Topic: gox-stamp differential (Read 1909 times)

Yes there are individual bots that control large amounts of btc on mtgox.

There are also times when all bots using the same algorithm act on the same signal and make the same trade at the same time so it only appears as an individual actor.

bots?

I see some very large individual sell orders to have triggered MtGox's Untergang.

Still not as large as the sell orders it has required to smack Bitstamp down a bit though.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I remember reading a post from 2012 saying that Mt. Gox would be non-existent within two years. Yay?

Admittedly, the moment Mt. Gox had issues with liquidity I had a feeling that things would keep getting worse and it looks like it's still heading in that direction.

Yes bizarrely Gox down to 5% spread.

I think gox got dumped due to weekly MACD downcross. Now that neither fiat nor btc can exit, it's just bots setting the price by playing technicals.

Wow, Gox 825 today, gap of less than 50, are we seeing something that indicates arbitrage is somehow easier on gox the last few days???

The gox-stamp differential has decreased significantly. It is now about 110 or so.

I think the explanation offered here:
http://www.forexnews.com/blog/2014/02/05/bitcoin-exchanges-spread-narrows-120-points/
"It remains to be seen if this is an indication of MtGox getting its withdrawal problems under control or if it’s just variance."

is incorrect. The more likely explanation is that Gox withdrawal problems, which were at one point limited to fiat, have now encompassed bitcoin. If you can't get fiat OR bitcoin out of gox, then ... well shit I guess it doesn't matter a hill of beans what the price is on Gox ...

And this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. Unless a miracle investor comes along, mtgox will have some sort of "bad news" event in 2014.

It hit 20% last year. Now, though, Gox really does seem to be running out of money. First they stopped paying out USD last summer. Then they started stalling on EUR withdrawals. Now they're even stalling on JPY withdrawals.

Hmmm...

MtGox 947
Stamp 810

Gox is 17% above Stamp!

This is the highest I've ever seen and I check the prices daily!

Bitstamp is #1 cash out exchange. Bitstamp actually pays out cos they actually have investors money sitting at hand in their accounts to do so. Bitstamp cash out takes 1-2 days to process, which if they actually have the money, is all that it should take.

Thus price on Bitstamp has been most suppressed as smart money moves to cash out. However, price has been getting artificially held up, to allow enough Bid pressure to build up to absorb bumper cash outs. At 10.21  GMT, 800 BTC were dumped within 1 minutes of trading, at a price range of between $810 and $814 (this is fucking mental btw, but makes all the artificial price holding up suddenly make sense). The next 50p worth of Bitcoin took the price down to $801!

This is my concern, but I hope it is other forces at work. I have some fiat on gox and am hoping that the price differential will drop so that I can transfer the fiat back to my bank account via coinbase. I'm thinking if it gets below 5% I'll do it. 

The price has remained relatively constant over the time period in question.

Cheaper btc prices will attract fiat to bitstamp over other exchanges.

Coinbase has to dump their extra coins somewhere (stamp) when they get too many flooding in over what they have sold themselves

remember back when coinbase had those buying freezes when they didn't have any more coins and they would only sell if you took a chance at the price in 3-4 days?
They haven't had any shortage of coins anymore.. and the only delays are the AML law limits not coins (they lock in price but delay delivery on large purchase, and very low instant buys)

I've been studying coinbase as much as any outsider can since last spring and it is pretty evident now that they are THE market makers now.
They can actually trade at a small loss on stamp if they have to since they make up a substantial arb on their fees vs stamp's fees and their spreads vs stamp spreads.

they are ripe to get crowded out of this little lucrative racket soon...but I do not think the price of btc can sustain any spikes upwards. If someone wants to compete with coinbase, they will just settle into the same range and pattern coinbase established and look to undercut them on fees.  There is no reason to try to raise the floor while there are still liquid exchanges out there, it would be a failed unsustained pump.  If you had enough coins to try to slam the price, coinbase is big enough now to call the bluff, absorb short term losses and grab cheap coins.

And remember coinbase makes their money on fees, so they just want to promote more velocity with the merchants & customers using their payment process.
Ironically, the only fear coinbase has is if the same merchants and customers begin to feel safe with the very stable price coinbase is providing and avoid coinbase and deal directly.
If that happens to any large extent we go back to the wild volatility since coinbase steps away during major volume spikes and throws up $30 spreads during those storms.

The question would be, could there be enough frequent storms of volatility to break coinbase?




 

I just hope bitstamp won't become illiquid if this continues for weeks/months. They may run out of money to back up volumes if Gox refugees and Chinamen keep cashing out there.  

This happened late April/May already.

There is a simple explanation: Stamp is liquid. It's the easier one of the lot if you want to get fiat out faster.
Gox wait times go much much worse when the herd heads for the door.
So I speculate that a part of the herd is heading for the door, choosing the fast lane*, which is Stamp. Hence the differential you see.

* That doesn't imply certainty of a short term drop. There are other forces at play.

How come BTC-e has been 10-15 USD higher than Bitstamp the past couple of days? Usually it is the other way around. Are the Gox manipulators now on BTC-e?

yes it has increased somewhat. but please stop looking at this difference in absolute terms. changes are only relevant in percentage terms as the price varies.

This is actually pretty worrying, Maybe it is because people are reporting that even local (Japanese) withdrawals in yen are in limbo lately.