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

[BitBits]

...
1- As per regulation in most developed countries, customers have to have prior notice of any changes to the terms and conditions, as the T&C is considered a legal binding contract, and no contract can be changed unilaterally. The amount of time for the notice can depend, but i suggest a minimum of 2 weeks.
...

This and other comments in line with this make sense, but may I suggest that we take into account the fact that BFX is in beta testing and this means that things are being tried out, added, removed and modified in a relatively fast fashion. We do not want the testing mode to go on with 2 weeks notices for every minor change, do we?

I've traded places and I personally find Bitfinex, technically and overall by design, to be by far superior to anybody else out there. So, perhaps we should just try to let the team do their work and of course keep suggesting things, but in some more friendly and a bit more supportive manner. With that said, I am NOT implying that anybody in this thread is threatening Bitfinex in any way (I hope not) and "warnings" about various potential regulatory issues should keep coming, but again, let's try to keep those comments in a more "suggestive" mode.

Regarding "insured lending" critiques and concerns, first of all, people should not forget that in reality, lender's money come SECOND after trader's own money, when/IF things come to forced position liquidations. It technically, absolutely, does mean that lender's money are first of all fully covered by every trader's own funds and it is only AFTER the trader's own account is fully drawn, lenders' funds are at stake. Secondly, there are technical things that I believe are in place at Bitfinex, such as trading halting in extreme situations. I do NOT want to say however that there is "effectively"   no risk to lending and I THEREFORE would propose the team (again) to think about placing caps on lowest (and perhaps highest) lending percentages.

I also think that right about now is a very good time to introduce such capping, simply because if one looks at historical lending rates, one would easily see that market pretty much already found that the lowest rate is at some 0.1% levels, which would be my suggestion for capping on the lower end. The same in fact goes for highest rates, per historical data and which suggest that the high end "cap" is in the 1% range.

By the way, if such "capping" is implemented, I do not see the need for having flash rate function at all. Just imagine the advantage of potentially greater flexibility in lending rates discovery and how much will this process ADD to everyone's ability to "sense" the current market trends.

[1713275497]

1713275497

[Ichthyo]

Thanks for the OCO orders.
very much appreciated.

One detail question: Is there some kind of headroom added to the current ticker price?

E.g., currently the lowest ask is at 619, highest bid 618

Now, if I want to open a long position and thus enter limit = 614, stop = 620, I get a error popup "OCO stop rate is below ticker". The lowest stop value accepted by the system is 627, which seems quite off the current spread IMHO.

[q33139768]

The updated requirement is:

A – 2 X photo ID (passport and national ID card copy)
B - recent electrical bill / property tax / telephone (no other type accepted)
C - copy of a bank statement / bank account in your name - should be the same account from which you receive / send funds
D - occupation detail and source of income explained on the form

This is completely unacceptable. Looks like I'll be buying BTC or LTC and transferring out of Bitfinex soon, then.

I only have 1 ID (seriously) since I haven't bothered to renew my passport after it expired, so I can't do A.

It's 2014 not 1994 so my bank doesn't send me paper statements at all so I can't do C.

Also, D seems to sort under "none of their business", there is no reason they need to know what other income I have for me to withdraw what I've made from trading and lending at Bitfinex.

Bitfinex is with that essentially saying that they've now closed fiat withdraws.

Guess I'll have to change my signature too and update it to say "screwed exchange that denies fiat withdraws to most people".

Or maybe I'll decide to apply for a passport and look for an outdated bank that operates like it's the 1980s but I doubt that. It seems like a bit much just to use an exchange who've now completely submitted to the fascist world order.

Let me point out a few simple concepts here:

1) We don't observe AML/KYC rules  because we like to give you a hard time, we do it because we don't want to be shut down by local authorities and have all your money confiscated ( Liberty Reserve anyone?)
2) We just require extra documents to accounts that show abnormal patterns of withdrawals or any strange behavior.
3) Less than one month ago MtGox exploded and this drew massive attention to every trading platform. Bitfinex is now the second platform in the world in the BTC/USD pair, so it's perfectly normal for us to try to be scrupulous in our procedures.
4) If you have no passport, a photo ID and a driving license will do.
5) We accept bank statements in electronic format (PDF)
6) The same people complaining now were also complaining back in june 2013 when we pulled out of MtGox.
They called me paranoid, chicken, you name it. All this people didn't show up when Gox collapsed to just say thank you. Not one word, nothing, zero.

Time will tell who's is right between who is trying to comply with the rules and who is just ranting about a world that doesn't exist yet.
Platforms are centralized entities and must comply with the rules.
Anybody not getting this should seek for a better place to trade (and eventually end up losing all of his coins).

Yes, I wrote it again. And the more I write it the more I mean it.

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

I 2nd this. to the truth, I made a withdrawl last thurday. on Saturday, I received the additional KYC form, and submitted the documents following hours. On Monday, I received the amount.

[CambioBTC]

OCO Question,

When placing OCO orders,

The limit is filled out,
then the other side with the
stop and take profit order,
thus that extra stop field
on the same side of the limit
order to be created is to just be erased, correct ?

For an example,
if placing a OCO Buy Limit order,
the Stop and Take Profit would be placed on the Sell side,
thus that extra stop field on the Buy side the limit order was
created on is to simply be deleted before entering the OCO, correct ?


Thanks

[MustMan]

Time will tell who's is right between who is trying to comply with the rules and who is just ranting about a world that doesn't exist yet.
Platforms are centralized entities and must comply with the rules.
Anybody not getting this should seek for a better place to trade (and eventually end up losing all of his coins).

Yes, I wrote it again. And the more I write it the more I mean it.

Have a good day

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

Though you said it lot of times not in proper and appropriate situations.
Sure you can say it this time as this is a matter of secuity and not of matters regarding normal fees or serivces that somebody complained about.  

[richardweiming]

You can have any KYC rules as you wish.
But it should be at the beginning. Not additional KYC when a verified customer ask for a withdraw.
What about he don't have a second ID when you ask? How long will he need to apply one? His money will be pending for that long. Is it not suspicious at current post MTGOX atmosphere?
This is the point and this is not acceptable.
I suggest you at least publish your entire KYC rules. Inform customer they may be asked for additional KYC documents at the time you need. That is how the things should be.

[Ente]

...
1- As per regulation in most developed countries, customers have to have prior notice of any changes to the terms and conditions, as the T&C is considered a legal binding contract, and no contract can be changed unilaterally. The amount of time for the notice can depend, but i suggest a minimum of 2 weeks.
...

This and other comments in line with this make sense, but may I suggest that we take into account the fact that BFX is in beta testing and this means that things are being tried out, added, removed and modified in a relatively fast fashion. We do not want the testing mode to go on with 2 weeks notices for every minor change, do we?

I've traded places and I personally find Bitfinex, technically and overall by design, to be by far superior to anybody else out there. So, perhaps we should just try to let the team do their work and of course keep suggesting things, but in some more friendly and a bit more supportive manner. With that said, I am NOT implying that anybody in this thread is threatening Bitfinex in any way (I hope not) and "warnings" about various potential regulatory issues should keep coming, but again, let's try to keep those comments in a more "suggestive" mode.

Regarding "insured lending" critiques and concerns, first of all, people should not forget that in reality, lender's money come SECOND after trader's own money, when/IF things come to forced position liquidations. It technically, absolutely, does mean that lender's money are first of all fully covered by every trader's own funds and it is only AFTER the trader's own account is fully drawn, lenders' funds are at stake. Secondly, there are technical things that I believe are in place at Bitfinex, such as trading halting in extreme situations. I do NOT want to say however that there is "effectively"   no risk to lending and I THEREFORE would propose the team (again) to think about placing caps on lowest (and perhaps highest) lending percentages.

I also think that right about now is a very good time to introduce such capping, simply because if one looks at historical lending rates, one would easily see that market pretty much already found that the lowest rate is at some 0.1% levels, which would be my suggestion for capping on the lower end. The same in fact goes for highest rates, per historical data and which suggest that the high end "cap" is in the 1% range.

By the way, if such "capping" is implemented, I do not see the need for having flash rate function at all. Just imagine the advantage of potentially greater flexibility in lending rates discovery and how much will this process ADD to everyone's ability to "sense" the current market trends.

I agree with what you say, except your "swap rate cap". I don't see what that should accomplish. It would "regulate" the market unbearable.
In times of really low price movement, less than now, noone would be willing to even pay 0.1% swap rates. In highly volatile times 1% wouldn't be enough, as both the provider and the taker would agree that a higher swap rate would be a fair price.
In normal times, where the rate is somewhere in between, the caps don't help anyway.

Also, there can't be accidental "flash crashes" in the swap rate, as there is no forced lending, compared to forced liquidation. All liquidity taking is a manual decision of the taker.

I fully agree that this forum is giving the BitFinex a much harder time than warranted. Let's be happy they are in such close contact with us, instead of annoying them away, right?

Ente

[richardweiming]

I have one thing to comment now no one said before.
If I want to claim my brought BTC in margin trading.  I mean keep the BTC not by sell it our to calculate profit or lose.  It will cost me 1% fee to do that. Why? I claim the BTC means I paid swap and interest. Why additional 1% will be cost?   To avoid it, I need to make a margin sell order and then make a exchange buy order instead, That means 0.3%.   Anyway, I think the 1% is not reasonable. What is it for

 

[Bonez0r]

edit: Thanks Sukrim, i just made a complete fool of myself . Please ignore this entire post. It's because i normally never look at BTC swaps and the one time i did, i forgot to switch back and was horribly confused.

edit 2: Removed the original post because it's not useful to this thread and is just taking up space.

[Sukrim]

You are looking at BTC and comparing to USD.

[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.

Glad if Giancarlo would answer my inquiry.

[Bonez0r]

I've traded places and I personally find Bitfinex, technically and overall by design, to be by far superior to anybody else out there.

You've never experienced Kraken then (bitcointalk thread here). I don't want to sound like an unpaid advertiser for them here, but using Kraken is a revelation, a paradise compared to every other exchange i've used. What you say here is exactly what i'd say about Kraken. Their only problem right now is that their trade volume is still relatively low for euros and virtually nonexistent for usd (it's taking them a long time to get approved in all the states of the US). Once they have enough volume they'll activate their margin trading too and if/when that happens i expect an exodus from Bitfinex to Kraken. (Not that i'd like that, i lend money here and Kraken plans to provide the liquidity by itself).

[Sawadekub]

dun think u guys will pull more investors coming in with the 0.1 % withdrawal and deposits fee as well as a trading fees which are alot more expensive then BTCchina and huobi..
as their costomer base are huge and their security seems strong.. can u guys revise the fees? u are earning too much... dont u guys want more investors?

[CambioBTC]

dun think u guys will pull more investors coming in with the 0.1 % withdrawal and deposits fee as well as a trading fees which are alot more expensive then BTCchina and huobi..
as their costomer base are huge and their security seems strong.. can u guys revise the fees? u are earning too much... dont u guys want more investors?

Apparently not,
your statement is falling on deaf ears,
without a doubt what you are dealing
are guys from the Banking Industry, not "Coiners".

I've traded places and I personally find Bitfinex, technically and overall by design, to be by far superior to anybody else out there.

You've never experienced Kraken then (bitcointalk thread here). I don't want to sound like an unpaid advertiser for them here, but using Kraken is a revelation, a paradise compared to every other exchange i've used. What you say here is exactly what i'd say about Kraken. Their only problem right now is that their trade volume is still relatively low for euros and virtually nonexistent for usd (it's taking them a long time to get approved in all the states of the US). Once they have enough volume they'll activate their margin trading too and if/when that happens i expect an exodus from Bitfinex to Kraken. (Not that i'd like that, i lend money here and Kraken plans to provide the liquidity by itself).

Yeah,

I like Jesse at Kraken,
This is what he had to say about the Mt.Gox situation,
Actually reached out to his fellow Coiners and asked them
If they "Had a Place To Stay",
That is a true Coiner, and as soon as Kraken gets their volume up I'm on board:

http://jesse.forthewin.com/blog/2014/02/unilateral-statement-regarding-fucked-up-shit-and-the-greater-good.html

Unfortunately other Exchanges beat him to the punch, but Kraken is gaining on their heels.

[wilfried]

yeah, but arent kraken the ones in cooperation with bifidus-bank?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=510850.0;topicseen

[arepo]

been trading BFX for awhile now, through TorBrowser. recently i noticed that the site would return a "security error" every now and again, citing my IP and forcing me to reconnect with a different identity. why is this?

also, i know some traders who are being offered 4:1 leverage. why is my highest option 2.5:1?

thanks

--arepo

[wilfried]

two id's is hard. i think its just a measure to minimize the risk of forged id's. but if one forges one id, why not two..

the difficulty i suppose, is to find a balance between what the banksters impose on the exchange and what the customers are prepared to give, i dont believe the kyc terms of the platforms are made out of fun, there is surely some lawier in the background who is doing his research and who is also on a trial-and-error-trip, cause nobody knows, which kyc regulations are to be followed for a worldwide exchange! imagine you open a bank and from day one on youre doing business potentially in every country of the world, thats a legal nightmare..and above that you need fincen or what the fuck theyre called, registration and licence (which in europe cost a fortune).

i personally wont upload any id to any exchange NO MORE, since gox databases are out in the wild and supposedly there´s a version of the dump containing the id´s of verifyed people. furthermore i wont give away any personal info on my financial situation to a entity that could be hacked, UNTIL i get a certain degree of certainty that my info is securely stored. same applies to companies such as dropbox or other, imagine some super-rich-fuckup buying that companie and giving away the data stored there..

my 50c:

propose a free service (payed by the plattform) of a recognised lawyer or notary who is doing the kyc for you and who is the only entity storing the submitted infos in paper and who is acting on behalf of every verified customer (and with recognised,i mean european or U.S.). that would be a good thing ! the lawyer would only give the plattform a flag: veryfied or not customer. a lawyer is obliged to act in the interests of his clients (in most countries of the world..) and if authorities would ask for the kyc informations he would have to ask the client before that and so the client would have the chance to get involved in some legal-procedure where he could try to hinder the authorities to get the papers (not in the u.s. where you have those orders from secret-courts, against which nobody cant do shit..)

[urwhatuknow]

Guys

a few replies to your questions:

1) Deposits - withdrawals fees:  To put things into perspective a customer can now withdraw or deposit 30,000 usd and be charged a fee of 30 usd.
I frankly speaking don't believe this is even a problem to talk about in case you move money in and out once in a while.
Bitcoin is not a treasury bond yielding 3% a year, it is highly volatile and I believe we are making much ado for nothing.
Please understand our current financial system is based on checks and parameters.
The more we move in and out of our accounts, the more banks will be likely to notice our flows, the more attention we will get.
What we are trying to discourage here is not an occasional deposit or withdrawal, it's people moving money in and out daily as there was no tomorrow.
This behavior is putting our system under stress and is representing a potential threat to our security.  

2) KYC-AML:  Once again, we didn't suddenly get crazy or bought up by the Big Brother.
If you don't have a passport, you surely have a driving license, if you don't drive you can go to a public notary and have your identity verified on a piece of paper with your picture and your name and address written on it (auto declaration of identity).
For any exception I'm sure we will find a solution.
 
Due to the recent bankruptcy of MtGox we are facing increased attention by local authorities and regulators.
In the last days we went thru an audit performed by the Custom and Excise Department, which went well.
We always observed AML/KYC procedures, but we were kindly required to step up one notch due to the "particular nature" of Bitcoin.
I completely disagree upon the fact that Bitcoin or any other Cryptocurrency is the ideal mean for criminal actions (cash is a much safer mean for criminals) , but nevertheless we need to comply with the rules if we want our business to prosper and our customers' money to be safe.  

Platforms are centralized entities and they can either decide to comply with rules or end up like Liberty Reserve.
Not much we can do about it, at least for the time being.

I hope that this helps

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

[arepo]

been trading BFX for awhile now, through TorBrowser. recently i noticed that the site would return a "security error" every now and again, citing my IP and forcing me to reconnect with a different identity. why is this?

also, i know some traders who are being offered 4:1 leverage. why is my highest option 2.5:1?

thanks

i know the new KYC/AML implementations are forefront right now, but could someone comment on the above? i would really appreciate some clarification.

--arepo

[whatthesith]

Guys

a few replies to your questions:

1) Deposits - withdrawals fees:  To put things into perspective a customer can now withdraw or deposit 30,000 usd and be charged a fee of 30 usd.
I frankly speaking don't believe this is even a problem to talk about in case you move money in and out once in a while.
Bitcoin is not a treasury bond yielding 3% a year, it is highly volatile and I believe we are making much ado for nothing.
Please understand our current financial system is based on checks and parameters.
The more we move in and out of our accounts, the more banks will be likely to notice our flows, the more attention we will get.
What we are trying to discourage here is not an occasional deposit or withdrawal, it's people moving money in and out daily as there was no tomorrow.
This behavior is putting our system under stress and is representing a potential threat to our security.  

2) KYC-AML:  Once again, we didn't suddenly get crazy or bought up by the Big Brother.
If you don't have a passport, you surely have a driving license, if you don't drive you can go to a public notary and have your identity verified on a piece of paper with your picture and your name and address written on it (auto declaration of identity).
For any exception I'm sure we will find a solution.
 
Due to the recent bankruptcy of MtGox we are facing increased attention by local authorities and regulators.
In the last days we went thru an audit performed by the Custom and Excise Department, which went well.
We always observed AML/KYC procedures, but we were kindly required to step up one notch due to the "particular nature" of Bitcoin.
I completely disagree upon the fact that Bitcoin or any other Cryptocurrency is the ideal mean for criminal actions (cash is a much safer mean for criminals) , but nevertheless we need to comply with the rules if we want our business to prosper and our customers' money to be safe.  

Platforms are centralized entities and they can either decide to comply with rules or end up like Liberty Reserve.
Not much we can do about it, at least for the time being.

I hope that this helps

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

1. I found that the fee schedule is now mentioned 0.1% deposit wire. Thanks a lot. Even better to mention on deposit page. I can still see the following statement on deposit page which lead to confusion, I guess you don't want customers to argue with your customer support for this ( for your own good)

By clicking the button below, I confirm that I have sent a wire transfer with the correct transaction reference and I accept that some fees may be applied by the banks involved in the transaction. No fee will be taken by Bitfinex

0.1% deposit / withdrawal fee is at least not a problem on me. We always have alternatives. But please try to play fair, not mentioning 0.1% deposit fee on the fee schedule page was definitely not a good intention.


2. Custom and Excise Department of HK government will NEVER audit your account. They are ONLY to perform to check your KYC Compliances and investigate any money laundering activities.

Please use precise wording and don't use government authority to prove your account. If you want to audit, use accounting firm instead.