Bitfinex is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Information coming from Bitfinex can be an indicator of the overall mood or rate of the cryptocurrency market due to the sheer volume of trading that occurs on the exchange.
Bitfinex is reporting that bets against Bitcoin have doubled since the beginning of August. This isn’t exactly shocking news considering the market has been in a bear cycle for a while.
Furthermore, since the announcement of a decision on the approval of an exchange traded fund or ETF by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission was postponed, the market experienced an even sharper decline. This rise in bets against Bitcoin could have been expected anyone who has been closely following the market.
According to Kasper Rasmussen, head of marketing at Bitfinex, short sales are initiated from its peer to peer funding and lending market with borrowed funds. However, clients are not permitted to borrow more than 70% of the bitcoins sold in a short sale.
“In a typical ‘long sale’ of bitcoin, the seller enters into a regular spot trade of bitcoin and settles the transaction by delivering bitcoin that she owns outright. In a ‘short sale’ of bitcoin, the seller also enters into a regular spot sale of bitcoin except that the transaction is settled by delivering bitcoin that she has borrowed,” Bitfinex said via its website.
Peer to peer funding and lending processes and infrastructures being implemented will help the growth of cryptocurrency adoption while simultaneously encouraging a more stable market.
By introducing such processes on its platform, Bitfinex is hoping to secure the autonomous and self contained economy by keeping funds circulating in the cryptocurrency markets and not bleeding back into the fiat markets.
