How To Margin Trade Bitcoins at Bitfinex
At Bitfinex you can trade BTCUSD with 3.33x leverage. Through peer-to-peer funding services, users can borrow United States Dollars or Bitcoins and trade with them, just sign up and fund the account with some collateral.
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You can use USD or BTC as collateral for trading bitcoin on margin. Transfer the funds to your trading account and click on the ‘Margin Trading’ tab at the top.
If you think bitcoin price will go up, place a ‘Long’ or ‘Margin Buy’ order. This will borrow USD to buy bitcoins at the price you choose. To close your position, submit a ‘Margin Sell’ for however many bitcoins you bought.
If you think bitcoin price will go down, place a ‘Short’ or ‘Margin Sell’ order. This will borrow Bitcoins to sell for USD at the price you choose. To close your position, submit a ‘Margin Buy’ for however many bitcoins you sold.
When you close your trades the margin funding loans are settled first. P2P loans accrue interest daily, you can keep track of the fees on the right where it says ‘Unrealized Margin Funding Cost’. After your loan is paid you keep all the additional profits for your trade. If you have a losing trade, your losses will be taken from your account equity.
In addition to Bitcoins, Bitfinex offers trade markets for Litecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, Monero
Crypto Markets With Margin Trading & Funding Enabled:
- LTCUSD
- LTCBTC
- ETHBTC
- ETHUSD
- ETCBTC
- ETCUSD
- ZECUSD
- ZECBTC
What types of orders does Bitfinex support?
Limit Order: Buy or Sell at a specific price or better
Market Order: Buy or Sell immediately at best available price
Stop Order: Close your position once the market reached a specific price. This order type can be used to take profits or to prevent further losses if you are in an unfavorable position.
Trailing Stop Order: Close your trade once the market moves against you buy a specified amount.
Ex: Current market price is $250 after a quick rise from $225, you can set a trailing stop with a $5 price difference. If the market reaches $245 your position will be closed.
However, if the price continues to rise to $275, for example, instead of reversing to $245, the order would then be executed at $270. The stop price trails behind the market price by the amount specified as price difference.
Fill or Kill Order: A ‘Limit Order’ that must be 100% filled at a specific price or the order is killed (canceled).
One Cancels Other (OCO) Order: This option allows you to place a pair of orders stipulating that if one order is executed fully or partially, then the other order is automatically cancelled. A one-cancels-the-other order (OCO) combines a stop order with a limit order. This option allows you to place both take profit and stop loss targets for your position.
Ex: The current price is $250, I want a stop loss at $245, in addition I want a limit order at $260. If the market reaches $245 your stop order will execute thus canceling your order at $260. If the market reaches $260 before $245 your limit order will execute thus canceling out your order at $245.
Note: If you manually cancel one of the OCO orders pair, you have to manually cancel the other one. An OCO order is only automatically cancelled if the other order is partially or fully executed.
Hidden Order: This order does not appear in the orderbook and thus cannot influence other market participants.
Post-Only Limit Order: Post only limit orders are orders that ensure your order will be added to the order book and not match with a pre-existing order. If your order would cause a match with a pre-existing order, your post-only limit order will be canceled. This ensures that you will pay the maker fee and not the taker.