Topic: [OFFICIAL]Bitfinex.com first Bitcoin P2P lending platform for leverage trading - page 313. (Read 723990 times)

Yeah, the site seemed to be performing well (for me at least).

deposit

So, bitfinex, how'd the last days go? Many margin calls? Any losses, where the margin call was executed too late? Any losses covered by insurance or being passed to the lender (without insurance)? Any insights on server performance, or any crazy stats from all the panicking users rushing at once?

People, I'd like to start a round of applause to the bitfinex team for upgrading the servers back then. It wasn't that pleasant back then, but it made the last hours so much more bearable! Imagine lack and downtimes *now*!
*applause*

Ente

Is the interest paid into the deposit acc or the exchange acc?

calculated per hour, paid out daily

What happens if I lend someone money and lets say a few hours later they return the loan. Do I get any interest for that? Or is it only calculated daily.

This seems to have resolved itself.

Yes, I would also love to have this option. Is this possible or is this planned at some point? Or is this undesirable to avoid monopolizing cheap interest rates?

Something else: It's common practice to keep an open (e.g. long) position safe by setting a stop loss slightly below the entry point and a limit order at the trade target. In Bitfinex this isn't safe because with considerable market volatility _both_ can get filled and I end up with a short position of the same size. Any suggestions how to avoid this?

How does this work exactly? How are the loans guaranteed? What happens if borrower defaults? I was interested in doing this too but found the info to be a bit vague.

2 more questions:

1) Is LTC/BTC just a derivative, or is there any way to redeem litecoins or bitcoins from it?
2) I took a position shorting a few LTC/BTC, but it looks to me like there is some sort of glitch.  My "active positions" in trading wallet show the position completely filled, but in the "margin available" part, it looks as if the orders were only filled partially (it still shows available LTCs, while my active positions show all shorted in LTC/BTC form).  In the lending tab as well it looks as if the order only went through partially ("unused borrowed funds" is not empty, "borrowed funds used in margin" shows only part of the position).  

I did my first Bitfinex loan. Small amount just to test the water.

Exactly, I would like a "Stop buy" with no fixed price, but a trailing price.


Sounds like the thing I am describing too?


Bitfinex is up for me, btw.

Ente

Is Bitfinex down or is it just me?

(Most bitcoin-related sites seem slow for me all of a sudden.  Coordinated DDoS attack?)

Thanks for the info and advice guys !

The denomination of your margin doesn't matter, the current value is what matters. Since the current value is calculated dynamically, determined by the current rate of BTC/USD and LTC/USD (correct?), changes in the overall value of your collateral (=margin balance) are something to keep an eye upon, since any change here is leveraged: If the value of your collateral increases, your tradeable balance increases multiplied by the leverage factor, giving you more "fire power". But the contrary is also true (and a dangerous pitfall). A decrease in the value of your margin balance can drive you into forced liquidation much quicker than you'd expect.

Thus it's a good idea to keep some "headroom" on the tradeable balance. This allows you to transfer small unused portions of your margin balance temporarily to the exchange account, and change them into another kind of underlying (eg. sell BTC for USD when you expect falling BTC rates, and transfer the USD then back to the trading account.)

You reduce the size of your trading position with trades in the opposite direction. Only when you close your position completely is when your gains (or losses) are credited to or deduced from your underlying trading account. A common pitfall here is not to take all your open limit orders into account. For example, if you short, you typically set yourself limit orders at some point below to take your profits. Now, when the market drops suddenly, all your limit orders might be executed; if they sum up to more than your current position size (e.g. because you closed off some part manually), the direction of your position will be turned around, i.e. in this example situation you'll be left with a long position over the difference amount, and this might happen in a still falling market while you're sleeping.

LTC/BTC is indeed an interesting segment, but beware, the LTC market on Bitfinex (and still more the LTC/BTC segment) is lacking depth. The situation has improved significantly, but this is still largely an "illiquid" market. It can easily be controlled by some large positions, and it can happen that it doesn't follow the general trend, just because some large player doesn't like that trend. But most importantly, the depth might not be enough to get out of a losing position in case of a sudden trend change.

Of course, the general advice for any trading applies: trade the trend, not the actual levels. Never try to anticipate developments (this is gambling, not trading). Know your exit point beforehand and never argue about it. Choose the size of your position based on the maximum loss you're willing to take right away, not by considering prospective gains. As we all know, this kind advice is easy to state but hard to follow.

When you reduce (partially close) a position you close loans accordingly, which means that to enlarge your position you would have to borrow with new interest rates.

If there is a way to keep borrowed funds after reducing a position, I would love to know.

There were losses in the april crash, but bitfinex absorbed them themselves, then they introduced the insurance option.

have such things happened? have there been cases on Bitfinex where insured loans did not get payed back in full to the lenders?

Only if the loss is greater than the margin that the borrower has left during forced liquidation.

There is a close button, but you can often get a better deal if you post your own offer and someone fills it.  For instance if you are doing margin selling, post an offer to margin buy (I like to use limit - because anything can happen with a market order, especially during volatility) to close part or all of your position.

You cannot use the close button if you have offers out that would partially reverse your position.  Hmm, this might be a bug.

so the lender is fully exposed to a loss if the borrower blows up?