Bitfinex Exchange: History, Features, and Team

One of the earliest cryptocurrency trading platforms, Bitfinex was launched in 2012. It is generally agreed that Rafael Nicole was the company’s creator. The Chief Executive Officer of the company is Jean-Louis van der Velde, while the Chief Financial Officer is Giancarlo Devasini, who was also a co-founder of Tether Holdings Limited. The Bitfinex website provides traders and liquidity providers with access to a wide range of services, including as a peer-to-peer loan facility and programmable trading tools, amongst others.

The Creation of Service

iFinex Inc. owns Bitfinex as a wholly owned subsidiary. The British Virgin Islands serve as the location of the company’s registration, but Hong Kong is home to its headquarters. In 2018, Bitfinex and iFinex had the intention of relocating to the city of Zug located in Switzerland.

It is generally agreed that Rafael Nicole was the company’s creator. On the internet, there is very little information about him that can be found. Previously, he showed his support for the endeavors of the individual who is now known as Pirate@40 and who established the Bitcoin Saves & Trust savings fund. At the tail end of 2014, he was taken into custody for his involvement in a scam involving the very first cryptocurrency. According to a post made on the Bitcointalk forum, Nicole had the intention of developing a financial system that would ensure a weekly deposit rate of 2%.

Jean-Louis van der Velde is listed as the company’s chief executive officer on the official page of Bitfinex.com, whilst Giancarlo Devasini is listed as the company’s chief financial officer. This latter individual was educated in medicine at the University of Milan, where he attended after being born in Italy.

Devazini was involved in the business of buying and selling computer hardware for a long period. In 2012, he offered DVDs for sale on Bitcointalk for 0.001 BTC, with free shipping offered for orders of a certain quantity. In 2013, he became a member of the Bitfinex team.

Jean-Louis van der Velde became a member of the Bitfinex team the same year. He was born in the Netherlands and received his education at the National Taiwan Normal University. He has been employed in the field of technology for more than three decades. Before leaving the company in 2018, Phillip Potter served as the Chief Strategic Planner at Bitfinex.

Bitfinex Attack in 2016

As soon as the incident took place, the team at Bitfinex announced the availability of a reward of up to $3.6 million for information leading to the recovery of stolen digital assets. Not until 2022 would police in the United States apprehend individuals responsible for the hacking of the exchange. It turned out that Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were married to each other. They were located as a result of the shutdown of the underground market known as AlphaBay.

According to representatives of the United States Department of Justice, this is the greatest seizure of digital assets in the history of the department. The amount involved is 94,636 BTC, which is equivalent to $3.6 billion. Should they be proven guilty, the couple may spend as much as 25 years behind bars. Morgan was freed from jail in February after posting a bail of $3 million. Liechtenstein was left in jail.

The trading site aims to repay the bitcoin that was removed, and will cooperate with the authorities in the United States. If digital assets are sold on the stock exchange, the corporation has an obligation to spend eighty percent of the money it receives on buying back and destroying LEO tokens within eighteen months of the sale.

Why Use Bitfinex?

Bitfinex is currently rated ninth by CoinMarketCap in terms of the volume of trades it processes as of July 2022.

In the year 2020, Bitfinex completed a transaction that was one of the largest in the entire history of bitcoin. The total value of the transaction was 161,500 BTC, which is equivalent to approximately $1.1 billion. The charge was 0.00010019 BTC, which is equivalent to $0.68 USD. The exchange has a daily trade volume of approximately $279 million on average.

The platform is compatible with approximately 70 distinct digital assets in addition to four different fiat currencies, which are the Japanese yen, the euro, the United States dollar, and the pound sterling.