To review Bitfinex, we have collected reliable data and applied some of our private experience with the platform, and highlighted its advantages over others in terms of security, benefits it provides, and payment methods, as well. One of the most popular crypto trading tools, Bitfinex, is founded and operated in Hong Kong (but it was founded in the British Virgin Islands), whose main specialization is crypto exchange. The website has been working since 2012 and has become more and more popular since then. Keep reading the article if you want to know about the service, its history, and understand better how it works.
Bitfinex is a rather old company compared to other cryptocurrency exchange services. One of the main things to be aware of is that Bitfinex exchange does not allow US customers to use it. Trading options available on Bitfinex will be great for experienced Bitcoin traders. Moreover, there are opportunities for margin trading and lending. Bitfinex is one of the most well-known exchange companies nowadays.
Make yourself familiar with the further topics of this article and continue reading if you are interested in Bitfinex and want to know more about this trading platform. We have spent some time reviewing Bitfinex for potential users to have all essential trading and exchange information that has a connection to this website.
Table of Contents
- First Things to Know About Bitfinex;
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Bitfinex;
- Services Available on Bitfinex;
- Which Payment Methods Are Available;
- Fees on Bitfinex;
- Bitfinex Struggles;
- Countries Where Bitfinex Is Available;
- Reviews;
- Comparing Bitfinex With Binance;
- Is It Worth Using Bitfinex?;
- Q&A.
First Things to Know About Bitfinex
Bitfinex was founded and registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2012. The founder was a company named iFinex Inc from Hong Kong. This cryptocurrency exchange was only dealing with Bitcoin for the first time. It was a P2P margin trading and lending website. The same people who have participated in the development of Stablecoin and Tether.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Bitfinex
This section will find information about a general rating, pros, and cons of the trading platform. The first advantage of Bitfinex is that there are many experienced traders, which makes this exchange perfect for advanced trading. Another positive feature is that trading fees and withdrawal (taker) fees are relatively small and reasonable. Finally, high liquidity is also a great characteristic of Bitfinex exchange. However, there are several disadvantages, too. Two of them are difficult to understand the interface and all the available functions for new traders and the company’s troubled history, which led to a tarnished reputation among potential customers. All in all, Bitfinex is one of those exchange companies that is widely used because of its advanced interface and many useful features, not because of its history.
According to the reviews, Bitfinex exchange has extremely high liquidity (9,5 out of 10), trading pair variety (9,2 out of 10), and the rating of how reasonable trading and withdrawal fees are (9 out of 10). But other two indicators: to which extent is the exchange friendly to beginning customers (7 out of 10) and reputation (7,5 out of 10) are rather low.
Services Available on Bitfinex
Since Bitfinex is a trading platform that has been on the market for quite a long time, it is not surprising that it is well developed and has a lot of trading services to offer to its customers.
- Trading platform for experienced traders
Trading options that are available for each customer of the exchange include many trading options. Most importantly, the trading volume of the Bitfinex exchange is very high. Experienced traders know that it is crucial for a low spread and a difference between the best bid and ask prices. If you understand how important trading volume is for Bitcoin trading and exchange, you will like Bitfinex for sure since it has the best and most liquid order book among other competitors.
When traders spend a lot of time in front of the monitor to trade and exchange cryptocurrencies, it will be important for them to see a pleasant picture. Bitfinex has a customizable and user-friendly interface. Moreover, it is possible to get API access and try how essential are advanced charting functions for you. In addition, Bitfinex has other advanced features that will be irreplaceable for experienced traders. These options are customizable GUI, a variety of order types from stop, stop-limit, market, and limit to trailing stop, fill or kill, and some more like scaled orders. The exchange also has over fifty trading pairs such as BTC/ETH.
All of these advanced options make Bitfinex the best exchange platform for experienced traders all around the world.
- Lending and staking
Luckily, Bitfinex offers opportunities for lending and staking cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency traders can use these services to make Bitcoin operations much easier. With the help of Bitfinex, every customer who does not even have any special knowledge or software will be able to stake and lend cryptocurrencies.
- Over-the-counter options
There is also an option to trade big amounts of Bitcoin privately. Big amounts start from 100,000 dollars. Bitfinex has created a special service for these tasks. Over-the-counter is a web page for making Bitcoin trading and exchange save for crypto traders and protecting private trades from cryptocurrency market manipulation.
- Margin trading and margin funding
Cryptocurrency traders using Bitfinex have a unique opportunity to trade with 3,3x leverage via the P2P (Peer to Peer) trading website. Particular borrowing settings like duration or amount can be changed by a trader or automatically in Bitfinex. What is more, traders can lend their funds and offer them to other customers. Funds might be offered across many various cryptocurrencies and features.
Keep in mind that margin trading and margin funding are a rather complicated process, so it is not recommended to try it if you are a new customer and are still unsure how to use different systems and services. Wait a bit until you become a more experienced trader, not to be concerned about the security of your money while doing difficult and long crypto exchanges. While getting more experience, take time going through all general security measures (including those suitable for margin trading) that should be followed during any performance with cryptocurrencies. The reason for margin trading and margin funding being dangerous is that these operations block your money on Bitfinex account as long as the loan is not over.
- Derivatives trading
Bitfinex has a suggestion for those users who are interested in derivatives trading, too. These users can get a derivatives contract. After getting it, users will have an opportunity to speculate on the price of Bitcoin without participating in the deals on Bitfinex directly. To do this, traders should collateralize their Bitfinex account with USDT.
Which Payment Methods Are Available
Bitfinex has a variety of payment methods and fiat currencies for exchanges. It is possible to make a bank transfer using any of the fiat currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY. Even though there is such a wide variety of payment methods, you should keep in mind that fiat currency deposits only might be made with the help of a wire transfer. Free deposits can also be made using payment processors like Bitcoin Latecoin, Monero, lota, Zcash, Dash, Ethereum, EOS, Ripple, and many more assets.
You can also use Tether while trading Bitcoin on Bitfinex. The only thing which is required is account verification. Moreover, direct access is available through Tor.
Fees on Bitfinex
Bitfinex uses a Bitcoin trading model, which is called the taker-maker fee structure. There are two groups of people: the ones who fulfill orders. A person like that is called a taker. A person who makes new orders is called a maker. This classification is important since the trading fees sum depends on users’ roles in this model.
If you are a taker, expect fees for exchanges to start from 0,2 percent. However, the amount may drop to 0 percent when it comes to some major maker orders. As a taker, you should know that there are no fees for the exchange and trading orders done via the OTC desk. You might need to pay something when it comes to bank wires which have withdrawal fees and a deposit. A deposit equals 0,1 percent, while a withdrawal fee can be almost 1 percent high when it is an expedited withdrawal.
In general, cryptocurrency deposits are free to make, so all users do not have to pay any deposit fees during advanced trading. If you want to read a full review of a fee schedule, you should visit this web page.
Bitfinex Struggles
- It is a well-known fact that Bitfiex has a long history and has gone through some serious troubles since its foundation date. The first shocking event was when the website was hacked in 2015. As a consequence, a huge amount of Bitcoins was stolen from the users (approximately 1500).
- Bitfiex hacked again in 2016, and approximately 120,000 BTC. It is still the second biggest Bitcoin theft. A robbery that was even bigger is the one by Mt. Gox that led to the loss of 750,000 BTC. It should be mentioned that after one year, all clients who held BFX tokens got their money back.
- Another problem appeared again in 2017 when the exchange was not possible because all accounts were frozen by Wells Fargo. Traders were unable to make any bank transfer. The security system was not prepared for this kind of emergency, so the situation remained the same for several weeks before the problem was solved. This case with a correspondent bank is a reason why now Bitfinex is no longer available for US clients, and it is not possible to share US dollars in the system.
- Last but not least, recently, it was revealed that the company lost access to 850,000 million worth of the clients’ funds. The reason was that Crypto Capital (one of the payment processors) keeps money seized by the USA, Portugal, and Poland.
Obviously, Bitfinex security did not work sufficiently enough then. We, as well as all users of Bitfinex, hope that some security measures have been taken since that time to make exchanges safer and avoid a repetition of security breaches.
Countries Where Bitfinex Is Available
You can trade Bitcoin with Bitfinex from almost every country in the world. One major exception is the USA. The other thing that users should keep in mind that even though some basic services are usually available for users all around the world, there are some limits on using advanced options. Basic actions that can be done include margin trading, exchange, making deposits via digital assets. To make these operations, you will be asked to fill in your email address only. That is why there is usually no problem with using Bitfinex in various countries. Remember to follow the legislation of the country you live in in order to avoid troubles.
Keep in mind that not all countries allow trading Bitcoins. It is a Bitfinex review, so we will not go into details about the legal status of crypto trading in every country. However, you should know some essential points. In general, most countries’ governments have not banned the selling and purchasing of Bitcoin. But some limitations are rather popular for many countries. It is common that trading Bitcoin is legal, but there is a banking ban. For example, in Russia, it is legal only to mine Bitcoins. Banking bans also exist in Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Canada, and many more. In Indonesia, it is not possible to use Bitcoin as a payment tool. Moreover, there are some countries where it is absolutely prohibited to trade cryptocurrency. These countries are Bolivia, Nepal, and all countries in Northern Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco). On the contrary, there are a lot of places in which there are no limitations concerning the legal status of crypto trading. The situation is like that in Europe, in the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.
Therefore, you can use Bitfinex in many countries and trade Bitcoin without any worries. But remember to check local laws and regulations and pay all required taxes (if there are some) not to get in trouble.
A disadvantage of the Bitfinex system is that the full list of countries in which all advanced options are available cannot be found anywhere on the website. To work with more professional instruments, you might be asked to prove your address. It will be obvious whether advanced features are available for you or not only when you try to finish a verification process.
Reviews
Now let’s move on to another important topic in the Bitfinex review. In this section, we will cover customer support offered by Bitfinex and analyze reviews of previous users. It is undoubtedly positive that Bitfinex provides every person who has an account with a knowledge base and a support team who is always ready to help and answer your questions. To understand how good Bitfinex employers are doing their job and maintain the level of clients’ satisfaction, you can have a look at the Trustpilot score page.
Even though the customer support services work sufficiently, there have been too many scandals in Bitfinex history. Many traders share the same opinion about Bitfinex and do not trust this service because of its connection to the Tether virtual currency and strange interaction between two companies.
Moreover, there even was an investigation in 2018 carried out by New York’s attorney general’s office. Owners of Bitfinex were accused of covering up 850 million dollars. In the accusation, it was said that operators of the company deliberately took part in the coverup of clients’ funds. Managing directors of the company denied this information and explained to the users in an open letter that it had not been true. However, nobody knows for sure what happened.
You can look through honest reviews on social media and search for forums in the browser.
Comparing Bitfinex With Binance
In terms of comparison of Bitfinex and Binance, it is hard to say which platform is better to use. On the one hand, the interface of Bitfinex is less user-friendly than the system of Binance. On the other hand, Bitfinex is more suitable for advanced users who need more functions. If you only start trading, it is recommended to try Binance first. You can find more information about this platform here.
Undoubtedly, there are two pros of Binance. Firstly, it has a good reputation. Since the foundation of the company, it has never experienced hacks and thefts similar to those that happened to Bitfinex. Secondly, fees are smaller on Binance compared to Bitfinex. The reason for that is the fixed amount percent of the fee for any deal (0,1%).
Is It Worth Using Bitfinex?
The last topic we will cover in this review is reasons for choosing Bitfinex when trading Bitcoin among competitors. Users should know that their aims might differ from each other. Some of them are already advanced and experienced traders who need features above basic ones. Leverage, margin funding, and many other options will leave professionals in trading Bitcoin satisfied.
Also, when you only begin, you will probably be scared to invest your money on a platform that has been hacked multiple times before. At the same time, others believe that those unpleasant events made the Bitfinex security system and clients’ support stronger.
Bitfinex is irreplaceable for those who plan to trade large sums since it is the most convenient platform to complete this kind of deal. If this is not true for you, we will suggest trying other services such as CEX.io or Coinmama. These platforms have a much easier interface to make your first steps in Bitcoin trading. The risk of making a mistake is much lower while using one of these websites. We recommend focusing on something less complicated for the first months. Anyway, both Bitfinex and Binance support the same cryptocurrencies.
Q&A
Can US use Bitfinex?
Unfortunately, it is not possible to use Bitfinex in the USA. Since 2017 it has been impossible for US users to purchase particular tokens for the exchange and complete an ID verification process of their accounts.
Is Bitfinex regulated?
Bitfinex is not regulated. The company is operated from Hong Kong, so it is not easy to track the regulations. Therefore, it is worth being careful when trading.
What are Bitfinex fees?
Bitfinex fees for exchanges differ from 0,2 to 0 percent depending on the order. There are additional costs connected to the wire withdrawal fees (0,1 percent) and deposits (up to 1 percent). However, there are no fees for the exchange and trading orders done via the OTC desk. You can find more details in the article.
What happened to Bitfinex?
There have been several major emergency events in the company’s history. The system was hacked in 2015 and 2016. It led to huge theft of clients’ funds. Another event was connected to the adverse interference of Wells Fargo. As a result, all accounts with cryptocurrency were blocked. After this time, it has been impossible for US citizens to use Bitfinex for the exchange. Finally, recently another problem was reported. The company lost access to 850,000 million worth of the clients’ funds. This chain of unpleasant events is a reason why many traders stay away from this website. However, the company has already proven to support its clients in case something goes wrong (even if sometimes it takes a lot of time).
