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

[liexel]

Silly question here.. but I noted the swap rates for USD is quite high, 0.28% a day? Isn't that possible to make a lot of money in a year from just offering USD?

People using BitFinex can choose between buying Bitcoins and offering USD. So the "liquidity providing rates" naturally are somewhere in the area of historic and/or expected Bitcoin exchange rate grows minus the exchange rate risk.
That's why the rates are ridiculously high compared to regular, old stuff from the offline world.

So yes, please provide dollars. You'll receive mindboggling rates, compared to anything non-Bitcoin-related. And tell all your friends too! :-)

Ente
(Who is one of the guys who pays those incredible rates)

It's quite tempting to want to move a large sum of my liquidity into the exchange but it also seems extremely risky thing to simply leave it there for the long haul..

Edit: Related reddit thread
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1vofkw/risks_associated_with_moving_a_large_amount_of/

[nmersulypnem]

Some pages ago the BitFinex guys wrote they have no bankaccounts, company registration or anything else in China. From that, they are not affected by chinese regulations or new year whatsoever.

....

Ente

This is not accurate.  If you look back to the post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=229438.msg4007805#msg4007805 , Raphael clearly states that the deposit bank account is in Pudong (which is the financial district in Shanghai).  BTC China ALSO is HQ'd in Pudong, so I don't understand why Raphael thinks he is exempt while BTC China is not???

tldr - do not deposit in Bitfinex until this is cleared up.

Let's see if by re-phrasing I can make this clear in a definitive way:


1 ) Bitfinex ltd is incorporated in Hong Kong.
2 ) Hong Kong is not China.
3 ) Bitfinex operates with an off-shore account in Pudong.
4 ) This can be extrapolated also by the account number, which begins with OSA ( in case somebody still don't see the point, OSA stands for Off Shore Account)
5 ) Our offshore account is denominated in USD and has nothing to do with CNY ( a.k.a. Yuan, a.k.a. Renminbi, that is the Chinese currency) to whom the restrictions apply.
6 ) China wants to limit the outflow of capital, not a company incorporated in Hong Kong that stays away from its currency.
7 ) BTC-China = CNY --> Problem
8 ) Bitfinex = USD --> No Problem

I hope it's all clear now.
In case it isn't, well.....

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

Giancarlo,  thank you for responding.  Do you have confirmation from your bank that you will not be impacted by these regulations (which don't mention an exemption for offshore accounts in China)?

I appreciate this is *your* interpretation of the regulatory impact - I just want to make sure the Chinese authorities agree with your assessment.

BTW - I say this as I also happen to work in Compliance on Wall St, and I know that my interpretation often does not coincide with that of the SEC/FINRA/etc...

[accord01]

Hi every one!
I am currently looking to get my money out of Mtgox and was looking at bitfinex for that purpose.
How trust worthy do you guys think is bitfinex? Are there any information available about them, is it just a one man operation or do they have employees/support agents, etz. ?
If you could let me know your opinion and experience, I would greatly appreciate it.

I think bitfinex is quite comparable to other btc exchanges like GOX and stamp.  they are in the pu dong free trade district.  they might be lacking in support vs stamp.

Their site is a bit behind i think, though i don't know much about computers.  But stamp and gox messes up all the time too.

[Timetwister]

Thanks for clearing things up

BTW, if I may make sugestment to your business. Make sure to invest in a good staff for customer support! Security and customer support are (in my opinion) the most important parts of a business.
If for example I make a support ticket and wait many hours to days for an response, I will be reluctant to use the service. While when the customer gets a fast and friendly reply within an hour, he will grow trust in your business and will most likely stay with you.
Unfortunately customer service is a weak point at many big exchanges, but I think if you make customer support to one of you priority's (after security), I am sure that you will grow to one of the biges exchanges in the market.

+1, that's one of the reasons why I don't invest more.

[MustMan]

BTW, if I may make sugestment to your business. Make sure to invest in a good staff for customer support! Security and customer support are (in my opinion) the most important parts of a business.
If for example I make a support ticket and wait many hours to days for an response, I will be reluctant to use the service. While when the customer gets a fast and friendly reply within an hour, he will grow trust in your business and will most likely stay with you.
Unfortunately customer service is a weak point at many big exchanges, but I think if you make customer support to one of you priority's (after security), I am sure that you will grow to one of the biges exchanges in the market.

+1, Totally agree with this point.

[Ente]

Silly question here.. but I noted the swap rates for USD is quite high, 0.28% a day? Isn't that possible to make a lot of money in a year from just offering USD?

People using BitFinex can choose between buying Bitcoins and offering USD. So the "liquidity providing rates" naturally are somewhere in the area of historic and/or expected Bitcoin exchange rate grows minus the exchange rate risk.
That's why the rates are ridiculously high compared to regular, old stuff from the offline world.

So yes, please provide dollars. You'll receive mindboggling rates, compared to anything non-Bitcoin-related. And tell all your friends too! :-)

Ente
(Who is one of the guys who pays those incredible rates)

It's quite tempting to want to move a large sum of my liquidity into the exchange but it also seems extremely risky thing to simply leave it there for the long haul..

Edit: Related reddit thread
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1vofkw/risks_associated_with_moving_a_large_amount_of/

Heh, funny thread on /r/.
I feel reasonably safe that BitFinex doesn't plan any evil things, and have a good technical security.
As a general sane rule, I only have a part of my holdings on any website.
You could, for example, transfer 10% of your "speculate money" to BitFinex, to provide liquidity. Remove the resulting interest daily, or wait until your funds doubled or something similar.
Or calculate something on the line of "I invest x% of my funds, it takes y days for it to double, my funds are a% of the total money on BitFinex and they exist since b years". All data is public. Simply calculate your personal risk treshold. Or maybe you will calculate that it's not worth the risk - Bitcoin in itself if risky and rewarding enough already ;-)

Ente

[MustMan]

Let's see if by re-phrasing I can make this clear in a definitive way:

1 ) Bitfinex ltd is incorporated in Hong Kong.
2 ) Hong Kong is not China.
3 ) Bitfinex operates with an off-shore account in Pudong.
4 ) This can be extrapolated also by the account number, which begins with OSA ( in case somebody still don't see the point, OSA stands for Off Shore Account)
5 ) Our offshore account is denominated in USD and has nothing to do with CNY ( a.k.a. Yuan, a.k.a. Renminbi, that is the Chinese currency) to whom the restrictions apply.
6 ) China wants to limit the outflow of capital, not a company incorporated in Hong Kong that stays away from its currency.
7 ) BTC-China = CNY --> Problem
8 ) Bitfinex = USD --> No Problem

Bitfinex already change wire deposit account from China Off Shore Account to China Construction Bank Account located at Hong Kong.
Good news for those who feel little doubt about deposit in Bitfinex.

[whatthesith]

Let's see if by re-phrasing I can make this clear in a definitive way:

1 ) Bitfinex ltd is incorporated in Hong Kong.
2 ) Hong Kong is not China.
3 ) Bitfinex operates with an off-shore account in Pudong.
4 ) This can be extrapolated also by the account number, which begins with OSA ( in case somebody still don't see the point, OSA stands for Off Shore Account)
5 ) Our offshore account is denominated in USD and has nothing to do with CNY ( a.k.a. Yuan, a.k.a. Renminbi, that is the Chinese currency) to whom the restrictions apply.
6 ) China wants to limit the outflow of capital, not a company incorporated in Hong Kong that stays away from its currency.
7 ) BTC-China = CNY --> Problem
8 ) Bitfinex = USD --> No Problem

Bitfinex already change wire deposit account from China Off Shore Account to China Construction Bank Account located at Hong Kong.
Good news for those who feel little doubt about deposit in Bitfinex.

Great! I can wire funds locally (instead of charging international wire fees)

As a Hong Kong people, the above 8 points are correct. But Hong Kong is definitely part of China. However, Hong Kong is special region which has TOTALLY different laws and regulations from China (at least before year 2047).

[nmersulypnem]

Market Orders are not processing!  Is the system down??

[nmersulypnem]

Bitfinex ticker is dead and market orders are not processing as of 10:34:31 AM ET.  We are able to place/cancel orders but nothing it matched/executed.


It's back now at 10:47 AM ET.  13 minute downtime.   Please post a message on the order page when you're rebooting the execution server/service.

[nmersulypnem]

Quick question:  Do BitStamp market orders get matched against Bitfinex limit orders?  I'm guessing the answer is no, but I'm not clear.   It does not look like bitfinex orders are appearing on Bitstamp, so I want to clarify.

Thanks.

[nmersulypnem]

Quick question:  Do BitStamp market orders get matched against Bitfinex limit orders?  I'm guessing the answer is no, but I'm not clear.   It does not look like bitfinex orders are appearing on Bitstamp, so I want to clarify.

Thanks.

That is a FAQ. Answer is bitstamp-api does not support a query of order status therefore it is not possible.

Ok, so only Bitfinex market orders route to BitStamp.  So if I select "route order" to bitstamp when placing a limit order, that does not actually work, correct?

[unclescrooge]

Dear customers,

In an ongoing effort to better serve our customers, we are rolling out a
series of enhancements to the platform designed to make your trading
experience at Bitfinex more intuitive, efficient, and cost effective.  To
that end, we have made the following changes:


1.       Announcements Page:  Yes, we know, this has been a long time
coming, but we have one now.  We have a lot of great stuff planned for the
future so we anticipate using this feature to communicate to our loyal
customer all the cool new features and enhancements coming down the
pipeline.  We will soon be adding feedback functionality – we want to hear
from you!

2.       Real-time Liquidity Swap Matching:  In the past, matching was done
only periodically at intervals sometimes as long as 15 minutes, creating a
“crossed” order book for liquidity swaps and making efficient price
discovery difficult.  We have re-engineered that process to match liquidity
swap offers in real-time, dramatically improving the customer experience.

3.       Liquidity Swap Time Range:  In an effort to provide more
information about quotes on the liquidity swap book, we now indicate the
range of “days” available on the individual quotes underlying the aggregated
quote shown on the website.  This information now allows users to interact
with quotes more precisely with offering or taking liquidity.

4.       Minimum Liquidity Swap Charge:  This change actually went into
effect several weeks ago, but we thought we would like to take advantage of
the new Announcements Page to reiterate what has been communicated in the
forums.  We have imposed a minimum charge of one hour on any matched
liquidity swap to prevent users from inappropriately manipulating liquidity
swap offers and creating unnecessary volatility in liquidity swap rates

5.       No Crossed Orders:  We have made a change that will no longer show
so-called “marketable limit orders” on the order book prior to execution.
This long requested feature is now in production.

6.       Bitstamp Liquidity combined with Bitfinex:  Lastly, and perhaps
most importantly, we have listened to your feedback and we agree that trying
to superimpose two order books with different pricing is confusing,
forcing traders to do a lot of extra math when all they really want to do is
trade.  Going forward, we will no longer be showing “Bitstamp” orders on our
book, but rather regular “BFX” orders reflecting Bitstamp liquidity, but
priced and grouped in such a way that BFX commission rules can be applied
uniformly to all trades on the platform.  This change has (or will have) a
number of positive side effects, including:

a.       Improved API:  API users will now be able to see the “re-labeled”
Bitstamp order and quotes whereas in the past the API would only show “BFX”
orders and trades.

b.      Better Interface:  A single order book will allow us to redesign the
trading interface to be simpler and more intuitive

c.       Faster Order Matching:  Near real-time order matching is now
possible because of the efficiencies we will gain with this change in
architecture.

This changes will be implemented within the next few days.

Stay tuned!  More is coming as we execute on our plan to make Bitfinex the
premier crypto currency trading platform in the world.  We thank you for all
of your suggestions, your loyalty and your patience while we embark on next
phase of development as an exchange and a community.
 
Best regards
Raphael
Bitfinex Team

[BitCoinNutJob]

think im submitting orders but its not working right now?

[gog1]

Looks like the other bank account is just there temporarily to work around CNY, the regular account is still in Pudong - which would make some antsy.

[BitCoinNutJob]

what i mean is im setting an order and its not even appearing in the book right now, anyone else?

edit: market orders work, limit orders dont appear in the book (i tried several times)

[gog1]

what i mean is im setting an order and its not even appearing in the book right now, anyone else?

edit: market orders work, limit orders dont appear in the book (i tried several times)

I got the same issue with limit order.

[BitCoinNutJob]

bummer

[gog1]

bummer

I do see the order book changed, some orders are added - I'm not sure who gets affected.  I'm looking at the LTC order book which has nothing to do with bitstamp.  More info, I'm using the exchange wallet, not the trading wallet.

[unclescrooge]

Hello guys,

Yes indeed there were an unrelated issue with limit order placing, which has been solved now.

And orderbook crossed for the last time

Have a good day
Raphael
Bitfinex team