Bitfinex Cryptocurrency Exchange Review

Bitfinex is part of iFinex Inc, a group registered in the British Virgin Islands but headquartered in Hong Kong. Their digital asset exchange is well-reputed for its impressive services and high levels of liquidity. Bitfinex is one of the top 50 exchanges by trading volume, but in terms of quality, longevity, and popularity, it’s easily a top 10 overall exchange. The platform was founded all the way back in 2012 by Raphael Nicolle, a Parisian IT expert and Bitcoin-enthusiast. 

The Positives

• High liquidity and a large number of users
• Many spot, margin, and funding markets
• Full-customisable interfaces and applications for web and mobile
• There are plenty of affiliate rewards to be had through their platform
• Suitable for intermediate and advanced traders
• Whilst many cryptocurrencies are available, they have been focused on BTC for 8 years now, allowing them to represent more than 6% of all BTC trades each day
• 99.5% of all crypto funds are stored in hard wallets to increase security
• Great range of order types
  • Market
  • Limit
  • Stop
  • Trailing stop
  • Fill or kill
  • One cancels other (OCO)
  • Post-only limit order
  • Hidden order
• Bitfinex offers an OTC Desk where users can make P2P trades and avoid going through a centralized order book
• Thanks to partnerships with Mercuryo and OWNR, users are now able to purchase crypto with their credit cards. More information on deposits can be found here.

The Negatives

• Leverage is only available up to 3.3x, a tiny amount compared to some other exchanges
• US investors are not able to use the Bitfinex service
• Not suitable for novice crypto-traders
• They’ve been the victim of major hacks in the past
• Email support only
• It can take up to 2 months to verify your account
• Other exchanges quickly overtook and outgrew Bitfinex, which was once the biggest platform for trading BTC, so it asks the question – what went wrong?

Which cryptocurrencies are available?

There are more than 160 different cryptocurrencies available on Bitfinex, with 297 market pairings to choose from.

We’re not going to list all of these pairings, but we will say that since the platform is aimed at experienced BTC traders, you will find a lot of useful BTC pairings here. 

Some information about fees

Exchange Fees on Bitfinex are pretty fair, in fact, their taker fee is below the industry average of 0.25% and for a centralized exchange, a relatively low 0.1% maker fee is a good indicator of the platform’s liquidity.

Withdrawal Fee: BTC 0.0004

Taker Fee: 0.2%

Maker Fee: 0.1%

The good news is for regular traders who deal in big amounts, there are lucrative discounts to be had…

EXECUTED IN THE LAST 30 DAYS (USD EQUIVALENT)	MAKER FEES	TAKER FEES	TAKER DISCOUNT LEO HOLDERS
$0.00 or more traded	0.100%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$500,000.00 or more traded	0.080%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$1,000,000.00 or more traded	0.060%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$2,500,000.00 or more traded	0.040%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$5,000,000.00 or more traded	0.020%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$7,500,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.200%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$10,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.180%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$15,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.160%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$20,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.140%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$25,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.120%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$30,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.100%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$300,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.090%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$1,000,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.085%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$3,000,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.075%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$10,000,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.060%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)
$30,000,000,000.00 or more traded	0.000%	0.055%	up to -(25.000% + 6bps)

For those who are trading altcoins, here are some more withdrawal fees.

Currency	Bitfinex withdrawal fee
Bitcoin (BTC)	0.0004 BTC
Ethereum (ETH)	0.0009 ETH
Litecoin (LTC)	0.001 LTC
Monero (XMR)	0.0001 XMR
Dash (DASH)	0.01 DASH
Ripple (XRP)	0.02 XRP

The final say

Bitfinex has been established for a long time and has built a solid reputation as a reliable provider of crypto-trading services for investors and experienced traders, despite major hacks in 2015 and 2016 (after which they paid back all users). The platform can boast fantastic liquidity, especially for USD and BTC. Overall, the features make it very useful for some advanced users, but too complicated for some beginners.