Considering that Bitfinex decided to only take a part of their users' BCH holdings instead of all of it,
Per their reports they didn't take any of it. Bitfinex has margin trading, very simply stated that means that ignoring shorts there can be more bitcoins there being traded than they have. They didn't want to make people who had short positions (which normally cancel part of these liabilities) get forced into short-BCC positions; so the otherwise fully covered obligations were not fully covered.
It sounds like they tried to come up with a rational and fair way to address this split; but I haven't heard an informed counterargument yet.
This is the kind of chaos that is created by these near zero notice chaos producing events. ... wait till you see all the pain and funds loss caused by BCC using addresses which are easily confused with Bitcoin addresses.
Well this is their convoluted reasoning:
The Numbers
After the fork, Bitfinex held 101,798.8855 BCH to distribute coming from 131,237.8562 BTC in settled wallet balances and -29,438.9707 BTC in unsettled margin positions, resulting in a distribution coefficient of 0.7757.
However, after adjustments for manipulation attempts (outlined below), the final coefficient used for distributing BCH was 0.8539
The Situation
The intent of the BCH distribution mechanism was to protect lenders who were already locked into loans at the time of the announcement and to avoid distributing negative balances to shorts on an uncertain value of an unproven digital asset.
With this intent in mind, the BCH tokens were distributed with an adjusting factor to account for long/short imbalances in gross margin positions. Accordingly, as shorts would not have to ‘pay’ BCH, we believe it was fair and symmetrical to not credit margin longs, yielding an adjusting factor that historically seldom varies more than 10% when compared with gross balances.
After the methodology announcement on July 27th, several accounts began large-scale manipulation tactics in an attempt to obtain BCH tokens at the expense of exchange longs and lenders on the platform, causing the distribution coefficient to artificially plummet.
We have determined that this kind of manipulation - including wash trading and self-funding shorts - is in violation of Bitfinex’s terms of service. Those who intended to take unfair advantage of the circumstances surrounding the BCH distribution at the expense of other users have been sanctioned accordingly.
The Resolution
Upon careful review and analysis, we have decided to disallow any hedged BTC balances in excess of any such hedged balances that may have existed at the time of the July 27th distribution announcement. While this may be disappointing to some, it is welcome news to the many users with bona fide BTC exposure through settled wallet balances. This adjustment increases the distribution coefficient from 0.7757 to 0.8539.
We do not take this action lightly. The inadequate timelines imposed upon Bitfinex forced swift action when addressing and remediating this situation. Our purpose has been to distribute all BCH to our users in the fairest way possible. Given the aforementioned restrictions, with our corrective actions, we believe that we have made good on that promise.
It still doesn't explain why my 0.225 BTC held in the exchange wallet prior to UAHF and not locked in any pending orders or positions, was only credited with 0.0437 BCH.
