In order to help our customers empower themselves as traders, we've created a page to document some of the common inquiries customers may have while trading on Poloniex.
Lending Rates are too high
The Poloniex margin and lending platforms are peer to peer networks, allowing customers to lend coins for other customers to use when margin trading. Lending rates are determined by what the lenders are willing to loan their funds at. Once offered, they are matched with borrowers who have set the same desired interest rate on said funds.
If a borrower does not like the current rates offered by the lenders, their margin order will remain in a trigger state, awaiting their desired interest rate to be met by a corresponding lending rate. Poloniex does not set, nor does Poloniex regulate these rates, they are all decided by our customers.
My order did not execute
Orders execute based on price parameters and order book liquidity. If you create a taker order and there is insufficient liquidity within the order books to fully fill it, the remainder will be placed into an open order. An open order remains open until the order parameters (price and amount) have been met. This means the order will not execute unless there is a corresponding order with the same parameters to fulfill it. If coins are tied in an open order, the coins are locked and cannot be used for another order. In this situation, you have the ability to cancel an open order.
What is a settlement trade?
A settlement trade is a margin trade that is made on your behalf. The revenue generated from settlement trades are used to repay outstanding debts through the lifetime of the position, or during the closure of a position. Common settlement trades include loan interest repayment to lenders.
My collateral was sold even though my position was profitable
While a position may appear profitable according to the estimated profit and loss readout (P/L), these profits are only estimated and are only realized upon the closure of your position and closing costs. This means that if you do not hold the correct currency to repay your lenders, your collateral will be sold in a settlement trade and the revenue will be used to repay the lenders.
For example, if you shorted ETH (you borrow ETH from a lender to sell) and you only hold STR in your collateral account. The STR will be sold in a settlement trade and the revenue generated would be used to purchase the ETH in order to repay the lender.
This does not mean that your overall margin account value has decreased (minus trade fees from the settlement trade). The overall value of your margin account will remain the same. In the example above it should be noted that this particular instance would reference a break-even trade, the position is not profitable, nor negative.
My loan expired early - why didn’t it fulfill the full duration?
As a lender you can earn passive interest by lending coins to margin traders. You will set a daily interest rate, an amount to lend and a duration for the loan spanning between 2-60 days.
Once the duration has been set a lender cannot cancel the loan. However, a loan may be returned early if a borrower decides to close their position. While the lender cannot cancel an active loan, a borrower can when the close/partially close a position as they will no longer require the borrowed funds. When this happens, the principal and any interest gained during the duration of the loan will be returned to the lender. While the interest rate is a daily interest rate, the interest actually accumulates every few minutes, so a loan that is returned early will still earn interest.
The price at another exchange is different from Poloniex