Review on Bitfinex by Fabrizio Zampieri

Name: Bitfinex
Item: Bitfinex
Rating: 3

May 05, 2018

Bitfinex is one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange by volume. Bitfinex…

Bitfinex is one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange by volume. 
Bitfinex is technically an all-crypto exchange at current.
Bitfinex does, however, support Tether (USDT), the quasi-fiat token unofficially pegged to the US dollar’s price. Indeed, Bitfinex is a major shareholder in Tether and is probably the majority holder of these coins.
Bitfinex features an advanced, customizable GUI, over 50 trading pairs (e.g. BTC/ETH), and plentiful order types, such as limit, market, stop, stop-limit, trailing stop, fill or kill, and scaled orders. 
﻿

Pros

Free deposits and fairly cheap withdrawals are available for Bitcoin and the many altcoins and Initial Coin Offering. For those who wish to trade major amounts ($100,000+) of cryptocurrency privately, Bitfinex provides an over-the-counter (OTC) trading facility. If you’re an experienced cryptocurrency trader, Bitfinex can offer everything you need and more. The chief draw is probably the platform’s high Bitcoin and Ethereum liquidity, but its margin funding, leverage, and multiple order types offer a lot of flexibility.

Cons

This exchange had some important problems in recent past: - the April 2016 theft of nearly 120,000 BTC (the second-largest Bitcoin heist in history, dwarfed only by the loss of around 750,000 BTC by Mt. Gox); - in April of 2017, Bitfinex’s bank accounts were frozen by its correspondent bank, Wells Fargo. This situation persisted for weeks, leading to client cpmplaints and all kind of distortions in Bitfinex’s pricing. Normal service was eventually restored, although US dollars and US customers are no longer accepted by Bitfinex; - it's been about 1 year since there are many rumours about incertain status of solvency of the exchange relating Tether tokens release. Currently there’s no way to fund your Bitfinex account with fiat currency. In my opinion, if you’re new to cryptocurrency and looking to get your first coins, Bitfinex is not for you. The lack of fiat funding options and the complicated interface will certainly take time to master and will make costly mistakes more likely.