Topic: A Warning for Newbies looking for Arbitrage Opportunities on Crypto Exchanges (Read 138 times)

Yesterday, I watched a video explaining how to make easy trades for profits. The secret was using a site called CoinCheckUp.com, which is exactly like CoinMarketCap.com, except with more features and it seems to be updated more frequently.

On the CoinCheckUp.com site, under the "analysis" tab, there's a tool called "Arbitrage Opportunities". I decided to take advantage of this tool, or so I thought...

Most of my funds were on KuCoin so it was great when I found an arbitrage opportunity to buy BitClave (CAT) on KuCoin and sell it on HitBTC. With only around 3k CAT, I could make a profit of around 0.05 ETH. Without thinking and seeing the price difference from one exchange to the other, I bought 21k worth of CAT as soon as possible on KuCoin.

CAT only had about 1.5 BTC worth of volume on KuCoin. Like the idiot I am, I immediately bought the 21k CAT for 0.0000447 ETH. This was a huge mistake. I could have bought it for 0.0000337 ETH because the volume was so low and there was such a difference between the last price and asking price.

After I bought the CAT, I was ready to deposit the coin into HitBTC and sell it as soon as possible for 0.00006271 ETH. It looked completely normal and ready for a deposit. If there was a problem with deposits, then I would have thought there would be a warning sign next to the name of the coin.

However, after clicking the deposit button, it now shows they aren't accepting deposits. This explains why HitBTC has been given the name, "ShitBTC". I should have obviously clicked the deposit button first to make sure I could deposit the CAT. However, HitBTC is always having deposits disabled for many currencies.

So, Here's what I've learned...

1) Always check for deposits and withdraws are open
2) Always check the withdraw and deposit fees
3) Always check the volume of the coin on the exchanges
4) Don't sell your coin at a loss
5) Always check to see if the coin is the actual coin. For instance, the coin came up as CatCoin on the site, but it was actually BitClave.

There is a bit of a happy ending. Bibox has over 55 BTC worth of volume and I do like that exchange. I decided to deposit my CAT there because the volume is much higher than KuCoin. I converted the amount I bought the CAT in ETH to BTC. I've already sold over 10K of my CAT for a couple satoshi profit. I now have to keep my fingers crossed to sell the other 10k and then transfer the BTC back to KuCoin.

I hope these tips save some people from the troubles I went through. Day trading and arbitrage opportunities can be profitable, but you need ensure all the components are ready to go BEFORE you make the trade.