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

[HowardF]

Mine just went through as well.  Total time was around 2 hours, which isn't too bad considering the last couple days volatility.

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[ghibly79]

I made >100s of BTC withdrawals from Bitfinex in the last months and it took more than 2 minutes in maybe 1-2 cases. I can definately state, that they are not "getting slower" or anything. Probably a whale cashed out and cleared the hot wallet.

Same, hope it's only a temporary empty hot wallet issue like I thought too.

[EDIT] Update2: tried another 2 btc withdraw now and it went through nearly instantly.

[freakbits]

Isn't the USD-FRR completely broken right now? There are lots of offers at ridiculously low rates and the FRR isn't even showing up. Is that a manipulation attempt to dump the frr? I'm not offering my swaps at this rate! It's even lower than in the most bearish weeks.

[jomama22]

Hey guys!

Never posted here but have lurked for a while. Anyway, I have been trading on bitfinex since march or so and never ran into this issue but a few times. This is on margin.

So a lot lately I have had my limit orders (both long and short) only partially fill when completely bought out with the remaining order canceled. The weirdest thing is that I will have varying amounts of remaining trade-able balance after the order partially fills.

I have enough of both BTC and fiat in by trading wallets for any fees for the amount I trade. I am really lost at what is happening and what I can do to actually trade the full amount.

An example, i set a short at $400 for 20 btc, a good $500 under my max tradeable balance. price hits, fills only 14.6358473 btc. Then my tradeable balance shows $1100 but it doesnt equal my total tradeable balance when added to the btc I shorted at that price, its off by atleast $1k-$2k. Then when I close the short, my tradeable balance is back up to normal.

There is no indication in my history of "insufficent funds" or anything like that, just a trade for the random amount of BTC it chooses.

I am getting very frustrated about this, I am losing money because of it and have no idea how to prevent it from happening. I have messed with the asset/currency fee feature but no avail. It fills my order when it wants to and doesnt when it wants to.

Thanks for the help,

Cheers

Just remembered an additional issue. I had a phantom short order put on my account of around 5btc yesterday. I can send my trading history and such. But there is not a single indication of it ever happening in my history other then when I immediately closed it. Was very very concerned.

[warsame]

Dear Bitfinex team,

I received the wrong amount of money to my USD withdrawal.

Please reply to my support e-mail as soon as possible. It is urgent.

Hi there,

Our accounting team is looking into this. They will respond to your email.

-Josh

Thanks. The problem has been solved by now.

[mjr]

Hey guys!

Never posted here but have lurked for a while. Anyway, I have been trading on bitfinex since march or so and never ran into this issue but a few times. This is on margin.

So a lot lately I have had my limit orders (both long and short) only partially fill when completely bought out with the remaining order canceled. The weirdest thing is that I will have varying amounts of remaining trade-able balance after the order partially fills.

I have enough of both BTC and fiat in by trading wallets for any fees for the amount I trade. I am really lost at what is happening and what I can do to actually trade the full amount.

An example, i set a short at $400 for 20 btc, a good $500 under my max tradeable balance. price hits, fills only 14.6358473 btc. Then my tradeable balance shows $1100 but it doesnt equal my total tradeable balance when added to the btc I shorted at that price, its off by atleast $1k-$2k. Then when I close the short, my tradeable balance is back up to normal.

There is no indication in my history of "insufficent funds" or anything like that, just a trade for the random amount of BTC it chooses.

I am getting very frustrated about this, I am losing money because of it and have no idea how to prevent it from happening. I have messed with the asset/currency fee feature but no avail. It fills my order when it wants to and doesnt when it wants to.

Thanks for the help,

Cheers

Just remembered an additional issue. I had a phantom short order put on my account of around 5btc yesterday. I can send my trading history and such. But there is not a single indication of it ever happening in my history other then when I immediately closed it. Was very very concerned.

Do you have any screenshots? If you can email any relevant information to support@bitfinex.com, they will take a look. Hopefully, we can figure out what is going on in this case.

[mjr]

I constantly get the feeling, when discussing the FRR, that the people who hate it, hate it because they think they can charge traders more for swaps and they won't notice, that they are "leaving money on the table". This isn't the case, the swap market is competing amongst itself to provide swaps for whatever amount of volume we have. The people who pick the smallest number win. So, I don't think you will see, even if we remove the FRR a huge increase in the rates. The rates will stay as low as the person who wants it the most is willing to go.

I see what you're saying, and I'll admit... the current setup seems very good at keeping rates low most of the time and as a lender I'd love to see them higher, but all the same, I'm skeptical of the idea that the swap market is as efficient as you seem to think. From what I've seen there seems to be (1) a large pool of people who take swaps in the course of trading without looking at them and without much caring what the rate is unless it was ludicrously high; the difference between (say) 0.1% and 0.11% wouldn't register as important enough to pay attention to, and also (2) a large pool of people who lend on 'full auto' or near to it, not wanting to devote time to figuring out an optimal rate and willing to lend at almost any rate down to near-zero.

If you graphed out a supply/demand curve for that, I'm imagining a long segment on both curve where they're close to horizontal - varying the rate having almost no effect on how much demand there is (because demand is primarily driven by traders wanting to capitalise on price movements, unrelated to the rate) or how much supply there is (because depositing/withdrawing fiat is enough of a hassle that it's easier to just 'let it ride' even when rates dip down). If anything supply is likely to vary most by people taking cash out of swaps to trade with or vice versa, again correlating it mostly with price movements in the bitcoin market.

So in a 'pure' market there would be outcomes where the amount of supply/demand at those horizontal segments are significantly unequal, and the rate either skyrockets or crashes depending on which is the largest, and a somewhat less well defined outcome if they're approximately equal, where the horizontal segments intersect and the rate can just freely wander around at random between the point where traders as a whole start to strongly notice their swap costs and the point where lenders as a whole decide it's no longer worth bothering with at all, which is a huge range.

The FRR acts to pick a rate in that range and cluster everyone around it... for all the lip service to a supply/demand market, most of the time the FRR is the rate that everything happens around and your method of picking it makes it slow to react to upward movement but faster to react to downward movement (longs become more in demand => FRR wall absorbs all the extra demand without raising rates for absolutely as long as it possibly can, longs become less in demand => traders cancel their more expensive swaps and the average rate craters).

I feel like the impression you're getting of everyone just wanting higher rates is a result of the simple fact that people who want rates held low have nothing to complain about because the system we have is already doing that so effectively. You seem a little dismissive on that basis but I'd be wary of setting aside complaints just because the people making them seem 'whiny'. People are always going to complain, and always going to be biased, but it'd be nice if there were approximately equal numbers of complaints coming from both sides.

I didn't mean it as a competition between traders and liquidity providers, but rather, as a competition between liquidity providers. Here is an example:

(No clue how to get images to work, this forum is the least user friendly way I have ever had to communicate in my entire life)

http://imgur.com/tXxSkRq

So, there is a "wall" of FRR offers, 1.5 million. There are people who are willing to trade a higher possible return, for a return right now, which is why there is half a million before you even reach the FRR. If you took away the FRR, it would not change the fact that rates will always be as low as the one person who wants the least return. There is a variable but finite amount of demand for swaps, call it x, and there is the response (supply) call it y. If y is greater than x, someone is not getting their funds used, and getting 0 as a return. So, it will always be a race to the lowest rate, with or without an FRR. My personal bot, simply looks to see what is the lowest rate and jumps in front of it. Most people would gladly take something, rather than nothing, and with or without FRR, that won't change. So we, as bitfinex, don't have any horse in the race, as one person mentioned, we would collect more if rates were higher, and it is doubtful that the volume is very closely correlated with the rates. The vast majority of the traders, IMO, don't check or even watch rates. So with whatever the current demand to open positions in, the person who is willing to settle for the least will be the first one to get a return. In other words, I feel like the group of people who wish rates were higher want to act as like a cartel, basically saying "if we all only offer at high rates, we will all get high rates", but in practice, it is impossible to prevent people undercutting.

Luckily, our volume is growing rapidly, and I think that as it continues to grow (we have been about half of the volume in USD/BTC lately), this will necessitate more swaps, and it stands to reason, rates will rise. I guess, the way I see it, is that people who currently use the FRR are basically saying "I will take whatever rate, I don't want to manage it, and I don't want to deal with it", and if you got rid of the FRR, they would just put offers a little lower than whatever the current lowest is, and in fact, could drive rates even lower (assuming that they want to invest the roughly 60-120 minutes to write the bot).

Like, I have seen other people complain that as rates go down, people close their swaps and get a new one for lower. That is going to happen regardless, there is no way to avoid competition, and if anything, I think that people who use the FRR are the ones who care the least about the rate rising (I could be wrong). One other thing, that I just was thinking of, was this...the way the FRR is calculated currently is public knowledge, so what if, someone wrote a bot to always offer at the currently calculated FRR? If enough people used that bot, the situation would be roughly identical to how it is now, and there would be nothing we could do to "remove the wall", because people can put their rates in as whatever they like.

I guess what I am trying to say is this, I know some people want higher rates, but the rates will always be just high enough to get you to offer the swap and no higher. That is not our policy, it is simply the way markets work. Markets try to find the most efficient price, and that is the price where the offerers are offering at, by definition, the lowest price. So, I personally think that a lot of the rage against the FRR is really a rage against competition in a market, and although we are obviously working to make a better tool, I think that no matter what we do, basic market competition is something no one can escape.

[2586]

I guess what I am trying to say is this, I know some people want higher rates, but the rates will always be just high enough to get you to offer the swap and no higher. That is not our policy, it is simply the way markets work. Markets try to find the most efficient price, and that is the price where the offerers are offering at, by definition, the lowest price. So, I personally think that a lot of the rage against the FRR is really a rage against competition in a market, and although we are obviously working to make a better tool, I think that no matter what we do, basic market competition is something no one can escape.

The problem with the FRR is NOT that lenders aren't getting paid enough. It's the fact that it renders swap rate useless as a market signalling mechanism. If swap rates are prevented from rising, there's nothing to draw in more lenders to make more offers. Potential lenders don't know that more funds are needed until the offer book is practically empty.

[freakbits]

The FRR acutally breaks any true supply and demand scenario because it allows lazy people who might not even watch the rate changes to drag down everyone else in a spiral, until some weird correction spike happens in large time intervals.
The FRR does this by
-reacting slowly to upward movements (not a primary reason though, just amplifying the effect somewhat)
-creating a negative feedback loop that does not ALLOW anyone to offer higher rates than those low ones provided by the lazy swappers (frr auto-renewers), only lower rates are ok (as you said about your own bot).

It's a forced spiral downwards fueled by telling people "just put your shit on auto-renew and you won't have to care about anything". Now it's of course right if people who do that will get low rates because they take the easy route. But thanks to the way FRR is implemented it will at the same time drag down everyone else who is not lazy.

The difference to a real supply and demand scenario is that here you basically say "oh, and everyone who is really lazy will automatically impact the swap rates downwards strongly". That's not something that would usually happen in a real market. If all my competitors in a real market decided to be really lazy, then MY PROFITS WOULD RISE, NOT GO DOWN.

[gog1]

2586 & freakbits says it pretty well.  FRR is just completely broken.  When the LTC lending was first introduced - the variable rate was 0% and people were still lending at it!!!!  I sent an email to Ralphy on Jun 20, 2013 on that issue and suggested putting a floor or minimum markup!

I am quite disappointed, when I see mjr says backtesting on FRR, I am expecting change.  But BFX just dig in on their FRR is not broken position. Again, as I stated from my cynical perspective, it's even in BFX interest to keep the rate up - they get a bigger cut of fees, forces more action, etc.

[nrd525]

Some of the people who oppose the FRR are trying to create a barrier to entry (and reduce competition) by requiring that people either 1) spend a lot of time manually entering offers, or 2) learn how to program a bot.

[gog1]

Some of the people who oppose the FRR are trying to create a barrier to entry (and reduce competition) by requiring that people either 1) spend a lot of time manually entering offers, or 2) learn how to program a bot.

Excuse me, by your logic - your discount brokerage is creating barrier to entry by requiring that people to 1) enter their order from a computer or 2) enter their order via a mobile app or 3) call them to enter an ordrer

come on, something is just so fundamental - ie. entering your order, that you can actually complain about!

[nrd525]

Daily (or several time each day) reviewing prices, analyzing market conditions, and setting your lending rates isn't a simple task.

[medicine]

Daily (or several time each day) reviewing prices, analyzing market conditions, and setting your lending rates isn't a simple task.

Maybe there could be some additional features added to the autolend options. Things like 'jump in front of any loan over a certain dollar value' and 'resubmit the loan once an hour under the same parameters if it doesn't get taken up.'  The auto lend options could function like a really simple bot.

[oyvinds]

It looks like Bitfinex could use some serious improvement in their routines regarding user security. And I think we should help them by brainstorming ideas for exactly how this should be done or just have a little public debate.

THE ISSUE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mchko/is_the_security_on_bitfinex_and_kraken_really/

A user posted this in /r/bitcoinmarkets about losing his 2FA keys

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/2m944k/daily_discussion_friday_november_14_2014/cm29ldw

    For kraken there is an option to send a atemporary key to your email address to use in place of the 2FA key, which allows access to enable it again.

    For bitfinex I emailed them and they temporarily disabled the 2FA key so I could reset it.

    For bitstamp I emailed them and had to resend a new picture of my KYC docs, they then disabled 2FA and also virtual currency withdrawals, once you have re enabled it you then send another picture of your KYC docs with a message to them asking them to re enable BTc withdrawals.

    In terms of security its probably stamp > kraken > finex but in terms of customer services its kraken > finex > stamp. Kraken got back to me within the hour, finex took a day, stamp took 4.

So if someone gets access to your email, your 2FA becomes worthless on kraken. On bitfinex it seems they don't even need to get access to your email.

Has anyone else here been through a similar situation with these exchanges? Is it really this poor?

I use 2FA on Bitfinex - but what is it worth if someone can just make a myname@whatever.tld e-mail account and send them an e-mail asking them to disable it?

Not sure if I should try making some random e-mail account and bug them to give me my password and disable my 2FA using that just to see what happens.. perhaps I should do it, but not right now due to this posting, perhaps in a week or month or two months... As the above message shows: Attacking them just to see what happens is probably a good idea.

You would obviously need to have the Bitfinex username and password already to gain anything from disabling someone's 2FA - but even so, disabling 2FA should just not be simple. On the other hand, it could happen that someone does need them to disable their own 2FA for legitimate reasons - like .. your 2FA device is stolen/broken/flushed down the toilet (happened to a friend once) and you do not have a few encrypted USB sticks or a paper backup of the 2FA seed. There is also the question of "what would my family do if I die in a horrible car accident" (hint: make sure a family member you really trust, blood not "love", knows how to clear out your BFX account prior to this happening).

I for one would like Bitfinex to have the option of adding a GnuPG key. If a message comes from my e-mail signed by my GnuPG key then it is likely me. Weaknesses: a) Some customers will inevitably put all eggs in a very weak basket: Their mobile phone. b) your GnuPG key is probably on your computer and you type your password in on your computer so if that is owned..

A quick note on mobile phones here: They are CHEAP. As in get a $50 Android phone JUST for 2FA. Never bring it anywhere and never use it for anything else. If you have 1 Android phone and you a) use it for 2FA b) use it for e-mail and have your username and password permanently stored on it and c) have your secret GnuPG key on it and type your password into it all the time..   You're doing it wrong. If there is also a d) you use this device to login to Bitfinex.. then you are not using 2FA, you're using 1FA as in 1 device needs to be owned and you're screwed.

What I would like to see here is ideas on what the requirements should be for Bitfinex to accept "I forgot my password" and "Please disable my 2FA". My personal view is that the answer could be as strong as "Fly to our office and show us your ID" but I realize that many will not agree..

"Reddit"-style ID could also be a thing: Write the date and "please disable 2fa I screwed up" on a piece of paper and take a photo of yourself holding that and your ID (which they can verify against the verification documents they have in cold storage)? perhaps with shoe on head to top it off? I know this idea may sound a bit silly but ANYTHING is better than "just send an e-mail saying disable my 2fa plz"

Some threat models to consider:

* The adversary has owned your mobile phone. Everything on it is accessible to the adversary (which could include e-mail account, 2FA, Bitfinex login details as you type them in)
* The adversary has owned your computer and everything on it and knows everything you type but not your mobile phone (or your main mobile phone but not your dedicated 2FA phone)
* The adversary has owned your e-mail but nothing else.
* The adversary has owned your Bitfinex username and password but nothing else (only 2FA stands in the way).

I know I've been ranting. I'd just like some input and attention to this issue and I would not like to find my Bitfinex account empty one morning because someone used social engineering and/or script-kiddie level "hacking" to fool them into handing out my password and disabling my 2FA.

[2586]

Some of the people who oppose the FRR are trying to create a barrier to entry (and reduce competition) by requiring that people either 1) spend a lot of time manually entering offers, or 2) learn how to program a bot.

Do you have any evidence of that, or are you just speculating about motives?

You can always set auto-lend at the lowest fixed rate you're willing to accept, which will then match the highest available swap demand. This may even be a better deal than the FRR for smaller lenders, since their funds won't end up sitting idle.

That said, I'd like to see better options available for lazy lenders. I am one, after all.

[MustMan]

I guess what I am trying to say is this, I know some people want higher rates, but the rates will always be just high enough to get you to offer the swap and no higher. That is not our policy, it is simply the way markets work. Markets try to find the most efficient price, and that is the price where the offerers are offering at, by definition, the lowest price. So, I personally think that a lot of the rage against the FRR is really a rage against competition in a market, and although we are obviously working to make a better tool, I think that no matter what we do, basic market competition is something no one can escape.

As 2586 & freakbits already elaborated it very well, the only words I would say is :

Do what you should/can/must do as best as possible to let man-made distorted system be corrected, and the rest just left for free markets to decide!

[ledmaniak]

Guys, I loved your system but now I'm pretty much done with the slippage and lag. Time to move to OKCoin if this doesn't get fixed.

It already happened with about 8 orders that I place an order, the website confirms the order. The 5 tot 20 seconds later the price drops one dollar below that buy order and my order is not hit. Exactly the same with sells.

So even then when I try to fix it and close the buy order, it takes me 5 tries and 4 refreshes before it is even cancelled.

This is just totally unacceptable.

[freakbits]

Actually I'm not sure about FRR-related statements of mine from before anymore.

But I still think FRR should
- adjust upwards faster. It must not happen that FRR is among the lowest offers in the list or even the lowest
- be located at a higher % of the average rate of all swaps (not counting the FRR-swaps themselves). Right now FRR has about 40k below and 500k above it.
- always have a 30 days long swapping period.

[noggin-scratcher]

- adjust upwards faster. It must not happen that FRR is among the lowest offers in the list or even the lowest
- be located at a higher % of the average rate of all swaps (not counting the FRR-swaps themselves). Right now FRR has about 40k below and 500k above it.
- always have a 30 days long swapping period.

I'll agree on "should adjust upwards more" -- I keep coming back to the thought that the one big problem with the FRR wall is that it absorbs demand without reacting to it - no matter how many FRR swaps are taken, the rate doesn't shift upwards by a single iota until the entire wall is gone and the order-book on the other side gets swept through.

Yes it's populated by people who have abdicated any responsibility for picking a rate, so in a sense it represents supply at "any rate, I don't care how low", but I think it would make for a better simulation of a functioning and efficient market if we pretended that those funds belonged to people who did care, and who would ask higher rates in response to increased demand.

If for no reason other than the fact that, if ever we reached a point where everyone involved in the swap market decided to use FRR, it would just descend gradually to zero and stay there forever (or just be formally undefined) and neither of those sound like sensible ways to manage millions of dollars.

On your other points I'm less convinced; you do realise it's not set by an average of the swap offers, but by the average of active swaps, yes?