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

[DoubleSwapper]

You should realize that by using BTC as a collateral for a long position you effectively had more leverage than intended [...]

You can't be serious! What you're implicitly saying is that the BFX team wasn't smart enough to notice this earlier!? I think they are doing a very good job and they're fully capable of understanding the consequences of previously allowing this. I assume they know why they're taking this decision now (and that they were fully aware of the previous leverage), which still doesn't mean I like it for my trading profile.

If you want to get into insane leverage you should check btc.sx. They offer 10 X leverage and from what I have read so far are guarranted to rip you off through large gaps, unfair stops and high slippage.

I don't want insane leverage, especially not on a platform with that large a spread. But with a proper risk management you can safely handle the bfx leverage as it currently is, and even the 4:1 they used to have (even in parts of the November bubble bull run, believe it or not!), if you tread cautiously. It isn't my fault that some traders don't practice a proper risk management and don't stop bad trades early. I understand that BFX wants/has to play safe, but I personally would prefer more leverage.

I understand your position and also the general wish of traders for more leverage at least as an option. I think it is certainly a possibility but not with bitfinex model of insured swaps and socializing of potential losses. They could certainly establish a certain where lenders have more control over the counterparty of their swap with choosing a certain amount of max leverage/whether it's for ltc or btc etc.
The problem is as you see from having different periods that this would transform the already clunky 2-dimensional swap market to a 3 or 4 dimensional market with very spread out liquidity and potential technical problems.
As somebody who is mainly providing swaps and has expressed concern multiple times in the past over the large amount of swaps I am quite satisfied with BFXs announced changes. If you want more leverage you should of course consider some other possiblity. I personally would never put any money on okcoin and huobi simply for their history/language barrier and unclear chinese regulation. I already consider BFX a very high risk investment.

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[Ente]

That's why I love Bitfinex!
Always very cautionous and playing it conservative and safe, and yet adding new helpful features all the time! :-)

I am a trader, and still am happy to hear the leverage is reduced, rather than enlargened. This means a bit less (chance for) profit for all sides, but reduces the risk so much!
I don't think Bitcoin will be in calm waters anytime soon. With 80% drops *regularly*, I can only applaud this decision.

Swap-bot? Now, that sounds interesting indeed!
I'm curious how this will work out practically. As, for example, a new swap offer would be desireable for a lot of "bots" at the same time..

Cheers, Raphael, Giancarlo and the whole Bitfinex team!

Ente

[nby]

I liked to see how much swap I got on a position. This would get complicated if it was paid daily and therefore set to 0. Not keen on having to log this daily.

I second this. Can you at least maintain the total accumulated swap cost visible in the same place it is now, just for reference ?

[davidgdg]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

[wilfried]

I'm very happy to see that the Bitfinex Team is still working so intensively on the platform and it's possibilities.
From reading through these changes as a swap provider I'm going to assume that they will decrease the lending rates in the long term, but and this far important in my opinion they also have the potential to take off some of the huge leverage the platform is already on. Keeping the system stable and crash free is of the highest priority even if it hinders additional short term gains. Good Job, BFX. I now understand why you may not have had the time to answers questions in the last three days here.

Hi Giancarlo,

Thanks for your reply. Even as a trader I agree that the safety of the lenders should be of highest concern.

It's just  disappointing for me as I've learned to be really cautious and get into leveraged positions slowly and with tight stops as to keep my potential losses very low.

I generally like your platform and I really appreciate the way you're trying to implement feature suggestions by users and show that you care... And you've improved a lot in the last year at communicating technical changes/maintenance clearly and in time. But this is the point for me to take a new look at what other exchanges have to offer...

You should realize that by using BTC as a collateral for a long position you effectively had more leverage than intended and that using the volatile part of a very volatile trading pair assumes additional risk not only to you but to the whole market in case of a sudden drop. If you want to get into insane leverage you should check btc.sx. They offer 10 X leverage and from what I have read so far are guarranted to rip you off through large gaps, unfair stops and high slippage.

i dont quite get it, i always took long positions only with btc in my wallet, but no $, so whats the difference now? imo your leverage gets bigger only if logn positions go down or short positions up.

[QwertyCore]

On the face of it, this seems to be quite a blow to USD lenders.  It can potentially cut the demand for loans in half to provide supposed reduced risk to lenders.  I thought the 50% fee increase was to pay for the reduced risk.  You are now also going to providing tools for borrowers to automatically refinance with lower rates ( I know traders could already do this but at least they had to put some effort into it).  So, if I loan out $5,000 at 0.15% for 10 days, and a lender then offers the same terms but at 0.1499%, my loan will be dropped and replaced.

No longer are lenders going to need to try and beat the best rate in the current book, they just have to beat *any* rate of any current loan in existence.  This is going to drive lending rates down to prime in no time.

I do not see how this will help lenders.  I think what is more likely to happen is the rate will go down so low that the lenders manage their own risk by simply pulling their money and going elsewhere.  The only way this will not happen is if the rate is artificially given a floor.

Right now, we have $2.5M of about $30M waiting to be borrowed.  What is going to happen when $15M of that can be self-funded and we have $18M looking to be borrowed?  This almost looks like an effort to drive lenders out of BITFINEX.



In addition, something is not right about the FRR.  In the past 24 hours, 65% of the loans taken have been below the FRR (80% in the last hour) but the FRR has barely budged.  Why?  In the past the FRR dropped rather rapidly when fixed rates dropped and risen slowly as rate rise.  Is this an attempt to provide a rate floor?



What is confusing me the most right now is that this seems to be a knee jerk reaction to some users posting doomsday scenarios on reddit.  Scenarios that seem to be written to scare new investors away and drive rates down.  What are the chances that they are playing the BITFINEX team at the expense of the lenders?

[sleger]

Still not a single answer from BFX to all of this? What is that? Is there some long-ass holiday on the British Virgin Island or is there more to their secretivity. Ignoring this won't make it go away.

Looks like it will, they ignore all this question. I would also like to get an answer on this.

[jabetizo]

[Delarock]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

I think what you're describing happened to me the other day. I deposited some LTC to my account, but it deposited directly into my trading account. I had a position open and I wasn't able to move the LTC until I closed the position.

Also, check and see if you have auto-renew open.

[nrd525]

BitVC - Huobi's new platform - has swaps at a minimum interest rate of 0.1% and a maximum of 1%.  Looks like this is only for CNY/BTC/LTC - in which case it is a very high rate for BTC and LTC, and a reasonable rate for CNY.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=662221.0

Does anyone have more details?

It'd be interesting to know if their swap rate tracks the Bitfinex USD rate.

[m5j0r]

@nrd525: They haven't officially stated how they decide on the rate. (it's been .1% as long as I have an account over there)
But the developer will probably implement a P2P swap market like on BFX.

I lately encountered the problem of too few (or no) CNY being available. Right now it's ¥1,100,647.23.
If the P2P market gets implemented this should be no problem anymore.

They have gotten a lot of suggestions - let's give em some time to implement them. Note that it's still in beta.

[davidgdg]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

I think what you're describing happened to me the other day. I deposited some LTC to my account, but it deposited directly into my trading account. I had a position open and I wasn't able to move the LTC until I closed the position.

Also, check and see if you have auto-renew open.

Thanks but I have no open orders or auto renew.  I can see the btc in my deposit wallet but I can't move them to the trade or exchange wallet so they are basically just stuck.

Anybody from Bitfinex support here ?

[DoubleSwapper]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

I think what you're describing happened to me the other day. I deposited some LTC to my account, but it deposited directly into my trading account. I had a position open and I wasn't able to move the LTC until I closed the position.

Also, check and see if you have auto-renew open.

Thanks but I have no open orders or auto renew.  I can see the btc in my deposit wallet but I can't move them to the trade or exchange wallet so they are basically just stuck.

Anybody from Bitfinex support here ?

Have you switched your account type in the options to "trader". Only with status "trader" all three wallets are available.

[davidgdg]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

I think what you're describing happened to me the other day. I deposited some LTC to my account, but it deposited directly into my trading account. I had a position open and I wasn't able to move the LTC until I closed the position.

Also, check and see if you have auto-renew open.

Thanks but I have no open orders or auto renew.  I can see the btc in my deposit wallet but I can't move them to the trade or exchange wallet so they are basically just stuck.

Anybody from Bitfinex support here ?

Have you switched your account type in the options to "trader". Only with status "trader" all three wallets are available.

Thanks. Yes I've done that too. Still doesn't help 😞

[superbit]

I have auto-renew turned off but it looks as though today's interest got lent out at my last auto-renew rate?  I turned it off hours ago too so it's not like it was close.

[davidgdg]

Can anybody help out?

I transferred in some BTC to my bitfinex account.

The BTC are showing correctly under the Your Balance deposit tab.

 But when I try to transfer fromy my deposit wallet to my exchange wallet, the BTC deposit wallet balance is showing as zero and I get an Insufficient Funds message.

 It's not confirmations (the transfer in was hours ago) and I don't have any open positions or orders.   

How can I simultaneously have a positive and a zero BTC wallet deposit balance?

Anybody know what the problem is?

Many thanks....

It seems I had autorenew switched on for BTC swaps so I could not at the same time transfer those BTC to the exchange wallet. Sorted now. Thanks to all.

[davidgdg]

Newbie question. If I have autorenew "on", will interest payments from existing swaps automatically be loaned out, or do I need to do that manually (would be a pain)?

Thanks!

David

[trilogy456]

Newbie question. If I have autorenew "on", will interest payments from existing swaps automatically be loaned out, or do I need to do that manually (would be a pain)?

Thanks!

David

It will be automatic.
https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/support

[urwhatuknow]

Dear All

as promised some days ago I would like to introduce our community with Josh Rossi, who from now on will be our PR guy and the person to talk to for any suggestion or advice about our trading platform.

Josh (aka mjr on bitcointalk) is the guy that started Satoshi Square in New York several months ago and has been a long time bitcoin evangelist, conference speaker and he actively contributed to bootstrap a lot of startups in our field.

From now on he will pretty much take over my place in answering questions from you all, I'm sure he will do a much better job than me in this. 

Last but not least I would like to apologize for anything I might have written on this thread that hurt the feelings of any of you.
I will from now on concentrate more on other tasks, even if I'll keep reading you all.

Thanks a lot for the trust and your positive feedback to Bitfinex.

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

[dreamspark]

Dear All

as promised some days ago I would like to introduce our community with Josh Rossi, who from now on will be our PR guy and the person to talk to for any suggestion or advice about our trading platform.

Josh (aka mjr on bitcointalk) is the guy that started Satoshi Square in New York several months ago and has been a long time bitcoin evangelist, conference speaker and he actively contributed to bootstrap a lot of startups in our field.

From now on he will pretty much take over my place in answering questions from you all, I'm sure he will do a much better job than me in this. 

Last but not least I would like to apologize for anything I might have written on this thread that hurt the feelings of any of you.
I will from now on concentrate more on other tasks, even if I'll keep reading you all.

Thanks a lot for the trust and your positive feedback to Bitfinex.

Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team

Cheers for your time Giancarlo, youve personally helped me a number of times and havent hurt my feelings!

Good luck!