Bitfinex is the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume. 5.77 million bitcoins traded through from mid April to mid October 2017 - almost double the volume of competitors, including Kraken (3.65 million BTC) and Coinbase (3.06 million BTC).
A high volume is important for traders as it ensures a low spread, which is the difference between the best offer and demand prices.
Courtesy of Bitcoinity.org, here is a volume graph for this period, with Bitfinex shown in orange:
So if Bitfinex is the biggest, it has to be the best, right? Well…
Bitfinex difficulty
It is no secret that Bitfinex has experienced its share of problems. The April theft of nearly 120,000 BTC by Bitfinex is the second largest Bitcoin kidnapping in history, diminished only by the loss of around 750,000 BTC.
The key difference between Gox and Bitfinex is that the latter has made its customers intact. Although not all accounts have been affected, he made the decision to spread the loss among all his customers; all users took 36% "haircut" on their account values.
A year later, all customers were fully compensated, at least those who had kept their BFX tokens, which represented Bitfinex 's IOUs .
The problems didn't end there. In April 2017, bank accounts were frozen by its correspondent bank, Wells Fargo.
This has continued for weeks, causing customer complaints and price distortions of all kinds. Normal service has finally been restored, although US dollars and US customers are no longer accepted because of these bank troubles. This means that it is currently not possible to finance your account with fiat currency.
Bitfinex Advanced trading features
It features an advanced and customizable GUI, over 50 trading pairs (eg BTC / ETH) and numerous types of orders, such as limit, market, stop, stop-limit, trailing stop, fill or kill and scaled orders. These features combine to make it a popular exchange with the more sophisticated cryptocurrency traders.
Support and currency fees
Technically it's a fully encrypted exchange right now. However, it does support bitfinex tether (USDT), the quasi-fiat token not pegged to the price of the US dollar.
In fact, he is one of the main shareholders of Tether and is probably the majority holder of these coins. While Tether is very useful for traders, being (generally) stable in price like the dollar without the relative disadvantages of slow and expensive international transfer times, it remains vulnerable to significant regulatory risks. It also supports bitfinex iota, bitfinex neo, bitfinex euro. Free deposits and fairly cheap withdrawals are available for Bitcoin and the following altcoin and ICO tokens: Litecoin, Ethereum (Classic), Zcash, Monero, Dash, Ripple, Iota, EOS, Santiment, OmiseGO, Bcash, NEO, Metaverse ETP, Qtum, Aventus , EDO and Bitcoin Gold.
Markets and services
In addition to providing around 51 currency pairs for a range of currency pairs (for a maximum moderation fee of 0.2% or a production fee of 0.1%), Bitfinex also provides markets for the so-called Chain Split Tokens (CST). These present a way for Bitcoin owners to speculate on the success of future hard fork attempts, such as SegWit2x. For those who wish to privately trade large amounts ($ 100,000 +) of cryptocurrency, it provides an OTC (over the counter) trading facility. This service matches, and presumably protects, important private affairs.
Trading margin and financing margin
Margin trading substantially multiplies a trader's market exposure through leverage, so a $ 10 change in the 10x leverage price of Bitcoin would result in $ 100 profit or loss. Offers a maximum of 3.3x leverage . Margin financing allows users to lend margin traders liquidity in exchange for daily interest payments. To calculate potential returns, we recommend the useful BFXdata calculator.
Warning: margin trading amplifies both upside and downside risks and is not recommended for new traders. Margin financing freezes your funds on Bitfinex for the duration of the loan.
Bitfinex fees
List a 0.1% commission for those who trade $ 30 million or more per month, it can be assumed that there is no purchase limit beyond the market offer.
Check
Bitfinex requires verification for the use of Tether and accelerated cryptocurrency withdrawals. However, the exchange remains perfectly usable for those who just want to provide an email address. It also offers direct access via a hidden Tor service.
Conclusion
If you are new to cryptocurrency and are looking to get your first coins, Bitfinex is not for you. The lack of fiat financing options makes it impossible to buy crypto for normal money. Even if you manage to fund your account, the complicated interface will certainly take some time to master and make expensive mistakes more likely.
Newcomers are encouraged to maintain a simpler exchange that offers a variety of familiar payment options. On the other hand, if you are an expert cryptocurrency trader, Bitfinex probably offers everything you need and more.
The main attraction is probably the high liquidity of Bitcoin and Ethereum of the platform, but its funding margins, leverage and multiple order types offer a lot of flexibility.
