[ANN] Bfxdata.com | Bitfinex Market (price and market depth) + Swap Charts

[bjornw]

Hi everyone,

People using Bitfinex know, as I do, that it is a very nice trading platform to use, with some unique features not found on most other platforms/exchanges.

I've been trading there for a while now and overall I’m quite happy with the service provided. However I was missing some stats and charts to assist me in my trading I couldn't find on bitfinex itself or on any external service. To solve this I started to build these myself.

I'd be the first to compliment the creator of bitcoinwisdom.com for doing a great job in providing real-time data for trading on bitfinex, but still I am really missing a graphical representation of the market depth for LTC and BTC.

Also I couldn’t find any historical data on Bitfinex’  swap (Lending) feature anywhere.

For anyone who also has been missing these features, as I did, I’ve built a website to put all the above together.
If I’ve raised your intrest, please feel free to have a peek at:

http://www.bfxdata.com

For now it's very beta project, so keep that in mind .
For now the site will provide the following features:

For Swaps (Lending):
 

• A chart (with accompanying table) with the lowest liquidity offer rate over time (for the last hour/day/week) I Use this because the API doesn't provide a method to retrieve actual liquidity offers taken, this will give an idea of the 'current' and historic rates on liquidity swaps).
  
• A chart with the liquidity demands and offers with accompanying tables. The tables are similar to the ones you’ll find on the "liquidity swaps" tab when are logged in on bitfinex.com.
  
• Charts + tables with the sum total of all open USD liquidity swaps and average rate
  
• "Swap Return Calculator". You can use this to calculate what the return would be on a USD liquidity offer you place on Bitfinex.
  

For BTC/LTC/DRK exchange

• Marketdepth charts + order book tables
• exchange rate charts (hour/day/week )
• Table with recent trades.
• Profit / loss calculators for long and short positions.

Swaps & Price Combined:

• Pages with charts combining Swap stats and Price stats for BTC and LTC

I’d love to hear your thoughts about my project. If you miss something, see a bug or have suggestions please give me feedback in this topic.

Regards Bjorn

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[bjornw]

Update 6 Januari 2014:

Bitfinex Stopped using the terms "Loan" and "Lending" and started using the term "Liquidity"
To keep things in par I've also replaced "lending" and "loan" for "liquidity".
Furthermore all dates displayed are now in the user's own local time. These used to be GMT+1 (as I live in Europe).

Please let me know if you'd like to see additional features.

Bjorn

[peled1986]

good job on the site!
Bitfinex Liquidity Stats really help.
It’s a shame the API doesn't provide a method to retrieve actual liquidity offers taken.
I am interested to know what is the highest Rate (% per day) you offered that was taken? 
Do people really take 0.5% per day and higher Liquidity offers?

[bjornw]

I am interested to know what is the highest Rate (% per day) you offered that was taken? 
Do people really take 0.5% per day and higher Liquidity offers?

Personally I offer liquidity just under 1 percent, since that is the maximum rate that will be taken automatically when a leverage trader opens a position (i.e. takes a liquidity offer). +1 % offers only get taken if a liquidity taker takes it manually. In my experience these offers are being taken, be it that the last 2 weeks less often than before.

so yes +0.5 % offers are being taken (I don't even bother offering at lower than 0.9 % per day).

My reasoning is that if I offer at say 0.33 % per day. It takes 3 times longer to get the same return compared to a 1 % offer, which also means I can't use these funds myself to do some day trading.

Take a look at the graph in a longer timeframe and you will notice that quite a few times the "lowest liquidity offer" has been 1 % and even higher.

On a side note I'm experiencing some stability problems in my webserver, so sometimes the data for the graphs will be unavailable. I'm working to get this fixed. My apologies if this happens.

regards,

Bjorn

[peled1986]

Thank you for the info!

So to make sure i understand you offer @ 0.9-0.99% per day for short periods of 2 days and people take it all the time? - If this is the case, everyone shall start to offer @ 0.5% – 0.99% rates but on the contrary the Flash Return Rate is much lower.

Another question can you try to explain to me a bit about the risk involved in lending? The rate per day is really high and insurance isn't cheap so there must be some big risk involved - On the contrary i read there was no default lending so far.

How big black swan event needs to happen in order for me to not get all my money back? - i read that even when "littleguy" lost his 2.5M all lenders got their money back.

(Sorry for the noob questions)
Cheers.

[bjornw]

So to make sure i understand you offer @ 0.9-0.99% per day for short periods of 2 days and people take it all the time? - If this is the case, everyone shall start to offer @ 0.5% – 0.99% rates but on the contrary the Flash Return Rate is much lower.

Personally I offer for longer periods, but most of the time the liquidity taker closes his position within 48 hours. At least that's my experience. They are taken, not "all" the time, but quite often.
The Flash Return Rate is the “average rate on Contract for Difference (CFD) of current swaps (per day)” (quoted from bitfinex.com). There’ll be people offering below and above the FRR. In order for the FRR to really change it takes al LOT of volume (keep in Mind currently more than 14 million USD is in open Swaps). But it does change. just 3.5 weeks ago, December 21, the FRR was 0.8 % per day, again take a look at the graph:

Between December 20 and December 25 the lowest liquidity offer was +1% almost all the time...

Another question can you try to explain to me a bit about the risk involved in lending? The rate per day is really high and insurance isn't cheap so there must be some big risk involved - On the contrary i read there was no default lending so far.

How big black swan event needs to happen in order for me to not get all my money back? - i read that even when "littleguy" lost his 2.5M all lenders got their money back.

Well I can’t really tell you more then what bitfinex themselves tell us. No defaults have happened thus far, not even in April. Levarage trades will get margin calls if there position is too “risky” take a look at the wiki for more info. Most risk is with the margin trader and only when the markets crash REALLY fast liquidity offeres will get hit.

(Sorry for the noob questions)

Cheers.

[PinkPotatos]

looks like the cryptsy charts.. and I love them

[dahongfei]

bjornw, thank your for your original work! It helps me to get a whole picture of the historical liquidity rates very well.

There are a few things you might consider to improve:

1. the FRR order is missing from your order book
2. add zoom in to the liquidity demands/offers graph (does highcharts support it?)
3. currently I see two liquidity offers order book where one of them should be liquidity demands.

again, a great job.

[bjornw]

1. the FRR order is missing from your order book

By this you mean the flash return rate, right? As far is I know the Flash Return Rate is the same as the the average rate on all open swaps, so basically it is in the "Average rate on Contract of Difference (CFD)" graph and the "Total sum of active loans" table. I can add "Flash Return Rate" lable to it, If that makes thing more clear.

2. add zoom in to the liquidity demands/offers graph (does highcharts support it?)

I'm almost sure highcharts/highstocks has that option, just hadn't had time to look in to it, is on my todo list. Added it

3. currently I see two liquidity offers order book where one of them should be liquidity demands.

I messed up I changed some code yesterday to do less request on the bitfinex api, but I switched some files , Fixed it.
Thanks for your feedback!

[TalkingBit]

Great site very helpful. Would love to see a second "Lowest 30d_ay USD Liquidity Offer" and maybe even a third "Highest USD liquidity Demand" line on the same chart!

[dahongfei]

1. the FRR order is missing from your order book

By this you mean the flash return rate, right? As far is I know the Flash Return Rate is the same as the the average rate on all open swaps, so basically it is in the "Average rate on Contract of Difference (CFD)" graph and the "Total sum of active loans" table. I can add "Flash Return Rate" lable to it, If that makes thing more clear.

It's better adding FRR to the order book. Otherwise FRR orders will be missing from the depth graph, making it less useful for users want to put their smaller orders before FRR wall.

[bjornw]

Great site very helpful. Would love to see a second "Lowest 30d_ay USD Liquidity Offer" and maybe even a third "Highest USD liquidity Demand" line on the same chart!

I added "Highest USD liquidity Demand" to the liquidity graph. By default it is disabled. You can add it to the chart by clicking on it in the legend box. I think the highest demand is less relevant to use as an indicator of the curren rate (that was why I made this chart in the first place (see post #1). The highest liquidity demand is considerably lower than the rate that leverage traders actually take when opening a position. Not many people accept liquidity demands I think.

Anyway a bit more information can be a good thing. It's up to the user whether or not to look at highest USD liquidity demand or not. Also added a Demands table.

the 30Day average is a very nice suggestion and I might add it as I did with de demands line. I'll keep you updated.

[TalkingBit]

Great site very helpful. Would love to see a second "Lowest 30d_ay USD Liquidity Offer" and maybe even a third "Highest USD liquidity Demand" line on the same chart!

I added "Highest USD liquidity Demand" to the liquidity graph. By default it is disabled. You can add it to the chart by clicking on it in the legend box. I think the highest demand is less relevant to use as an indicator of the curren rate (that was why I made this chart in the first place (see post #1). The highest liquidity demand is considerably lower than the rate that leverage traders actually take when opening a position. Not many people accept liquidity demands I think.

Anyway a bit more information can be a good thing. It's up to the user whether or not to look at highest USD liquidity demand or not. Also added a Demands table.

the 30Day average is a very nice suggestion and I might add it as I did with de demands line. I'll keep you updated.

Good stuff. And yeah keep Demand off by default so it doesn't clutter, but is there as an option when needed. But i noticed that Demand isn't "live". i.e. that line stops and doesn't update like Liquidity Offer. Have to refresh the page for it to update. Still on FireFox 22. Think 30day should be the same way available if you want it but off by default so it doesn't clutter. 2day and 30day markets can be very different.

[bjornw]

But i noticed that Demand isn't "live". i.e. that line stops and doesn't update like Liquidity Offer.

Forgot to add it, will make it update once a minute just like the offers, just hadn't had time yet.
UPDATE: The demand line is now also updating once every minute

It's better adding FRR to the order book. Otherwise FRR orders will be missing from the depth graph, making it less useful for users want to put their smaller orders before FRR wall.

ah I see what you mean now. FRR offers / demands are indeed missing entirely from the depth graph / tables... Didn't notice that before. I want to add them but they're missing from the bitfinex api output. I've sent Bitfinex a mail if they can add them to the api. As soon as I find a way to add the FRR offers / demands, I'll add them.

Thanks for pointing this out!

[bjornw]

Would love to see a second "Lowest 30d_ay USD Liquidity Offer" and maybe even a third "Highest USD liquidity Demand" line on the same chart!

Just added a "Lowest 30d_ay USD Liquidity Offer" line to the chart. Turned off by default, users can enable it themselves.
The database needs te get filled with data, so it 'll take a while before a bit more historical data will be available. The 30 day average is calculated every minute and it's a bit hard on the DB to do tis for all the data in the DB. So I won't do that. I'm also collecting data for the average rate per day and per week and might add these options soon as well.

Does any have suggestions on the labeling of the lines? '30 day average Lowest USD Liquidity Offer (% per day)' Is a bit long but I couldn't think of anything better that does describe the line properly. Let me know.

regards

[dahongfei]

Maybe you can make it look like:

- Lowest USD Liquidity Offer
- Lowest USD Liquidity Offer (30d average)
- Highest USD Liquidity Demand
  (% per day)

[bjornw]

Maybe you can make it look like:

- Lowest USD Liquidity Offer
- Lowest USD Liquidity Offer (30d average)
- Highest USD Liquidity Demand
  (% per day)

That is a better order, just changed it

[dahongfei]

The 1 minute interval seems to be not frequent enough. I lended out some 4000 USD @0.36 a couple of hours ago, but the "Lowest USD Liquidity Offer" shows a peak only at @0.33670 around that time.

Maybe you can request the order book more frequently if it doesn't hit API restriction.

[bjornw]

The 1 minute interval seems to be not frequent enough. I lended out some 4000 USD @0.36 a couple of hours ago, but the "Lowest USD Liquidity Offer" shows a peak only at @0.33670 around that time.

Maybe you can request the order book more frequently if it doesn't hit API restriction.

Yes I know, it would be better to set a higher update frequency. I've contacted bitfinex about the api poll frequency. Hope to hear from them soon. I don't just want to increase the frequency before knowing I won't overload the api. Giancarlo has seen my site and appreciated what I built so I'm sure he or Raphael will get back at me when they have an oppurtinty. They've been working round the clock for the last couple of weeks (months) so it might take a bit before I hear from them. Till then I'll leave the update frequency as is.

regards

[bjornw]

Hi all,

I've added a little feature to the site. In the menu you'll find an entry called "Swap Return Calculator". You can use this to calculate what the return would be on a USD liquidity offer you place on Bitfinex.



This is what it does:

Fill in the number of days you want to offer liquidity, fill in the rate per day you want on your liquidity offer and fill in the USD amount you want to offer.

Either select the "Uninsured" or "Insured" button and the "Return per Day" and the "Return for the whole period" will show. The bitfinex fee (10% on uninsured swaps and 30% on insured swaps are taken into account when calculating the return). So the values shown are what you'll receive (on top of the amount you offered) in your bitfinex deposit wallet when you're liquidity offer were to be taken by a leverage trader.

Hope you'll find this little calculator useful. I for one will stop fiddling about with my good old spreadsheet to find out what what a liquidity offer might gain me.

cheers

ps thanks "Gordon Geeko" @ http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com for the feature request!