Who Is Bitfinex?
Owned and operated by iFinex,inc., Bitfinex was founded in December 2012 and is headquartered in Hong Kong but registered in the British Virgin Islands and is one of the largest exchanges consistently having the highest or second-highest daily trading volume. Their platform offers a wide selection of cryptocurrencies and trading pairs along with low fees. As of August 15, 2018, Bitfinex decided to stop serving US individuals and corporate customers.
How Does Bitfinex Work?
If you are new to investing, Bitfinex’s interface can be a bit overwhelming. There are several options and tabs on the dashboard that can be confusing to some with little knowledge of trading. Here are some steps to get started.
- Go to Bitfinex’s exchange website and register an account.
- Fund your account. Bitfinex allows cryptocurrency deposits. Click the “Deposit” selection and choose the cryptocurrency you wish to deposit.
- Hover over the “Trading” button to select which trading pair you’d like to do your trading with.
The trading page’s interface shows several choices of analytical information.
- Candlestick chart
- Graphical order book
- Most recent trading data
It also displays several different ways you can trade.
- Simple limit trades
- Market trades
- Stop-orders and stop-limit
- Trailing stop
- Fill or kill orders
- Margin trading
In my opinion, it is a good idea to stay away from margin trading if you are new to this as it brings a higher level of risk and should only be considered after research and experience.
Which cryptocurrencies Does Bitfinex Offer?
Bitfinex is always reviewing and vetting currencies to add to their exchange, so if your coin is not listed, go back in a week or so to see if it has been added. They offer several coins paired but not exclusively with U.S. dollars, Ethereum, and of course Bitcoin. All together they offer over 150 coins and 270 trading pairs.
Is Bitfinex Secure?
They seem to do a good job explaining their security policies and offer two-factor authentication and 2nd factor for logins. They also use verification tools like IP address detection and will alert you of any malicious activity with your account. Only 0.5% of their crypto assets are held online to cover daily operations and the remaining assets are held offline in cold storage wallets away from hackers.
Bitfinex In The News
Bitfinex has been accused of hiding an apparent loss of $850 million of client and corporate funds and destroying related documents. They are also accused of using its sister company Tether to cover this up back in 2018. They recently lost an appeal before the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and now must face the claims and produce all documents as requested by the Attorney General and testify under oath before the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Although Bifinex is one of the largest exchanges by trading volume in the world, it is a good idea to research this incident and Bitfinex to have all the information before deciding to trade on their platform.