Bitfinex is a professional-grade crypto exchange owned by iFinex Inc. It is known for three things: its peer-to-peer margin funding market, its ties to Tether, and the 2016 hack in which 119,756 BTC was stolen and customers were later repaid through debt tokens. The company is registered in the British Virgin Islands, regulated in El Salvador and closed to US residents. A 2023 Wall Street Journal report put Giancarlo Devasini's stake in the shared group at about 43%, with CEO JL van der Velde and general counsel Stuart Hoegner at about 15% each. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong.
Bitfinex earns money from the services around trading rather than from trades themselves. On 17 December 2025 it set maker and taker fees to zero on spot, margin, perpetual derivatives, Bitfinex Securities and OTC trading. What stayed in place is the peer-to-peer margin funding market, where users lend USD, USDT, BTC and other assets to leveraged traders and Bitfinex keeps 15% of the interest lenders earn, along with derivatives funding, deposit and withdrawal fees and issuance work on Bitfinex Securities. Paolo Ardoino said the exchange could absorb the change because it had been profitable for many years. Its parent, iFinex, is also bound by the UNUS SED LEO white paper to buy back and burn LEO tokens equal to at least 27% of its consolidated gross revenues.