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

[bjornw]

does anyone know at what interval the "today" api call updates? I'm building an android app and want to use the High, Low and volume from https://api.bitfinex.com/v1/today/btcusd, but the BTC price at the moment is 623 but the api says: {"low":"628.5801","high":"638.0","volume":"1909.69228273"}  I've noticed it before, but up to now I wasn't really using the today call.

little preview:


BTW Would anybody be interested in an app like this? I'll incorporate all liquidity stats from my site http://charts-bfxdata.rhcloud.com as well +relavent charts that are better scaled to small touch screens. let me know what you think think about my side project (maybe better not to discuss it further in this threat, to stay on topic, but better here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=390218.0)

Bjorn

[halcyon]

Regarding this new "maker/taker" model, aren't those who provide the liquidity (i.e. those whose orders end up on the books) supposed to get a portion of the fee paid by those who take from the book?  This is the first time I've seen a "maker/taker" model described as both parties pay a fee with one just paying a lower fee.  This would seem to benefit Bitfinex a lot more than it would benefit traders, and I think it's going to end up creating a price divergence on this platform from other exchanges.   

A true maker/taker model (I think, and I'm no expert) should look like this:

Market makers receive 1/2 the fee paid by maker takers.
Market takers pay .3% fee (so Bitfinex receives .15%, and the market maker receives .15%).

This is how you "incentivize" being a market maker. 

this!

Thought about something similar but your idea seems to be an even better approach.
That fee structure would be a really incentive for being a market maker.

What´s your opinion Rapha/Giancarlo ?

[urwhatuknow]

Regarding this new "maker/taker" model, aren't those who provide the liquidity (i.e. those whose orders end up on the books) supposed to get a portion of the fee paid by those who take from the book?  This is the first time I've seen a "maker/taker" model described as both parties pay a fee with one just paying a lower fee.  This would seem to benefit Bitfinex a lot more than it would benefit traders, and I think it's going to end up creating a price divergence on this platform from other exchanges.  

A true maker/taker model (I think, and I'm no expert) should look like this:

Market makers receive 1/2 the fee paid by maker takers.
Market takers pay .3% fee (so Bitfinex receives .15%, and the market maker receives .15%).

This is how you "incentivize" being a market maker.  

this!

Thought about something similar but your idea seems to be an even better approach.
That fee structure would be a really incentive for being a market maker.

What´s your opinion Rapha/Giancarlo ?

My opinion is that charging a 0.3% fee for a trade is too high.
Bitfinex needs to be the most competitive marketplace in the world for the BTC/USD pair.
The major platforms charge 0.2% for high volume and Bitfinex should not charge more than this.
Staying within the 0.2% range is a must.

Thanks anyway for the suggestion

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

[urwhatuknow]

BFX team, i'm sorry for having to criticize but you guys are making some very brusque moves with apparent nonchalance.

1- Introduction of a "0.10% fee on all withdrawals and deposits" is a major milking of the Lenders, as i'm basically paying you 0.2% for a round-trip of deposit+withdrawal, for basically the exact same service? There's no risk for you, just paying the salary of a person who reconciles bank accounts. Don't you find this new fee a bit excessive?

2- 50% increase of the fees for Swap Liquidity providers....i understand that you might want to take a bigger part of the cake, but seriously, 50% hike with one simple email?

3- "Effective insurance of swaps" is a term that sounds very fishy, like the banks telling us they are using the best "risk assessment tools" and then going bankrupt when the first big crash happens. Please be so kind and explain to us how are you "effectively" insuring the swaps? It's like being pregnant: you either are or you aren't...you can't be "effectively" pregnant....

And i would like to stress on this point. If you have indeed found a financial institution willing to insure 16+ million dollars, please share with us the good news. Otherwise, if you are just relying on your ability to halt trading fast enough, or if you have a rich investor who "promised" to bear some of the losses, then we should know. That's a beaten path to getting a Black Swan event and wiping us all out. And the reasoning you are using to justify this increase is a Straw-man argument; what's the connection between your "reserves" (which for an un-audited company can mean anything) and the insurance you say you're providing?

You're a private company and can do whatever you like in this unregulated market, especially now with Mt. Gox gone. I can appreciate that, and the fact that you're just telling us about the changes and not consulting us at all (which is your right). Even so, i find this latest email a bit offensive in terms of the rate of fee hikes.

Should we expect another email in May with a 100% increase in the fees due to "effective" changes?

the recent changes were not meant to scam anybody or to sound fishy.
What we meant by insuring ( probably I didn't choose the right words for it) is that Bitfinex would have stood behind losses with the full power of its (limited) reserves.
This is by the way much less than the total amount of swaps currently stipulated ( more or less 10% of it).
I understand some people might not be satisfied with the current setup and I will think about your critics for the next days.
You might be right, for Bitfinex taking up so much liability for an extra 5% cut on swaps doesn't make much sense either.

This is the prove that in life no good deed goes unpunished.


Will keep you posted about it

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

[Sukrim]

Then take 0.2% and split it 0.15/0.05% for example... you anyways charge far more than 0.2% already since you charge percentages(!) for deposits/withdrawals now as well - as if entering a 5 digint number into your banking form would be 100 times harder than a 3 digit number...

Any updates on what "effectively insured" means, how many millions of USD you can effectively cover etc.?
After all you earn an extra 800 USD added to the 1600 USD you already earn daily for lending interests now. Does this help pay for "real" instead of "effective" insurance by an actual insurance company or just go into your pocket?

Edit:
Looks like we are now paying 50% more to BFX for the chance of only loosing up to ~90%, not up to 100%. Also Bitfinex charges lenders already ~500 times higher fees than traders, previously with no guarantee at all to protect them (or optionally full protection, though with no option for people to actually offer money for the insurance fund), now with ~10% protection at the cost of potentially ruining the platform itself in the process.

[sleger]

Lenders, make the borrowers pay the premium, move your offers higher. I, for one, never lend below 0.2% daily. The risks are not insignificant, this is not your FDIC insured savings account. In addition to a sudden market move to 100$ and the price staying there (which would wipe out all your $ lended) you also bear the risk of attack/hack/default of bitfinex itself. Less than 0.2% daily is not worth the risk in my opinion, and when rates go below that level, I refuse to lend.

[Sukrim]

I also lend a part at FRR (in case it spikes) and everything else usually a good bit above FRR. Effectively (considering higher offers not always get taken) I still get more than just lending at FRR which I'd consider the "base line set and forget" solution for beginners (2-3 days FRR Autolend and you'll never have to worry about anything).

Edit:
The problem with just not lending anything below rate X is that it is not too sure if Bitfinex would not still take your money away to "cut losses", even if you had nothing lent out. Do you really trust them that much, after they increase fees (lending fees used to be even lower) by double digit percentages just like that with no prior communication? Also it still is just a balance on an account from an HongKong LLC, not at least your home bank. I usually just lend out for shorter time periods if I don't like the interest rates (and I don't like the current ones very much).

[sleger]

I buy coins and do something else with them when rates fall too low (like now)

EDIT: Also I am quite convinced that if all lenders did that, people would still borrow at 0.2% anyways.

[whatthesith]

BFX team, i'm sorry for having to criticize but you guys are making some very brusque moves with apparent nonchalance.

1- Introduction of a "0.10% fee on all withdrawals and deposits" is a major milking of the Lenders, as i'm basically paying you 0.2% for a round-trip of deposit+withdrawal, for basically the exact same service? There's no risk for you, just paying the salary of a person who reconciles bank accounts. Don't you find this new fee a bit excessive?

2- 50% increase of the fees for Swap Liquidity providers....i understand that you might want to take a bigger part of the cake, but seriously, 50% hike with one simple email?

3- "Effective insurance of swaps" is a term that sounds very fishy, like the banks telling us they are using the best "risk assessment tools" and then going bankrupt when the first big crash happens. Please be so kind and explain to us how are you "effectively" insuring the swaps? It's like being pregnant: you either are or you aren't...you can't be "effectively" pregnant....

And i would like to stress on this point. If you have indeed found a financial institution willing to insure 16+ million dollars, please share with us the good news. Otherwise, if you are just relying on your ability to halt trading fast enough, or if you have a rich investor who "promised" to bear some of the losses, then we should know. That's a beaten path to getting a Black Swan event and wiping us all out. And the reasoning you are using to justify this increase is a Straw-man argument; what's the connection between your "reserves" (which for an un-audited company can mean anything) and the insurance you say you're providing?

You're a private company and can do whatever you like in this unregulated market, especially now with Mt. Gox gone. I can appreciate that, and the fact that you're just telling us about the changes and not consulting us at all (which is your right). Even so, i find this latest email a bit offensive in terms of the rate of fee hikes.

Should we expect another email in May with a 100% increase in the fees due to "effective" changes?

the recent changes were not meant to scam anybody or to sound fishy.
What we meant by insuring ( probably I didn't choose the right words for it) is that Bitfinex would have stood behind losses with the full power of its (limited) reserves.
This is by the way much less than the total amount of swaps currently stipulated ( more or less 10% of it).
I understand some people might not be satisfied with the current setup and I will think about your critics for the next days.
You might be right, for Bitfinex taking up so much liability for an extra 5% cut on swaps doesn't make much sense either.

This is the prove that in life no good deed goes unpunished.


Will keep you posted about it

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

On updated fee schedule in Bitfinex webpage / the wire deposit page, there is NO mention about 0.1% deposit fee on wire deposit, but you have stated it in your announcement. I don't know whether you have done it on purpose (To trap customers) or by mistake.

0.1% wire deposit fee is rather discouraging for new capital to fund into Bitfinex. I have no idea why Bitfinex would impose a fee on it. (0.1% wire withdrawal fee is more understandable)


But anyway, I am a little bit disappointed on the 0.1% fee on deposit/withdrawal. (If Bitfinex have 0% trading fee like, Huobi, OKCoin, I think it is more acceptable. But the reality is not). At least for Bitfinex, I cannot see any variable cost factor for handling wire deposit / withdrawal (Even for the charges from the bank, in particular HSBC HK, it is fixed amount fee) , so, it is not justifiable to charge on percentage.

[DoubleSwapper]

I also lend a part at FRR (in case it spikes) and everything else usually a good bit above FRR. Effectively (considering higher offers not always get taken) I still get more than just lending at FRR which I'd consider the "base line set and forget" solution for beginners (2-3 days FRR Autolend and you'll never have to worry about anything).

Edit:
The problem with just not lending anything below rate X is that it is not too sure if Bitfinex would not still take your money away to "cut losses", even if you had nothing lent out. Do you really trust them that much, after they increase fees (lending fees used to be even lower) by double digit percentages just like that with no prior communication? Also it still is just a balance on an account from an HongKong LLC, not at least your home bank. I usually just lend out for shorter time periods if I don't like the interest rates (and I don't like the current ones very much).

Anybody who seriously believes this should immidiately pull all of his funds off the platform. BFX cutting the funds of its clients to compensate for a flash crash seems ridiculous. Mind that the money "lost" actually is not lost but goes to succesful shorts, so they would redistribute money of the majority of the clients to a minority who shorted during the crash. This is a completely different scenario from BFX getting robbed by hackers and having to distribute the losses. In our case they would only be liable towards clients. That's why my projection is that they will try to halt trading quickly enough in case of a flash crash and burn the shorters just like they did in the last crash.  

[chsados]

Looks like they brought the email notification button back at least  

[CambioBTC]

My opinion is that charging a 0.3% fee for a trade is too high.
Bitfinex needs to be the most competitive marketplace in the world for the BTC/USD pair.
The major platforms charge 0.2% for high volume and Bitfinex should not charge more than this.
Staying within the 0.2% range is a must.

Thanks anyway for the suggestion

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

Don't know about the rest of these guys,
but what originally got my attention was the original .13%,
Now we have gone from .13%, to .15%, to now .20%,
and $20 deposit and withdrawal fee, which use to be Free,
all because of what the major platforms do, where does it stop ?

Pure, "Keeping Up With The Jones,
as soon as a English Speaking Version of Houbi hits the market,
The China Exchange that offer Free Trades / Zero Fees
that make their money off of advertising and not the backs of Traders,

All of these Exchanges that consistently want to charge and raise fees,
will have to find other revenue streams when the crowd runs to this new type of Exchanges.


Those of us that have been here longer should be "GrandFathered Claused" and not have our
fee structure constantly changed, but of course that would be too much like being appreciative .

Personally, BitFinex is beginning to appear more and more like a "Bank" every day,
and you know how true "Coiners" feel about BANKS !

[GurungBoi]

My opinion is that charging a 0.3% fee for a trade is too high.
Bitfinex needs to be the most competitive marketplace in the world for the BTC/USD pair.
The major platforms charge 0.2% for high volume and Bitfinex should not charge more than this.
Staying within the 0.2% range is a must.

Thanks anyway for the suggestion

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

Don't know about the rest of these guys,
but what originally got my attention was the original .13%,
Now we have gone from .13%, to .15%, to now .20%,
and $20 deposit and withdrawal fee, which use to be Free,
all because of what the major platforms do, where does it stop ?

Pure, "Keeping Up With The Jones,
as soon as a English Speaking Version of Houbi hits the market,
The China Exchange that offer Free Trades / Zero Fees
that make their money off of advertising and not the backs of Traders,

All of these Exchanges that consistently want to charge and raise fees,
will have to find other revenue streams when the crowd runs to this new type of Exchanges.


Those of us that have been here longer should be "GrandFathered Claused" and not have our
fee structure constantly changed, but of course that would be too much like being appreciative .

Personally, BitFinex is beginning to appear more and more like a "Bank" every day,
and you know how true "Coiners" feel about BANKS !

i speak the same.. I'm waiting for an english version to come out... no trade fee? oh hell yeah
i can day trade efficiently on that structure.

[nrd525]

I'm ok with the fee increase if the money is invested in building a stronger and more secure platform, and better support. 

Please do advance notices before making these changes.  I strongly recommend sending out an email to everyone.  A week or more advance notice is good for major changes that you don't have to implement immediately (eg. anything that isn't a bug fix).

[gog1]

I'm ok with the fee increase if the money is invested in building a stronger and more secure platform, and better support. 

Please do advance notices before making these changes.  I strongly recommend sending out an email to everyone.  A week or more advance notice is good for major changes that you don't have to implement immediately (eg. anything that isn't a bug fix).

I don't mind them building some kind of FDIC thing, but is that 5% extra fee lending fee enough for that kind of thing, esp with interest rate so low.  It'll take forever to build up the reserve.

[DoubleSwapper]

Platform is bugged out. Pls fix.

This forum is crap as well. Have to be logged in for 6 minutes to post something. Why?

[Sukrim]

This forum is crap as well. Have to be logged in for 6 minutes to post something. Why?

Because you are a noob and there are restrictions for them (to fight spam and uninformed/unhelpful posts like yours).

[DoubleSwapper]

This forum is crap as well. Have to be logged in for 6 minutes to post something. Why?

Because you are a noob and there are restrictions for them (to fight spam and uninformed/unhelpful posts like yours).

This makes sense.

BFX trading is still bugged out though. I can't cancel my open swap and there seems to be no trading activity. btcwisdom and the price ticker are also out of sync permanently.

[wilfried]

there is something wrong with bitcoinwisdom right now, also i got trouble to borrow, there is swappable balance shown, but the money does not show on the manage wallet page

[Bonez0r]

Is the auto-renew button in liquidity providing bugged out for anyone else? It's activated and i can't deactivate it. Earlier today i could switch it on/off without a problem, but when i tried just now it didn't change. Very annoying because it's stuck at a certain percentage now that i want to change. Any help?

edit: I just noticed, when i click the red button to deactivate, a green bar with the message "Autolend deactivated!" appears near the top of the page, but on the autorenew tab it still says "Currently auto-renewing USD at x% per day for maximum y day(s)". If i then click the button (that's still red) again, i get the green bar again saying that autolending is deactivated, but no matter what i do, the button stays red and says it's still active. So right now i have no idea if autolending is active or not!

edit2: All is back to normal.