Topic: i put together some documentation for bitfinex (Read 5522 times)

    Account finance

This information is about how to manage your money, this is not a specific area of the site.

        Account History

There are 4 data spreadsheets available for you to see

            USD

Payments of interest, fees, positions, deposits and withdrawals in USD will show up here

            BTC

Payments of interest, fees, positions, deposits and withdrawals in BTC will show up here

            Order history

If you made an order, it will be shown here, the status column will tell you if it’s active, canceled or the execution price.

            Offer History

When you lend or try to lend money all your offers will show up here.

        Account type

For full information about the different types of accounts, please read the registration section above. For every single type of account there is a wallet.

        Account overview

When you trade on margin, exchange or use the deposit feature you use the funds from the specific wallet.

            Deposit Wallet

APY means Annual percentage yield

                USD

Total USD on this wallet

                    USD credit total

How many USD are used by margin traders or better said the sum of all the loans.

                    USD current rate (APY)

The average interest for your loans in annual percentage yield.

                    Lendable balance

The amount of USD that  you can still lend to the margin traders.

                BTC

Total amount of BTC in this wallet

                    BTC Credit total

Sum of all the loans on BTC.

                    BTC Current rate (APY)

The average interest rate you get from all your loans

                    Lendable balance

The amount of BTC you can still lend to margin traders.

            Exchange Wallet

If you don’t have your account type selected as exchange or trader on your account settings this information is not available for you.

                    USD

How many  USD you have on  your exchange wallet

                    BTC

This shows how many BTC you have on the exchange wallet.

            Trading Wallet

If you don’t have your account type selected as a trader in your account settings, this information  is not available for you.

                USD balance

How many USD you have on your trading wallet

                BTC balance

How many BTC you have on your trading wallet

                Margin Balance

This is the total value of your trading wallet = USD+(BTC value in USD)

Warning this can change a lot if you have just BTC, if the BTC price drops, this will also drop the margin balance. Likewise, if the BTC price goes up, this will also increase your margin balance.

                Tradable balance

This is the margin balance multiplied by the leverage when you don’t have any position open. When you have a position open the value will be updated. Position gains don’t sum to your balance in current date.   (6 January 2013) 

                Long possible
                Short possible
                Unrealized P/L

This is the position concerning the profits or losses, the word unrealized is there to point out that these profits or losses are not concluded. The trader must close the position to define (or realize) the profits or losses.

                Unrealized Swap

When a trader uses margin (leverage), he borrows funds from other people and he agrees to pay them a certain  interest rate for the used funds. Again this number is not final until the trader closes the position.

                Required margin

So far the required margin is 5% 

This is better explained with an example.
Using the 5:1 leverage setting, if the total Margin balance in a wallet is 100 USD the trader can borrow 5 times more using leverage. Then the tradable balance is 500 USD, so let’s say the price is 10 USD so the trader can go long 50 BTC, but he picks to go long 40BTC, now the total value of his position in USD is 40x10=400 the required margin is 5% of that 400, that means 20 USD.

    Money management
        Trading Wallet and leverage

Only money on your trading wallet will count for the average and margin trading. Your money in deposits and exchange wallet is a separate thing

        Lending page
        Terms
            Borrower

The borrower is the margin trader who takes a loan to speculate on the market, funds will displayed on the trading wallet

            Lender

The lender is the depositor who gives loans to traders, funds will displayed on the depositor wallet

        Borrowing

This feature allows the user to demand credit in advance, so they don't need to go on the open market and get the credit. They can post a demand for credit and after the demand is filled, they can use that credit when they want.

            Market demand

When using this, the borrower “buys” credit at whatever the market offers, so his demand for credit can be filled at different interest rates

            Limit demand

Using this, the borrower sets how much he is willing to pay for credit.

            Costs

The borrower pays the interest from the moment his demand gets filled no matter if he use the funds or not.

            Posting Demand
                Amount

The borrower sets the amount of money he wants to borrow.

                Interest rate

Here the borrower puts how much interest he is willing to pay. 

                Period

The borrower sets the minimum amount of time he wants to take the loan, so if borrower wants 100 USD for 14 days, lenders need to give him the 100USD for at least 14 days.

        Lending

The lending feature on Bitfinex allows users to lend money to other users. Any borrowing or lending are done by other users. The platforms do not provide funds for trading. In order to keep a balance in the market the platform will never give money to users. This means funds need to be saved and given away in the form of loans.

            Market offer

When a lender sells credit using a market offer he will be filled at variable interest rates based on demand.

            Limit offer

When a lender uses a limit offer he is willing to sell credit only at a certain interest rate.

            Gains

Lenders start earning money when someone takes their offer.  If nobody takes their offer, they don’t earn interest.

            Posting Offers

Depositors or lenders have the option to post lending offers so users can take this money and trade for a set amount of time.

                Amount

The amount in USD or BTC are you willing to lend so other users can leverage trade.

                Rates interest

The interest rates are set per 365 days, even if the loan is for a short time frame. Interest rate payments are calculated every day.   (3 January 2013)

                Maximum period

This is the maximum number of days the lender is willing to lend the money to margin trading users.   (3 January 2013)

                        Auto-renew offers

This options allows you to repost the offer automatically if the trader paid the loan before expiration or if the maximum time limit is reached. The auto-renewed offer uses the same conditions as the original offer.   (3 January 2013)

                        Don't renew loan

This option is used by lenders to cancel offer renewal when the maximum time is reached, or if the loan is paid before expiration.  (3 January 2013)

                Offers history

Your offer history is saved and shows on the history part of your account https://bitfinex.com/offers/.  (3 January 2013)

            USD Credit book

This will show how much USD are available now in the lending section. Conditions are set by users not by Bitfinex.  (3 January 2013)

            BTC Credit book

This will show how much Bitcoins are available now in the lending section. Conditions are set by users not by Bitfinex.3 January 2013

            Fees

Bitfinex does have a fee for the lending for more details go to fee page.   (3 January 2013)

   Trading

This section is to explain the basics of how to trade.

        Order Book

This shows all the orders that can be traded from bitfinex platform.

            Orders details
                Platform

This will show you from where the orders originated.

                BID or ASK price

This is the price that users want to buy or sell bitcoins.

                    Digit precision & Order merging

So far, bitfinex shows prices until second digit. For example if some user wants to sell bitcoin at 10.11 USD and another at 10.111 USD both order are grouped together and are shown like 10.11.      (6 January 2013)

Why this? to show the orders in a compact view  

                Amount

This is the total volume for a specific price

                Order Count

If there is more than one order at a said price this will show how many orders are at that price

            Level 2 Order Book

This order book is a combined order book. That means it merges the Bitfinex orders with other platform orders to show the total orders available. On the platform column there will be shown the order source.

        Exchange

This feature is the normal trading where the user can trade with their own balance and nothing more.

            Asks & Bids

A part of total level 2 order book is loaded here to show the current prices, any click on the ask/ bids words will open a new tab on your browser loading the level 2 orderbook

        Margin trading

Bitfinex offer the possibility of margin trading (leverage), where the user borrows money based on his trading wallet value. Users using this feature need to understand that the money from their trading wallet is there to guarantee their position and said funds are not used for trading.

            Borrowing

Since you can’t buy or sell something if you don’t have the funds (is fraud) you need to borrow the funds. If you want to buy BTC but you don’t have USD, you borrow USD and guarantee this loan with your BTC balance and if you want to sell BTC but you don’t have BTC you borrow BTC and guarantee this loan with your USD balance.

Always check the borrowing cost before you borrow any funds

            Active Position

Your active orders show you several numbers and you need to understand what they mean

            Pair

BTCUSD so far

            Amount

Your position size

            Base price

This is the price when you open the position, or the average price based on your position(s) held. It is also the price where you don’t win or lose any money.

            Loans expiration

This is your amount details where it show you the loans volume and maximum period

                    P/L ($)

How much USD you have in profit or loss

            P/L (%)

Your profit or loss in %

                    Swaps

Total amount of swaps you have to pay

                    Swaps rate (per one day)

This is the average swap rate per day (interest rate)

            Action: Close

You can close your position with just one click and be out of the market, when you click close your position will be closed at the best price available using a market order.

        Active order

These are your orders that need to be executed, these orders are executed when the conditions are met

            #

This is your order ID

            Pair

What currency pair, so far BTCUSD

            Order details

Please read below the type of order available on bitfinex

            Amount

Order size/volume

            Price

Price for execution

            Route

This option allows the user to select on which market he wants to send the orders since each market has its own fees and  selecting the route it is an important feature.

                Route set to none

If blank it will take the best price available, orders that have selected none route will show on BFX orderbook but can be executed on mtgox orderbook if the price set by the user is reached.

                Route to BFX

Orders that have route set to BFX will show up on BFX orderbook and will be executed only against BFX orders or orders that have the route set to none

                Route to mtgox

Execution on mtgox is always made at market. The orders are never placed on mtgox orderbook because mtgox doesn’t have an order history, only a trade history and is impossible for BFX to track these orders.

If route is set to a specific platform your order will be executed only on that platform, fees are not taken into consideration.

            Expiration period

All funds are borrowed from another user this will show the maximum time for your loan.

            Placed

On what date the order was placed, the date format is day month hour: minute

            Status

If is active, the order still needs to be processed

If is partially filled, this will show how much was filled

            Action

Cancel to cancel the order

Notify to get an email when order is executed

        Orders type

So far bitfinex supports the following order types.   (6 January 2013)

            Market

This order type will go against the best available price until the entire order is executed

            Limit

This order will be executed only when the set price is reached, is used to initiate a position. Limit orders let you buy only below the actual price and sell above the actual price, please read the stop buy/sell entry

            Stop

This is the opposite of limit order, and is used to close a position at a certain price. Often named stop loss, because can be used to cut loses when the market goes against your position.

                Stop buy/sell entry

These type of orders are a bit harder to understand. You can use the Stop order to open a position but compared to Limit orders, it lets you buy above the current price and sell below the current price. Example the price is 10,20 USD, and the market goes sideways you can set a stop-buy-entry order at 10,50 USD or a stop-sell-entry at 9,95 USD, so you buy above the current price and you sell below the price, if the price decides to move one way or another.

            Trailing stop

This is like the Stop order, but it follows the price at a set “distance” with two decimal place precision. This is used to preserve profits.

            Hidden order

This type of order allows the user to hide their order but it has certain conditions: A minimum size (500BTC) and a fee (see the fee page)

        Margin call

This happens when you are about to lose all the funds on your trading wallet

            Liquidation
                Forced liquidation

You can get forced liquidated when your losses are almost equal to your trading wallet total value

                    Prevent forced liquidation

Deposit funds to avoid this.