Introducing a new default pricing equation

At the time of the Bitfinex hack last Tuesday the default price equation in use for LocalBitcoins advertisements was taking pricing data from Bitfinex. When trading was stopped on Bitfinex, advertisements using the default price equation on LocalBitcoins stopped working. We have since disabled all advertisements that use Bitfinex in the price equation to make sure there are no advertisements active with the wrong price.

A new default

To replace the old default price equation, bitfinexusd, we introduced a new pricing source called btc_in_usd. Instead of relying on pricing information from one source, this equation takes pricing information from 7 different sources and calculates a median price which is used. This makes it much more resiliant for situations where the price source gives incorrect, erroneous data or stops working entirely.

Many of you rely on the default price equation with your advertisements, with this new change we want to make sure it's as reliable as possible.

Data sources

The btc_in_usd price source takes data from the following sources, and calculates a median price.

- Bitcoinaverage USD
- Bitstamp USD
- itBit USD
- Kraken USD
- BitPay USD
- OKCoin USD
- GDAX USD

Pricing equations can be a powerful tool for managing the price of your advertisements. To get the most out of them, you can have a look at our pricing guide which explains in detail how they work.