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

[Rygon]

Current BTC lending rate is 98% APR!

Yeah, it went from 5%-ish a few days ago to 98% all of a sudden.  Big player shorting bitcoins?

The rate was ridiculously low compared to USD though.

I have BTC loans out at a variable interest rate, and I'm only getting ~3% return (APR) over the past 2 weeks. I'm not sure anyone is actually paying or receiving BTC at 98%.

[molecular]

Current BTC lending rate is 98% APR!

Yeah, it went from 5%-ish a few days ago to 98% all of a sudden.  Big player shorting bitcoins?

The rate was ridiculously low compared to USD though.

I have BTC loans out at a variable interest rate, and I'm only getting ~3% return (APR) over the past 2 weeks. I'm not sure anyone is actually paying or receiving BTC at 98%.

I'm unsure. Does "variable rate" mean that the rate fluctuates while the loan is out or is it fixed when the loan is taken for the duration of the loan?

[vokain]

Can we get a trusted third party security audit? You can say you follow these guidelines but how do we actually know you do? Can you show us?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83933.0

[nrd525]

People are paying the variable interest rate.  This is perhaps the first day of the very high rates so the money hasn't come through yet.

I've got a small position that is mostly paying VIR - currently 61%.

[unclescrooge]

Hello all

The sentiment is quite bearish at this moment and this reflects on the BTC rate which spiked, as well as the total amount of BTC lent. This is also a consequences of the change we made in the VIR calculation to reflect more the change in market sentiment.

The changes are as follow:

-The VIR offers will not be always taken first when margin is automatically borrowed, but will be taken based on the current VIR. For example, if the current VIR is 40% and there is a fixed rate offer at 30%, then this fixed rate offer will be borrowed before the VIR offer.
This will reflect in the offerbook table on the Lending page.
We are doing it to encourage lenders to use fixed rate loans rather than VIR one

-The VIR will be calculated only on fixed rates loans, as an average of all loan rates weigthed by the loan amounts. Loans which have a rate above a reasonably high threshold will be ignored in the calculation, to avoid big spike in the VIR and manipulations of the rate.

As a result, VIR will move more often as the sentiment of the market evolves.

The changes are effective as of now. Let us know if you have any more questions

Have a nice day
Raphael
Bitfinex team

[superbit]

Hello all

The sentiment is quite bearish at this moment and this reflects on the BTC rate which spiked, as well as the total amount of BTC lent. This is also a consequences of the change we made in the VIR calculation to reflect more the change in market sentiment.

The changes are as follow:

-The VIR offers will not be always taken first when margin is automatically borrowed, but will be taken based on the current VIR. For example, if the current VIR is 40% and there is a fixed rate offer at 30%, then this fixed rate offer will be borrowed before the VIR offer.
This will reflect in the offerbook table on the Lending page.
We are doing it to encourage lenders to use fixed rate loans rather than VIR one

-The VIR will be calculated only on fixed rates loans, as an average of all loan rates weigthed by the loan amounts. Loans which have a rate above a reasonably high threshold will be ignored in the calculation, to avoid big spike in the VIR and manipulations of the rate.

As a result, VIR will move more often as the sentiment of the market evolves.

The changes are effective as of now. Let us know if you have any more questions

Have a nice day
Raphael
Bitfinex team

I think it's a good change.

[arbitrage001]

Don't suppose you want to offer equity for the exchange?

[urwhatuknow]

Don't suppose you want to offer equity for the exchange?

Thanks for your interest, but at the moment we do not intend to offer any equity.

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

[01BTC10]

I placed an order to go long for 160BTC. $0 in loan matched my criteria. Then I closed that position about within 1 minute but still lost $200. How could I lose money without even getting any loans?

[unclescrooge]

I placed an order to go long for 160BTC. $0 in loan matched my criteria. Then I closed that position about within 1 minute but still lost $200. How could I lose money without even getting any loans?

Hello,

Losses are related to the price you opened and closed your position for, not the loans you took (because indeed, within 1 minute no loans are taken).

Could you give me your username by PM so I can change further?

Thanks
Raphael
Bitfinex team

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Does anybody else think it would be a good idea to make this change to the lending page: display 'lending time' from combined offers as "Minimum to Maximum" instead of "Minimum"?
So for example; if Joe and Pete both offer money at 100%, and Joe offers it for 2 days, while Pete offers 60 days, then display the lending time of the offer as "2-60 days"
Or perhaps make the combined offers expandable so you can see the individual ones.

These are of course only minor things, I completely get it if they are not on top of the "to do" list.

[simonk83]

Does anybody else think it would be a good idea to make this change to the lending page: display 'lending time' from combined offers as "Minimum to Maximum" instead of "Minimum"?
So for example; if Joe and Pete both offer money at 100%, and Joe offers it for 2 days, while Pete offers 60 days, then display the lending time of the offer as "2-60 days"
Or perhaps make the combined offers expandable so you can see the individual ones.

These are of course only minor things, I completely get it if they are not on top of the "to do" list.

Yes, I've suggested this before as it annoys me everyday and is a really inaccurate way of displaying things.

If I'm offering a loan for 60 days but someone else offers the same amount for 2 days, then the potential borrower needs to see both.  Right now they're just likely to overlook that particular figure.

This needs changing.

[Wassupia]

I placed an order to go long for 160BTC. $0 in loan matched my criteria. Then I closed that position about within 1 minute but still lost $200. How could I lose money without even getting any loans?

I opened a position yesterday with money I borrowed, it took like 10 minutes before the 'Borrowed funds used in a margin position','Unused Borrowed funds used in a margin position', 'total loans of position' updated. 'total loans of position' showed 0$ before that update.

So I suppose your order was taken, but it wasn't displayed yet.

[01BTC10]

I placed an order to go long for 160BTC. $0 in loan matched my criteria. Then I closed that position about within 1 minute but still lost $200. How could I lose money without even getting any loans?

I opened a position yesterday with money I borrowed, it took like 10 minutes before the 'Borrowed funds used in a margin position','Unused Borrowed funds used in a margin position', 'total loans of position' updated. 'total loans of position' showed 0$ before that update.

So I suppose your order was taken, but it wasn't displayed yet.

Probably. Expensive mistake that I will not do again.

[arbitrage001]

Mtgox withdraw is back.

Don't suppose you want to enable the link back on exchange trading?

[sangaman]

It would be nice to be able to sort the results on the history page by rate and amount, rather than just date. Can we get this feature sometime soon?

[Sukrim]

I'd rather have a csv file to download with the transactions so I can process it as I want to. As far as I understand it, it is a ledger - why would you want to sort that by amounts anyways? To see what you historically highest trades were?

[gog1]

Mtgox withdraw is back.

Don't suppose you want to enable the link back on exchange trading?

how many people actually get their wire transfer from mtgox?

[Deprived]

aww, looks like most of the fun is over.
By the way, what happens if people lend money for under an hour.  Can they lend interest-free, do they pay for a full hour....?

It's interest free.

I did some tests - basically I borrowed $5k, sat on it for over 50 minutes then closed the loan.  Did it twice covering different parts of the hour to make sure that at least one of them would have been active when the interest calculation code ran.

Did it when rates were low (obviously) and did absolutely nothing else that day which could generate any fees or profit.

There was zero fee charged, no entry in my history and balances didn't change.  By my calculations I should have been charged about $0.20 interest on each occasion.

Last official description I saw was that once per hour a check was made and any loans that had been open at previous check got charged interest.  Rather obviously that would allow for borrowing interest-free so long as you kept it under 1 hour.  STranegly, despite that description, it was then claimed that you couldn't borrow interest free - yet at no point was any attempt made to explain what it did different to the provided description that prevented it.

My tests indicate that you can, indeed, borrow interest free.  That's likely of more use to lenders than borrowers - when rates are low you can use half your USD to borrow all the cheap loans then try to lend the other half at higher rates than would otherwise be the case.  Just make sure you cancel your loans within an hour.

EDIT:  My tests were done over a month ago - it's not impossible that the system has changed since.

[Pangia]

Bitcoin brings out the best.

Let's see how this endeavor ends.