Cryptocurrency exchange is a hot business nowadays. Various exchanges are evolving in the market. Bitfinex exchange is one of them. This Bitfinex exchange review is a walk through Bitfinex Exchange.
Bitfinex Exchange Review
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Bitfinex is a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange operating since late 2012. In the following post, I will review the exchange, the company behind it and also some more controversial episodes it experienced in the past.
Bitfinex Crypto Exchange
Bitfinex is a full-featured crypto exchange platform for major digital assets & cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, EOS, Ripple, NEO, Monero and many more. It offers margin trading through a peer-to-peer market. They also boast a suite of order types to help traders take advantage of every situation.
Traders looking for a one-stop shop for all their cryptocurrency needs will find Bitfinex both convenient and effective.
Bitfinex History
Since 2014, Bitfinex has become one of the world’s leading bitcoin exchanges. Based in Hong Kong, the company was founded in 2012 by Raphael Nicolle, and has enjoyed a steady expansion ever since. The exchange is owned by iFinex, Inc.
Today, Bitfinex has daily volumes well worth US$1 billion. It provides trading options to the world’s leading altcoins along-with Bitcoin and full-spec wallet services.
Bitfinex Features
The exchange has various features to provide users with more opportunities in the trading market.
- Interface: One of the Interesting features at Bitfinex is customization of Interface. appropriate tools and currencies can customize Trading bar. Save preferences to save time by quick navigation on the page. It helps a user keep a track on the market value. The order book can be sorted and organized as per choice.
- Customer Support: The support team is available to serve 24*7 through email. The team tries to respond to queries within 12 hours; However, the answer seems to take much longer. They have a knowledge base section that covers most issues apart from the Q&A pages available on the site.
- Security: Security of funds and user information is Bitfinex’s top priority. security team is continually improving end-to-end security measures, improving auditing processes, and reducing the ‘attack surface’ on the infrastructure.
- Super liquidity and trading tools: The awesome liquidity held by the Bitfinex order book. On any high volume trading day for BTC and other large-cap assets like ETH, Bitfinex can be spotted somewhere near the top, enabling the whole show. A decent range of digital assets gives traders over 80 pairs to work with. As far as tools go, the usual suspects like market and stop orders populate the platform, but more advanced features such as trailing stops make Bitfinex stand out.
- Fiat Deposits: Somehow, and despite the litany of banking troubles checkering its past, Bitfinex still offers fiat deposits for most major world currencies. Using nothing more than an email address, you can swiftly set up an exchange account and deposit/withdraw funds to the exchange. However, if you require fast withdrawals, you must provide additional KYC information.
Bitfinex Trading Platform
The exchange offers its customers a variety of services including:
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Advanced Trading Platform –
Bitfinex boasts about having the most liquid order book in the world. High volume is important for traders, as it ensures a low spread, which is the difference between the best bid and ask prices.
It provides an advanced, customizable GUI, over 50 trading pairs (e.g. BTC/ETH), and plentiful order types, such as a limit, market, stop, stop-limit, trailing stop, fill or kill, and scaled orders.
Bitfinex’s trading platform interface is customizable. You can also get access to advanced charting functionality and API access. It is a popular exchange with more sophisticated cryptocurrency traders.
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Margin Trading and Funding
Users can borrow and trade with up to 3.3x leverage through the site’s P2P (Peer to Peer) margin funding platform . Borrowing terms like amount, duration, and interest can either be determined automatically through Bitfinex or by the user himself.
On the other hand, cryptocurrency owners can lend their funds securely to traders to earn interest on it. Users offer to fund across a wide range of currencies at the rate and duration of their choice.
- Over The Counter Services
For those who wish to trade major amounts ($100,000+) privately, Bitfinex provides an over-the-counter trading facility. This service matches and presumably secures major private deals.
Trading Options Available at Bitfinex
Bitfinex platform is available for newbies and experienced users. It offers a wide variety of trading options. To leverage the margin trading, the exchange provides the following order types:
- Market
- Limit
- Fill or kill
- Stop
- Trailing stop
- One cancels other (OCO)
- Post-only limit order
- Hidden order
This exchange attains a high volume of investors and trades, holding a high level of liquidity. So, the bid/ask and order count get solve out in real time. This gives members more flexibility compared to select the best time to place an order.
Bitfinex Currency Support
The exchange accepts fiat deposits in EUR, JPY, GBP, and USD. Users can make fiat deposits through a wire transfer only. Bitfinex also supports Tether (USDT).
Free deposits and fairly cheap withdrawals are available for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Monero, Dash, Ripple, Iota, EOS, and an additional 80+ assets.
It requires verification for Tether usage and expedited cryptocurrency withdrawals. However, the exchange remains perfectly usable for those who only wish to provide an email address.
Bitfinex Fees
Bitfinex operates in a tier fee structure. The trading fees vary between 0%–0.2% based on user trade volume over the last 30 days. It also depends on the user paying for maker fees or taker fees.
- Maker fees: The user needs to pay marker fees while adding liquidity to the order book. Like, if you place a limit order below the ticker price before buying or above the ticker price after sales.
- Taker fees: Customers need to pay taker fees if they do exactly the opposite by removing the liquidity from the order book, filling an order which already exists in the order book.
- Transaction Fees: Every single deposit is free, apart from bank wires which charge at the greater around 0.1% of the deposit amount or US$20.
Withdrawals seem to be subject to a fee based on the currency user wishes to withdraw or even the transfer type. Express bank wire (within 24 hours on business days) takes 1% fees while other wire transfers take 0.1% fees.
Bitfinex Wallet
This feature is not available on Bitfinex. You must set up a wallet using another exchange like Coinbase. Or you can also buy hardware wallets like Ledger Nano S or Trezor to store the altcoins or cryptocurrency tokens.
Bitfinex Verification Process
The verification on this exchange is accomplished via email. There are two levels of validation namely:
- Individual
- Corporate
For individual verification, the user need should fall and follow the below-mentioned steps:
- The user should be or over 18 years old
- They need to fee contact details
- The website needs two identification documents (valid docs)
- The user should have a bank statement on their name
- They need to provide proof of address (document) ex. Utility bill
For corporate verification, the user need should fall and follow the steps:
- They should provide corporate document
- Every single director or major shareholder details
- They need to finish online form for every director or shareholder
Supported Countries
Bitfinex services are available to customers worldwide except for the following countries:
- Bangladesh
- Bolivia
- Ecuador
- Kyrgyzstan
- United States of America
Bitfinex Difficulties
Bitfinex has experienced its share of problems. In 2015 the exchange was hacked for the first time and 1500 Bitcoins were stolen.
The April 2016 theft of nearly 120,000 BTC from Bitfinex stands as the second-largest Bitcoin heist in history, dwarfed only by the loss of around 750,000 BTC by Mt. Gox .
The key difference between Gox and Bitfinex is that the latter made its clients whole. Although not all accounts were affected, Bitfinex spread the loss among all its clients. One year later, all clients were fully compensated—at least those who’d held their BFX tokens, which represented IOUs from Bitfinex.
The problems didn’t end there for Bitfinex. In April 2017, Bitfinex’s bank accounts were frozen by its correspondent bank, Wells Fargo.
This situation persisted for weeks, leading to client complaints and all kinds of distortions in Bitfinex’s price. Normal service was eventually restored—although US dollars and US customers are no longer accepted by Bitfinex because of these banking headaches.
Is Bitfinex Exchange Safe?
Bitfinex Exchange has tightened its security after falling victim to a hacking attack back in 2016 which resulted in a theft of approximately $72 million worth of Bitcoins. Besides the default security features like 2FA, U2F (Universal 2nd Factor), it also provides advanced options like IP monitoring, email encryption and withdrawal protection. These features are optional and can be enabled by the users depending on their needs.
This cryptocurrency exchange stores most of the customers’ assets on offline cold wallets to protect them from hackers and other kinds of fraudsters.
Also, some may argue that the multiple hacks have made the platform much more resistant to future attacks.
Recent Updates:
- Dec 3, 2019: The exchange has announced support for Lightning Network. As a result, users have an extra layer of security for their transactions. A secure network of users can trade directly without posting details on blockchain.
- Oct 17, 2019: Bitfinex Referral program is live. The affiliate program has various levels of rewards based on how the user interacts with the referral link.
- Oct 2, 2019: The exchange has updated its price mechanism for derivatives trading.
Conclusion
If you’re a non-US trader looking to trade large sums than Bitfinex is what you should opt for. However, if you’re new to cryptocurrency, Bitfinex is not apt for you.
The lack of easy deposit methods combined with the complicated interface will take time to master and make costly mistakes more likely. We advise newcomers to stick with a simpler exchange that offers a variety of familiar payment options.
For an experienced cryptocurrency trader, Bitfinex likely offers everything you’ll need and more. The high cryptocurrency liquidity combined with advanced features such as margin funding, leverage, and multiple order types makes it a great trading platform.
Have you used Bitfinex Exchange yourself? We’d love to hear your experience in the comment section below.
Also read: Coinbase Review |Localbitcoins Review|Coinsuper Fees
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