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

[mjr]

Just wanted to wish everyone a (late) Happy Thanksgiving!

I am extremely thankful that for the first time, on Thursday, we passed the 1 million coins volume in trailing 30 days. One million coins in a 30 day period, we have really come a long way.

I'm also thankful that you guys (most of you, at least) take the time to give us your feedback. Keep it up!

[BenAnh]

Just wanted to wish everyone a (late) Happy Thanksgiving!

I am extremely thankful that for the first time, on Thursday, we passed the 1 million coins volume in trailing 30 days. One million coins in a 30 day period, we have really come a long way.

I'm also thankful that you guys (most of you, at least) take the time to give us your feedback. Keep it up!

Make it mobile and some cool notifications

[Bagpipe]

Suggestion box:
sound when a sell order gets filled
a different sound when a buy order gets filled
when both occurred, play them in order in which it happened

fix update: the profit/loss of "my position" and "account overview" do not update with ticker price and vice versa

tradable balance/ability to use swaps at the moment should mark the orders which have become unfeasible at the most recent balance update red.

[Bagpipe]

Just wanted to wish everyone a (late) Happy Thanksgiving!

I am extremely thankful that for the first time, on Thursday, we passed the 1 million coins volume in trailing 30 days. One million coins in a 30 day period, we have really come a long way.

I'm also thankful that you guys (most of you, at least) take the time to give us your feedback. Keep it up!

How many market orders were those 1 million coins?
Histogram of market order sizes in that 30-day range?

[Soros Shorts]

wow, someone has a million dollar swap offer on the books at .75%, but for only 2 days....  I guess thats one method....   

Strange strategy... if someone wanted to pay me 0.75%/day on $1M, I think I'd let them keep doing that for just about as long as they wanted.

Could be somebody who has temporary control of other people's money for a short period of time.

[Bagpipe]

Just wanted to wish everyone a (late) Happy Thanksgiving!

I am extremely thankful that for the first time, on Thursday, we passed the 1 million coins volume in trailing 30 days. One million coins in a 30 day period, we have really come a long way.

I'm also thankful that you guys (most of you, at least) take the time to give us your feedback. Keep it up!

How many market orders were those 1 million coins?
Histogram of market order sizes in that 30-day range?

It seems I killed the discussion, but anyway: btc-e has 2000 orders in 12-15 USD range from the current price and is WAY faster in completing and reporting market orders. Bitfinex doesn't have 1500 orders on EITHER side of the orderbook in total and the time to accept and match a market order can be anywhere from 1 to 3 seconds when there is NO TRADING happening and can be up to 30 SECONDS when trading is heavy.

And to add: bitfinex limits you to max 50 orders placed, whereas btc-e does not. It I were an expert in bayesian statistics, I could tell you how many people are there trading on Bitfinex actively and it is an order of magnitude less than on btc-e.

Typical bitfinex infantry orders are 20 btc, on btc-e it is 3 or 4 btc. Again; it tells you how little people trade there and yet, their platform is so very slow. Either the order matching software is written in high-level etch-a-sketch without HW acceleration, and/or the order matching is hogged down by the web server side, which raises questions about security arrangements.

Anyway, I asked around and people were curious as to what the "Load averages for the past 1, 5, 15 minutes" are. It is possible that these numbers are running high even without any trading going on?

P.S. I don't need these issues to be solved; I just need to be aware of its scale and mechanism of function, so that I can time my trades accordingly.

[Sukrim]

As mjr announced, they are getting a new trading engine - so every kind of data on this old one is soon going to be useless anyways.

[grappa_barricata]

The 'Past trades' api call (/v1/mytrades), until a few days ago,  returned 'absolute amount' in the field 'amount' and either 'Buy' or 'Sell' in field 'type' of each trade. But now it is returning 'non-absolute amount' (eg: negative for sells). This kind of changes in the API should be documented , because they can break existing code written against it in unpredictable ways.

[nrd525]

Trying to connect to https://www.bitfinex.com/ and it fails:


www.bitfinex.com -

Connection failed
Error code 20

The proxy failed to connect to the web server, due to TCP connection timeout.
2014-12-01 20:59:06 UTC

    Your IP76.9x.x.x    (I removed my full IP for privacy)
    |Proxy IP199.83.132.97(ID 10223)
    Origin Server IPX.X.X.36

Powered by Incapsula

[nrd525]

Managed to login now. Must be a DDOS attack or some network congestion.

[BeetcoinScummer]

I just started offering BTC swaps for the past week. Seems hardly worth it with the FRR at 0.0055% daily. For those of you who have done this for a while, has there historically ever been a time when doing this has been much more profitable?

[HowardF]

I just started offering BTC swaps for the past week. Seems hardly worth it with the FRR at 0.0055% daily. For those of you who have done this for a while, has there historically ever been a time when doing this has been much more profitable?

BTC swaps have never really been worthwhile.  USD swaps are the only way to actually make money lending.  BTC and LTC are usually so low I didn't even spend the time to write them into my bot....

[noobtrader]

I just started offering BTC swaps for the past week. Seems hardly worth it with the FRR at 0.0055% daily. For those of you who have done this for a while, has there historically ever been a time when doing this has been much more profitable?

im sure there was a time where offering btc swap have better yield than 0.01% but now i see some idiot ppl offering btc swap for 0.002 % far too often these days for 30 days !!! cmon ppl if they really want ther  coin to worth so much less for that yield, why dont they sell btc and offer swap in usd and get a bonus of better yield than a bank deposit

[nrd525]

BTC lending is typically only profitable in a very strong bear market. In which case the interest you are getting is a tiny fraction of what you're losing in value.

[noobtrader]

BTC lending is typically only profitable in a very strong bear market. In which case the interest you are getting is a tiny fraction of what you're losing in value.

honestly 0.002% swap is nonsensical,  in a bull market i can understand that rates, but at bear market i rather keep my coin in cold storage or sold it and collect usd interest. 

[mjr]

I agree that rates on BTC swaps are typically very low, and I have always found that weird, but it makes sense. Demand for shorting bitcoin is very low. I think it is mainly due to the fact that those who use bitcoin and have gone as far as to open an account to trade it are usually by that point "believers" in bitcoin. They are bullish, if they weren't, they would have just ignored bitcoin, and not started trading it. It is really weird though, because I am a "true believer" in bitcoin, and I think it will eventually be very valuable as more people see what an improvement it is on the current system, HOWEVER, thinking that its 5-10 year outlook is very bright has literally almost no bearing on where I see prices going within the next 30 days. So, since the max term of a swap is 30 days, it is very possible, and sometimes very probable that prices can go down over the short term, which is why I have always been surprised in the lack of interest in the shorting market. I think this is partly due to what I mentioned above, most people don't want to "root against bitcoin", but also, I think in general, shorting is less intuitive than going long, when in fact, a correctly timed short results in you ending up with MORE bitcoin, while going long ends up with you getting more dollars...

Anyway, one thing that I usually try to point out to people, is that people don't invest in an asset based on its price today, but rather on what they think its price WILL be. So, while I never mined (besides some early CPU mining back in the day), people who say "It is not worth it to mine" fail to realize that given the price NOW it might not be worthwhile, but if you think that in the future the price will be much higher, you can make a case for why mining is a worthwhile investment. The same can be true of offering BTC swaps. While I may not make much NOW, I am actually accruing more of a finite pool of assets. So, while receiving the tiny returns currently offered now is not very appealing given today's prices, let's imagine that bitcoin becomes worth $10,000 a coin at some point in the future. All of a sudden having 1.001 bitcoin instead of 1 bitcoin becomes actually worthwhile. When you take into account the ability to compound over long periods of time, and if you have a long term perspective, with a "buy and hold" mentality, and think that bitcoin will be worth much more in 5-10 years, BTC swaps COULD be (again, this is based on YOUR outlook, and YOUR goals) a very good idea...I think it might be one of the better ways to try and accumulate a larger position in BTC terms without as much variability as a trading strategy...

That being said, I think it also means that there is a strong case for short term shorting in that it is MUCH less costly to go short than it is to go long...if you figure the price will go up and down, you would make more by trading the downswings than by trading the upswings since the cost of your position, fees being equal, will be defined by the cost of the swaps (again, assuming that prices swing up and down, or in other words, holding the viability of your trading strategy to be equal).

So, these are just some of my thoughts, and its not meant to be advice, so feel free to comment below...

[superbit]

I agree that rates on BTC swaps are typically very low, and I have always found that weird, but it makes sense. Demand for shorting bitcoin is very low. I think it is mainly due to the fact that those who use bitcoin and have gone as far as to open an account to trade it are usually by that point "believers" in bitcoin. They are bullish, if they weren't, they would have just ignored bitcoin, and not started trading it. It is really weird though, because I am a "true believer" in bitcoin, and I think it will eventually be very valuable as more people see what an improvement it is on the current system, HOWEVER, thinking that its 5-10 year outlook is very bright has literally almost no bearing on where I see prices going within the next 30 days. So, since the max term of a swap is 30 days, it is very possible, and sometimes very probable that prices can go down over the short term, which is why I have always been surprised in the lack of interest in the shorting market. I think this is partly due to what I mentioned above, most people don't want to "root against bitcoin", but also, I think in general, shorting is less intuitive than going long, when in fact, a correctly timed short results in you ending up with MORE bitcoin, while going long ends up with you getting more dollars...

Anyway, one thing that I usually try to point out to people, is that people don't invest in an asset based on its price today, but rather on what they think its price WILL be. So, while I never mined (besides some early CPU mining back in the day), people who say "It is not worth it to mine" fail to realize that given the price NOW it might not be worthwhile, but if you think that in the future the price will be much higher, you can make a case for why mining is a worthwhile investment. The same can be true of offering BTC swaps. While I may not make much NOW, I am actually accruing more of a finite pool of assets. So, while receiving the tiny returns currently offered now is not very appealing given today's prices, let's imagine that bitcoin becomes worth $10,000 a coin at some point in the future. All of a sudden having 1.001 bitcoin instead of 1 bitcoin becomes actually worthwhile. When you take into account the ability to compound over long periods of time, and if you have a long term perspective, with a "buy and hold" mentality, and think that bitcoin will be worth much more in 5-10 years, BTC swaps COULD be (again, this is based on YOUR outlook, and YOUR goals) a very good idea...I think it might be one of the better ways to try and accumulate a larger position in BTC terms without as much variability as a trading strategy...

That being said, I think it also means that there is a strong case for short term shorting in that it is MUCH less costly to go short than it is to go long...if you figure the price will go up and down, you would make more by trading the downswings than by trading the upswings since the cost of your position, fees being equal, will be defined by the cost of the swaps (again, assuming that prices swing up and down, or in other words, holding the viability of your trading strategy to be equal).

So, these are just some of my thoughts, and its not meant to be advice, so feel free to comment below...

How does that make any sense.  If I don't think mining is worth it now how is it relevant if BTC goes up to $10,000 a coin.  If not going to ROI in BTC I would be better off just buying the BTC directly and letting it go to $10,000 a coin than investing in mining and getting less BTC when it goes to $10,000 BTC.

What you're suggesting is to buy a $5 shovel that will get you $4 worth of dirt today then when dirt doubles I have $8 and made money, but why not just buy $5 worth of dirt today to start and have $10 later.

[HowardF]

I agree that rates on BTC swaps are typically very low, and I have always found that weird, but it makes sense. Demand for shorting bitcoin is very low. I think it is mainly due to the fact that those who use bitcoin and have gone as far as to open an account to trade it are usually by that point "believers" in bitcoin. They are bullish, if they weren't, they would have just ignored bitcoin, and not started trading it. It is really weird though, because I am a "true believer" in bitcoin, and I think it will eventually be very valuable as more people see what an improvement it is on the current system, HOWEVER, thinking that its 5-10 year outlook is very bright has literally almost no bearing on where I see prices going within the next 30 days. So, since the max term of a swap is 30 days, it is very possible, and sometimes very probable that prices can go down over the short term, which is why I have always been surprised in the lack of interest in the shorting market. I think this is partly due to what I mentioned above, most people don't want to "root against bitcoin", but also, I think in general, shorting is less intuitive than going long, when in fact, a correctly timed short results in you ending up with MORE bitcoin, while going long ends up with you getting more dollars...

I think this is pretty much right on, and its a shame too.  Its part of the reason the bitcoin market is so broken.  People trade it on emotion more so than anything else I've ever dealt with financially, and it seems to have attracted a huge number of tech savvy people, with little or no trading sense, but lots of disposable income that they don't mind risking trying to build up something they believe in.  While thats admirable, it also leads to a broken market that will struggle to gain mainstream acceptance.

That being said, I think it also means that there is a strong case for short term shorting in that it is MUCH less costly to go short than it is to go long...if you figure the price will go up and down, you would make more by trading the downswings than by trading the upswings since the cost of your position, fees being equal, will be defined by the cost of the swaps (again, assuming that prices swing up and down, or in other words, holding the viability of your trading strategy to be equal).

This is without a doubt true.  Its so cheap to short on margin that I have no qualms about holding for the full 30 days if i think there's a chance the price is heading down.  Even the smallest of price moves will cover the tiny interest payments that you end up making.  By far the best short terms gains are to be had in shorting, not longing.

(Of course, I'm saying this as someone who makes most of my income by lending USD on margin, so please, keep taking long positions everyone.  Yey bitcoin! To the Moon!    )

[itod]

How does that make any sense.  If I don't think mining is worth it now how is it relevant if BTC goes up to $10,000 a coin.  If not going to ROI in BTC I would be better off just buying the BTC directly and letting it go to $10,000 a coin than investing in mining and getting less BTC when it goes to $10,000 BTC.

What you're suggesting is to buy a $5 shovel that will get you $4 worth of dirt today then when dirt doubles I have $8 and made money, but why not just buy $5 worth of dirt today to start and have $10 later.

You are forgetting that many people don't have US$ to lend to others, but they have a unused BTC and don't want to take the risk of shorting them themselves. It's unimportant if you and other people help drive the BTC price to $200 in the short run, if in a long run you get more BTC then you initially started with. The preposition is that BTC will be one day worth tens of thousands of dollars or even more, and the only important thing is how many BTC you will have in that moment, it's unimportant if that moment will be in the year 2015, 2016, or 2020. Smart game strategy is to increase your BTC stack even if that means price goes temporarily to $10, as long as you believe that it is just temporary. IMHO it's much more logical the opposite of you are proposing, if you have BTC lend them to others so they can take the risk and short them, if you have US$ don't lend them buy new BTC stack instead.

[noobtrader]

I agree that rates on BTC swaps are typically very low, and I have always found that weird, but it makes sense. Demand for shorting bitcoin is very low. I think it is mainly due to the fact that those who use bitcoin and have gone as far as to open an account to trade it are usually by that point "believers" in bitcoin. They are bullish, if they weren't, they would have just ignored bitcoin, and not started trading it. It is really weird though, because I am a "true believer" in bitcoin, and I think it will eventually be very valuable as more people see what an improvement it is on the current system, HOWEVER, thinking that its 5-10 year outlook is very bright has literally almost no bearing on where I see prices going within the next 30 days. So, since the max term of a swap is 30 days, it is very possible, and sometimes very probable that prices can go down over the short term, which is why I have always been surprised in the lack of interest in the shorting market. I think this is partly due to what I mentioned above, most people don't want to "root against bitcoin", but also, I think in general, shorting is less intuitive than going long, when in fact, a correctly timed short results in you ending up with MORE bitcoin, while going long ends up with you getting more dollars...

Anyway, one thing that I usually try to point out to people, is that people don't invest in an asset based on its price today, but rather on what they think its price WILL be. So, while I never mined (besides some early CPU mining back in the day), people who say "It is not worth it to mine" fail to realize that given the price NOW it might not be worthwhile, but if you think that in the future the price will be much higher, you can make a case for why mining is a worthwhile investment. The same can be true of offering BTC swaps. While I may not make much NOW, I am actually accruing more of a finite pool of assets. So, while receiving the tiny returns currently offered now is not very appealing given today's prices, let's imagine that bitcoin becomes worth $10,000 a coin at some point in the future. All of a sudden having 1.001 bitcoin instead of 1 bitcoin becomes actually worthwhile. When you take into account the ability to compound over long periods of time, and if you have a long term perspective, with a "buy and hold" mentality, and think that bitcoin will be worth much more in 5-10 years, BTC swaps COULD be (again, this is based on YOUR outlook, and YOUR goals) a very good idea...I think it might be one of the better ways to try and accumulate a larger position in BTC terms without as much variability as a trading strategy...

That being said, I think it also means that there is a strong case for short term shorting in that it is MUCH less costly to go short than it is to go long...if you figure the price will go up and down, you would make more by trading the downswings than by trading the upswings since the cost of your position, fees being equal, will be defined by the cost of the swaps (again, assuming that prices swing up and down, or in other words, holding the viability of your trading strategy to be equal).

So, these are just some of my thoughts, and its not meant to be advice, so feel free to comment below...

yes thats true but  look at this top three offer

14.94    14.94    0.002%   2 - 30   2
15.61    0.67            0.0052%   3            1
29.82    14.21    0.0053%   2 - 30   9

and see the ask yield difference

EDIT : 0.002 to 0.0052