Rating report
Bitfinex
Grade D, 1.7 out of 5
Bitfinex is BVI-registered with no public licence register found and publishes no proof of reserves; it lost about 119,756 BTC in the August 2016 hack, and roughly $850m in commingled customer and corporate funds was seized or lost at its payment processor in 2018–19.
By Safety Desk. Facts checked against official sources on .
Findings, check by check
Every KripZen grade comes from the same five weighted checks. Here is how Bitfinex scores on each.
Proof of reserves 30%
No proof-of-reserves programme was found; both of our sources record none, and neither identified an independent reserve attestation of any kind.
What “Proof of reserves” meansNot disclosed
Custody 25%
Cold/hot storage split is not disclosed; we could not confirm it from a primary source.
What “Custody” meansPartial or unaudited
Regulation 20%
No public licence register was found beyond its British Virgin Islands incorporation, and it blocks U.S. and California residents outright. Settled with the CFTC for $75,000 in 2016 and $1.5m in October 2021, and with the New York Attorney General for $18.5m in February 2021 alongside affiliate Tether.
What “Regulation” meansNot disclosed
Insurance 15%
No named insurance fund was identified in our research. That is a disclosure gap rather than confirmation the cover is zero.
Partial or unaudited
Incident history 10%
About 119,756 BTC (roughly $72m at the time) stolen in August 2016, with U.S. authorities recovering $3.6bn from the perpetrators in 2022; separately, roughly $850m in commingled customer and corporate funds was seized or lost at payment processor Crypto Capital in 2018–19 and made good from affiliate Tether's balance sheet.
Not disclosed
The weights are the same for every exchange. Read the full methodology
Fees, products and reach
- Spot fees (base tier)
- 0% maker, 0% takerFees page: spot base tier maker 'Zero', taker 'Zero' ('Zero Trading Fees. Maker and Taker Fees 0%')
- Proof of reserves
- Not found
- Products
- Spot, Futures, Staking, Card purchases
- Not offered under its own terms in
- United States, Canada, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria
Base-tier fees from the exchange’s own fee page. Your real cost depends on order type, volume tier and spread; try your numbers in the Exchange Fee Calculator
Our Bitfinex review
Bitfinex is the lowest grade we publish, a D, and it is the only exchange here that fails both proof of reserves and regulation outright. Those two factors are the ones that answer whether your money is where it is supposed to be, and who you can complain to if it is not.
What checks out
Very little that a reader can verify. Both of our sources record no proof-of-reserves programme, and neither identified an independent reserve attestation of any kind. Beyond a British Virgin Islands incorporation, we found no public licence register entry at all, and Bitfinex blocks U.S. and California residents outright. No named insurance fund was identified; as with the other undisclosed items in this corpus, that is a gap in what we can see rather than confirmation the cover is zero.
Where the evidence stops
The incident record is the heaviest in this corpus. About 119,756 BTC — roughly $72m at the time — was stolen in August 2016; U.S. authorities recovered $3.6bn from the perpetrators in 2022, long after the loss was socialised. Separately, roughly $850m in commingled customer and corporate funds was seized or lost at payment processor Crypto Capital in 2018–19 and made good from the balance sheet of affiliate Tether. The regulatory file carries CFTC settlements of $75,000 in 2016 and $1.5m in October 2021, and an $18.5m settlement with the New York Attorney General in February 2021, alongside Tether.
How to read the grade
A D is not a prediction that Bitfinex will fail. It is a statement that if it did, almost nothing published in advance would have told you, and there is no licensed entity standing behind the balance. Everything you would use to check this venue is missing, and that is the finding.
Incidents on record
2019
Bitfinex / Crypto Capital
Fraud, 2018–2019. ~$850M in commingled customer and corporate funds (publicly reported estimate)
Across 2018 and 2019 Bitfinex had roughly $850 million of commingled customer and corporate money sitting with its payment processor, Crypto Capital Corp, whose accounts were seized by authorities in several countries. Affiliated stablecoin issuer Tether's reserves covered the gap; both firms settled with the New York Attorney General for $18.5 million in February 2021 without admitting wrongdoing.
The lesson: The crypto never moved — the fiat leg did. Ask which outside company actually holds the cash side of an exchange's balance sheet, because that firm's legal problems become yours.
2016
Bitfinex
Hack, August 2016. ~120,000 BTC stolen (publicly reported estimate)
A security breach in Bitfinex's multi-signature wallet setup let attackers drain a large share of customer bitcoin in a single incident. The exchange spread the loss across all users' balances and later repaid affected customers over several years.
The lesson: Even a widely used, multi-signature custody setup is only as strong as the systems and partners it depends on — 'multi-sig' alone isn't a safety guarantee.
Dates and figures are widely reported public estimates from coverage at the time, not KripZen's own audited data.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from one of these official pages, checked on October 20, 2026.
Where to go next
Other exchanges we've graded
How to read these grades: each is derived from published, checkable disclosures — proof-of-reserves attestations, public regulatory registers, disclosed insurance funds and the documented incident record — using the weighted rubric below. Where an exchange does not disclose something, we mark it unverified rather than assume it. These are not audits and not investment advice; they reflect what was published as of our last review. Cryptocurrency investments carry risk, including loss of principal. Nothing on KripZen is financial advice — always do your own research before buying, trading or moving funds.