Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute investment, financial, or legal advice. All figures cited about third-party services are based on publicly available information at the time of writing and may change — always check the provider’s official site. Crypto lending involves market, counterparty, and technical risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. You are responsible for your own decisions.
If you automate Bitfinex margin funding (lending), there is a cost most people never add up: the percentage commission your bot takes on every cent of interest you earn.
It looks small on a screenshot. Over a year, on a real position, it is not.
How most lending bots charge you
The popular Bitfinex lending bots — Coinlend being the best known — run on a percentage-of-interest model. Coinlend, for example, is widely reported to charge around a 5% commission on the interest you earn, on top of a small subscription fee (always check the provider’s official site for current pricing).
A 5% cut sounds modest. The problem is what it scales with: your earnings. The more you lend and the better the market does, the more the bot takes — automatically, every week, forever.
Why a percentage fee quietly punishes larger lenders
Here is the same bot, the same 5% rate, across different position sizes (assuming roughly 12% annualized interest):
| Your position | Interest earned / year | 5% commission / year |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | ~$1,200 | ~$60 |
| $50,000 | ~$6,000 | ~$300 |
| $200,000 | ~$24,000 | ~$1,200 |
| $500,000 | ~$60,000 | ~$3,000 |
At $10k the cut is trivial. At $200k it is over a thousand dollars a year — and it keeps climbing with your balance, even though the bot is doing exactly the same work.
The flat-fee model: keep 100% of your interest
We built FuNi on the opposite idea. You pay a flat subscription — and we never take a cut of your interest. Our VIP plan is a fixed $394 per year, no matter how much you lend or earn.
Put the two side by side on a $200,000 position:
| Percentage model (5% of interest) | FuNi (flat fee) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost on $24,000 interest | ~$1,200 / year | $394 / year |
| Cost if your balance doubles | ~$2,400 / year | still $394 / year |
| You keep | 95% of interest | 100% of interest |
The bigger your position, the more decisive the difference. For larger lenders, a flat fee is simply the rational choice.
Non-custodial: your funds never leave your account
Just as important as what a tool charges is what it can touch. FuNi is non-custodial. We never hold your money. The bot only places lending offers through your own Bitfinex API key — and that key can be restricted to funding only, with no withdrawal or transfer permission. Your assets stay in your own Bitfinex account at all times; we literally cannot move them.
This is a structural safety property, not a promise. If the API key has no withdrawal right, there is no path for your funds to leave your account through us.
What you actually get for the subscription
A flat fee does not mean a thinner product. FuNi runs the APEX III prediction engine, which reads the funding market and chooses the best offer rate and lock-up term for you automatically — locking longer when rates are high, staying short when they dip, so you are not watching the order book all day. Across a multi-year backtest (2019–2026) the approach annualized roughly 8%–16%, averaging about 11%. (Past performance does not guarantee future results, and lending carries risk.)
You also get high-frequency scanning (down to 30-second bursts on VIP when the market moves), automatic order placement and cancellation, Telegram notifications, and auto-compounding — for a price that does not grow with your success.
Who can use it
FuNi runs on top of Bitfinex, so anyone with a Bitfinex account that can use margin funding can use FuNi. Because of that, residents of jurisdictions Bitfinex does not serve — including the United States — cannot use it.
Try it before you pay
Every plan includes a up to 21-day free trial with the full engine enabled — no credit card required. The bot auto-stops when the trial ends, so there is nothing to cancel if it is not for you.
If you lend on Bitfinex and a percentage of your interest is quietly leaving every week, it is worth doing the math on a flat fee.
FuNi is an independent third-party tool and is not affiliated with Bitfinex. Figures about other services reflect publicly available information at the time of writing.