What's Stopping Someone From Buying From one Exchange, Selling in Another? - page 2.

PachucoBro

newbie

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Trading between exchanges is feasible if there is a big enough spread to overcome any fees(i.e. MtGOX charges 0.6% per transaction).

someone above mentioned LIQUIDITY... meaning there has to be enough people trading in volume to make it work. ABC exchange could be selling BTC @ $80 and you buy 10 BTC. XYZ Exchange is buying BTC @ $100, but they are buying quatities of 0.005 BTC. So you will be waiting a long time to try and sell those 10 BTC and meanwhile the price will begin to change.

The biggest hurdles right now is the ease of moving USD and BTC in and out of accounts and the unpredictable movement of the price... though it only seems to go UP at this point. It is scary to think WHEN is it going to CHANGE? Huh

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

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Quote from: dree12 on April 02, 2013, 09:35:45 PM

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:28:21 PM

Quote from: additionalpylons on April 02, 2013, 09:24:30 PM

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:13 PM

This might be a silly (read: newbish) question, but what's stopping someone from buying a few Bitcoins from BTC-E at 87.849 USD per BTC, and then selling them at MtGox for 118.2 USD per BTC to make a profit?

Nothing. And you got the prices totally wrong. It's about 87 EURO / 1 BTC on BTC-E. If there were such a huge difference, people would have exploited it already.

Are you sure? I'm currently seeing BTC/USD = 87.849.

https://i.imgur.com/Bmqd4AF.png

This image is from March 30. The current price is $119/BTC.

That's so odd. For me it's been quoting at lower prices (the same prices, maybe?) for the past few days. Perhaps some sort of caching bug or something...

dree12

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1077

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:28:21 PM

Quote from: additionalpylons on April 02, 2013, 09:24:30 PM

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:13 PM

This might be a silly (read: newbish) question, but what's stopping someone from buying a few Bitcoins from BTC-E at 87.849 USD per BTC, and then selling them at MtGox for 118.2 USD per BTC to make a profit?

Nothing. And you got the prices totally wrong. It's about 87 EURO / 1 BTC on BTC-E. If there were such a huge difference, people would have exploited it already.

Are you sure? I'm currently seeing BTC/USD = 87.849.

This image is from March 30. The current price is $119/BTC.

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Of course just as I post this, BTC-E suddenly reflects MtGox. What the heck?

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Quote from: niko on April 02, 2013, 09:30:00 PM

Good question. What you are thinking of is called arbitrage. It is mostly done by robots. It may involve multi-currency juggling as well (eur-usd-btc, for example).

Obviously, to do this you need at least
- markets with high enough liquidity
- ways of moving fiat between exchanges (and exchanging it in banks in case of mukti-currency arbitrage)
- price differences higher than the total fees you pay
- technical ability to write and maintain arbitrage robots

Ahhh, I could see why this sort of thing would be automated. Thanks for the informative reply!

niko

hero member

Activity: 756

Merit: 501

There is more to Bitcoin than bitcoins.

Good question. What you are thinking of is called arbitrage. It is mostly done by robots. It may involve multi-currency juggling as well (eur-usd-btc, for example).

Obviously, to do this you need at least
- markets with high enough liquidity
- ways of moving fiat between exchanges (and exchanging it in banks in case of mukti-currency arbitrage)
- price differences higher than the total fees you pay
- technical ability to write and maintain arbitrage robots

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Quote from: simonk83 on April 02, 2013, 09:25:55 PM

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:24:05 PM

Quote from: simonk83 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:48 PM

Good luck getting USD in and out of BTC-E. It's almost impossible.

Can you elaborate please?

Well the idea is sound, as the BTC price on BTC-E is always much lower than Gox, however I had some USD at Gox and wanted to get it over to BTC-E, but just couldn't find a reasonable way to do it. Bitinstant would seem to be the way to go, but they've mysteriously stopped offering BTC-E as a deposit option and seem to refuse to want to explain why.

If you have a way to do it that doesn't gobble up too much in fees, I'm all ears.

Yeah the fees are really what's making me skeptical here. I was wondering what other users think, and if anybody has a more technical reason than "it just doesn't seem like it should work"

.

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Quote from: additionalpylons on April 02, 2013, 09:24:30 PM

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:13 PM

This might be a silly (read: newbish) question, but what's stopping someone from buying a few Bitcoins from BTC-E at 87.849 USD per BTC, and then selling them at MtGox for 118.2 USD per BTC to make a profit?

Nothing. And you got the prices totally wrong. It's about 87 EURO / 1 BTC on BTC-E. If there were such a huge difference, people would have exploited it already.

Are you sure? I'm currently seeing BTC/USD = 87.849.

https://i.imgur.com/Bmqd4AF.png

simonk83

hero member

Activity: 798

Merit: 1000

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:24:05 PM

Quote from: simonk83 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:48 PM

Good luck getting USD in and out of BTC-E. It's almost impossible.

Can you elaborate please?

Well the idea is sound, as the BTC price on BTC-E is always much lower than Gox, however I had some USD at Gox and wanted to get it over to BTC-E, but just couldn't find a reasonable way to do it. Bitinstant would seem to be the way to go, but they've mysteriously stopped offering BTC-E as a deposit option and seem to refuse to want to explain why.

If you have a way to do it that doesn't gobble up too much in fees, I'm all ears.

additionalpylons

newbie

Activity: 9

Merit: 0

Quote from: eric7 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:13 PM

This might be a silly (read: newbish) question, but what's stopping someone from buying a few Bitcoins from BTC-E at 87.849 USD per BTC, and then selling them at MtGox for 118.2 USD per BTC to make a profit?

Nothing. And you got the prices totally wrong. It's about 87 EURO / 1 BTC on BTC-E. If there were such a huge difference, people would have exploited it already.

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Quote from: simonk83 on April 02, 2013, 09:22:48 PM

Good luck getting USD in and out of BTC-E. It's almost impossible.

Can you elaborate please?

simonk83

hero member

Activity: 798

Merit: 1000

Good luck getting USD in and out of BTC-E. It's almost impossible.

eric7

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

This might be a silly (read: newbish) question, but what's stopping someone from buying a few Bitcoins from BTC-E at 87.849 USD per BTC, and then selling them at MtGox for 118.2 USD per BTC to make a profit?

Topic: What's Stopping Someone From Buying From one Exchange, Selling in Another? - page 2. (Read 3482 times)