already pay a premium for 30 day swaps because there are fewer of them available and they normally start at higher rates than 2 day swaps.

True in theory, usually not in reality though. But you're right, that argument is compelling enough not to change anything. It the lenders' fault that they dont ask higher premiums for longer durations.

Edit:
@DebitMe
Well, main focus of bitfinex is to make trading for traders affordable and convenient. Creating a lending-syndicate isnt in their best interest. Plus implementing THAT is potentially a lot more complex than the easy calculation I suggested. Even if they did want to do this, they'd need to assign some manpower to this without much benefit for finex.

[noggin-scratcher]

I don't think I'd ever want to 'pool funds' in the sense of transferring cash to some other user (not with the trust issues involved) but if 'finex had a way to officially delegate control of your funds to another user, limited to offering swaps without the ability to withdraw or trade with your money... that would be interesting. Genuinely not sure whether I'd want to be delegating to someone else or offering myself up as a candidate to be delegated to, but it'd be interesting either way.

Could be implemented via API key perhaps (would just be one use of a more general "API keys with limited privileges" feature, which could be several flavours of useful); would then just need some software to streamline the day-to-day of offering swaps while handling funds from multiple accounts, which could potentially be put together by a third party.

[DebitMe]

I don't think I'd ever want to 'pool funds' in the sense of transferring cash to some other user (not with the trust issues involved) but if 'finex had a way to officially delegate control of your funds to another user, limited to offering swaps without the ability to withdraw or trade with your money... that would be interesting. Genuinely not sure whether I'd want to be delegating to someone else or offering myself up as a candidate to be delegated to, but it'd be interesting either way.

Could be implemented via API key perhaps (would just be one use of a more general "API keys with limited privileges" feature, which could be several flavours of useful); would then just need some software to streamline the day-to-day of offering swaps while handling funds from multiple accounts, which could potentially be put together by a third party.

I know the trust would be a major factor in a service such as this, and to be honest, I put the project on hold as I wasn't sure the interest would be there for such a service, but it was just an idea I had.  Obviously, I have built a lot of trust around here and that says something, but it is one thing to trade a few hundred dollar item and another to send thousands in bitcoins to with the idea of investing.  I figured I would take a percent of the daily interest as payment for such a service, which would lower interest probably further.

Like I said, it was just an idea and I thought it would allow people to have liquidity on their deposits, but being a third party service from Bitfinex obviously would have its draw backs.  Perhaps when I have more time I will follow through with this service more and see if it would go anywhere, as I still think it would be a great idea and get a lot of interest.  In my eyes, it would be just like investing with Bitfinex, but you can withdraw whenever you want and still earn roughly the same amount of interest.

[Dunkelheit667]

Btw. as we are talking about fairness improvements... A swap user can 'partially pay back' the BTC he took, even if it's just 0.01 BTC. But I cannot offer these as the minimun amount I'm allowed to offer is 50 US$ (in BTC).

Talking about Satoshis of interest here, but what's the point of this rule? It's not fair.

[Sukrim]

Before that rule, autolending would put the interest you earn on the books. every. single. day. - Lots of "spam" offers, not lots of added benefit.

[BlumpkinFairy]

Can someone explain to me how do I use a swap that I"ve purchased when I enter a long position? Do I have to buy the swap first then it uses it automatically?

Also, if I take a long position for 1000$ do I need to buy 1000 units of swap if I want to get a lower interest rate to cover that 1k long position?

[atlosas]

Hello, i have a question about OCO stop. It always get executed at least 2 dollars above or the price i wanted. I wonder if for example i set it lower, will it will be executed at my tarhet price. Example i buy for 280 my target is 290 stop loss 275. It get execeuted at avarage 272. If i set at 278 will it get executed at 275?

[DoubleSwapper]

mjr, there seems to be a serious bug with the swap offer matching. Ive now witnessed multiple times that the FRR was tunneled through.  Funds were taken at higher rates although lower rates at FRR were still available. For example I had a 2 day swap offer taken out at 0.1299 when there were over 400 k in swaps availabe at FRR (0.1196 at the time) with a range of 2-30 days. How is that possible?

[Mythoughts]

mjr, there seems to be a serious bug with the swap offer matching. Ive now witnessed multiple times that the FRR was tunneled through.  Funds were taken at higher rates although lower rates at FRR were still available. For example I had a 2 day swap offer taken out at 0.1299 when there were over 400 k in swaps availabe at FRR (0.1196 at the time) with a range of 2-30 days. How is that possible?

Some people want a fixed rate, so the FRR rate does not matter for their swaps.

[BlumpkinFairy]

If I want to short 5 bitcoins with a low interest rate do I need to get a swap for the full 5btcs?

I really wish there was some sort of guide that explained the intricacies of swapping on Bitfinex.

[Sukrim]

If I want to short 5 bitcoins with a low interest rate do I need to get a swap for the full 5btcs?

Of course you do. How else would it work?

[SebastianJu]

If I want to short 5 bitcoins with a low interest rate do I need to get a swap for the full 5btcs?

Of course you do. How else would it work?

But you only need to trade on the margin account. You dont need to first take a loan. Its automated. Simply go to margin trading and buy what you want.

Thats something i wondered first too about.

[DoubleSwapper]

mjr, there seems to be a serious bug with the swap offer matching. Ive now witnessed multiple times that the FRR was tunneled through.  Funds were taken at higher rates although lower rates at FRR were still available. For example I had a 2 day swap offer taken out at 0.1299 when there were over 400 k in swaps availabe at FRR (0.1196 at the time) with a range of 2-30 days. How is that possible?

Some people want a fixed rate, so the FRR rate does not matter for their swaps.

Nah, something is seriously not right here. Did you see what just happened? FRR keeps increasing (from 600 k to 1m in the last hour) and just now a 300 k demand pierces right through and raises the rate to over 0.45% behind the FRR. Never has this happened before until a few days ago. Same thing happened yesterday.

What would the guy that just took out 300k in one swipe ignoring the FRR have done? This is shady as hell and reminds me of the older swap manipulation that went on for quite some time without anyone at BFX noticing.

http://bfxdata.com/swapstats/usd.php

[Mythoughts]

mjr, there seems to be a serious bug with the swap offer matching. Ive now witnessed multiple times that the FRR was tunneled through.  Funds were taken at higher rates although lower rates at FRR were still available. For example I had a 2 day swap offer taken out at 0.1299 when there were over 400 k in swaps availabe at FRR (0.1196 at the time) with a range of 2-30 days. How is that possible?

Some people want a fixed rate, so the FRR rate does not matter for their swaps.

Nah, something is seriously not right here. Did you see what just happened? FRR keeps increasing (from 600 k to 1m in the last hour) and just now a 300 k demand pierces right through and raises the rate to over 0.45% behind the FRR. Never has this happened before until a few days ago. Same thing happened yesterday.

What would the guy that just took out 300k in one swipe ignoring the FRR have done? This is shady as hell and reminds me of the older swap manipulation that went on for quite some time without anyone at BFX noticing.

http://bfxdata.com/swapstats/usd.php

Intended behavior. It's like this since always, but you probably just havent noticed it before.

[DoubleSwapper]

mjr, there seems to be a serious bug with the swap offer matching. Ive now witnessed multiple times that the FRR was tunneled through.  Funds were taken at higher rates although lower rates at FRR were still available. For example I had a 2 day swap offer taken out at 0.1299 when there were over 400 k in swaps availabe at FRR (0.1196 at the time) with a range of 2-30 days. How is that possible?

Some people want a fixed rate, so the FRR rate does not matter for their swaps.

Nah, something is seriously not right here. Did you see what just happened? FRR keeps increasing (from 600 k to 1m in the last hour) and just now a 300 k demand pierces right through and raises the rate to over 0.45% behind the FRR. Never has this happened before until a few days ago. Same thing happened yesterday.

What would the guy that just took out 300k in one swipe ignoring the FRR have done? This is shady as hell and reminds me of the older swap manipulation that went on for quite some time without anyone at BFX noticing.

http://bfxdata.com/swapstats/usd.php

Intended behavior. It's like this since always, but you probably just havent noticed it before.

FRR still had a range from 2 to 30 days while all offers behind it were taken out (no 2 day offers spared or 30 only taken) so who would be that retarded unless he had agenda behind it? During the time when frequently just 1 m was ripped out of the book everybody was happy as well thinking "that guy must be stupid" until it occured to people through the careful investigation on bitcoinidiotdude that he was actually using a bug so he wouldn't pay interest for the hour. Same thing with the fake huge demand walls that were automatically shedding supply where bfx was doing nothing as well. This is the next swap market manipulation in the making.

If that is intended why hasn't this shit happened in the last couple of months when 3 m FRR wall was there and nothing behind it and never did the rate fly over it? Also what kind of shit system is this if it ignores the majority of supply? Don't you think at least some of the 577 offers sitting at FRR would have like to be taken out by that 300 k demand instead of it flying right through?

EDIT: lol next slurp up incoming. right up to 0.7 from a measily 56k whzile tere is a cool million sitting at FRR. That's how it supposed to work. lmao


Can you please tell me what kind of demand I have to put in so I can slurp up demand behind the FRR? Instructions please.

[camolist]