Why is China so much more expensive?

n2004al

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Quote from: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 07:47:09 AM

Yesterday China was trading for 2080ish ($330 or €300) while European and American exchanges traded for $317 and €287 respectively.

Usually when there are big differences between exchanges, arbitrage will cause them to move towards each other in price. (I'm going to ignore Russia here because Russia has obvious reasons to lag behind).

Now the European and American exchanges haven't really moved much today but China actually went up to 2123 ($336 or €305.5)

Why is China so much more expensive? Are we just slow to respond? Does China have good reasons to be more expensive?

Depending on how hard it is to trade in Chinese accounts it seems like free money, buy Bitcoin in an European or American exchange, move the Bitcoin to a Chinese exchange, sell it for CNY, sell the CNY for dollars/euros, buy Bitcoin for those, rinse and repeat.

This might be harder than it sounds.

The only reasonable answer it will be because there are to much demand. Chineses want to have bitcoin and bitcoin is seeing a good situation there. This demand cannot be satisfied by the supply. The Chinese miners have not enough bitcoin to satisfy the need of the market for those. The others who have bitcoins don't prefer to sell. So the price go higher and is higher even than in the other exchanges. This can happen even maybe the Chinese exchanges are not connected to much with the other important world exchanges. This cannot allow "the game" between various exchangers (buy at the exchange where and when the price is low and sell at the Chinese one where the price is high). At least this is my explanation.

traderbit

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China is expensive because of the lots of orders.
I think that there aren't much enough time to convert to usd/eur.
So the price continues to rise only in the CNY currency.

NorrisK

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Quote from: zimmah on November 02, 2015, 05:32:58 PM

Quote from: ./Quetra on November 02, 2015, 03:33:04 PM

Quote from: gentlemand on October 30, 2015, 08:31:00 AM

Gox prices were higher because you couldn't get money out. I still haven't seen a comprehensive answer as to how easy it is to cny in and out of their exchanges. Maybe that's a factor? It's also pretty much a separate market. A foreigner can run in and out with coins, local currency might take forever.

It takes 6 hours to convert BTC to RMB max lol

yes but how long to get those RMB into dollars and those dollars into american exchanges?

That's the difficult part indeed and most likely the reason for the massive price difference.

No arbitrage possible. Chinese on a massive buying spree, but without dollars, they are unable to buy from western exchanges, making it very difficult for them to buy cheap.

zimmah

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Quote from: ./Quetra on November 02, 2015, 03:33:04 PM

Quote from: gentlemand on October 30, 2015, 08:31:00 AM

Gox prices were higher because you couldn't get money out. I still haven't seen a comprehensive answer as to how easy it is to cny in and out of their exchanges. Maybe that's a factor? It's also pretty much a separate market. A foreigner can run in and out with coins, local currency might take forever.

It takes 6 hours to convert BTC to RMB max lol

yes but how long to get those RMB into dollars and those dollars into american exchanges?

./Quetra

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Quote from: gentlemand on October 30, 2015, 08:31:00 AM

Gox prices were higher because you couldn't get money out. I still haven't seen a comprehensive answer as to how easy it is to cny in and out of their exchanges. Maybe that's a factor? It's also pretty much a separate market. A foreigner can run in and out with coins, local currency might take forever.

It takes 6 hours to convert BTC to RMB max lol

Amph

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Quote from: mcplums on November 02, 2015, 07:47:34 AM

Could someone please explain how manipulating exchange volume affects the price on that exchange? Seems like the two are unrelated to me.

dunno but i guess, they could incite, more people to try that exchange, or remove some from other big volume exchange

this can cause a highest spike for a short time

Pierre 2

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I guess they attacked bitcoin so hard to save themselves from value loss of Yuan.
Also they were always the most interested group in bitcoin scene.

mcplums

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Could someone please explain how manipulating exchange volume affects the price on that exchange? Seems like the two are unrelated to me.

mixan

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Quote from: mtnsaa on October 30, 2015, 09:19:37 AM

I think on top of China government control there must be cheap electricity there because of how many farms are located in China. It's not only China that adopted Bitcoin but markets like Argentina, Brazil, Russia and others are keen to Bitcoin because their own currency is very prone to devaluation.

This is a very important thing to know if you are exchanging with those countries on the markets.
I would imagine they would sell for less since their local currency is so devaluated. So more of a profit for American and European traders. Knowing this I am more interested in getting into the exchange district.

Luqman

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bct-user

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Quote from: CoinNation on October 31, 2015, 05:23:34 PM

Quote from: bct-user on October 31, 2015, 03:56:14 PM

compared huobi with coinbase volume, it's really big different, at huobi there are over 810000BTC coinbase is only 14385BTC.
china is the one of the country who feared by superpower country.

The transaction fee in Chinese exchanges is 0%. You can buy or sell to your own order without paying a fee. So the volume is high.

AFAIK coinbase recently use zero fees, or am i wrong Huh

well the trade activity is more crowded in huobi exchange. i think china will be a first leader bitcoin country, especially if they have bitcoin regulate.

CoinNation

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Quote from: bct-user on October 31, 2015, 03:56:14 PM

compared huobi with coinbase volume, it's really big different, at huobi there are over 810000BTC coinbase is only 14385BTC.
china is the one of the country who feared by superpower country.

The transaction fee in Chinese exchanges is 0%. You can buy or sell to your own order without paying a fee. So the volume is high.

bct-user

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compared huobi with coinbase volume, it's really big different, at huobi there are over 810000BTC coinbase is only 14385BTC.
china is the one of the country who feared by superpower country.

uki

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Quote from: dothebeats on October 31, 2015, 12:23:11 PM

The capital controls issue in China plays a significant role in this rise. Also, they have free trade fees so I guess that is another reason why they lead in the run and leave Western exchanges behind.

here is the article that presents a bit different point of view from yours:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/chinese-exchanges-agree-bitcoin-price-has-nothing-to-do-with-capital-controls-1446233197
I tend to think, it is a test play of Chinese whales before a bigger (the?) one coming closer to the halving event.

dothebeats

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The capital controls issue in China plays a significant role in this rise. Also, they have free trade fees so I guess that is another reason why they lead in the run and leave Western exchanges behind.

jeffthebaker

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Huobi has no trading fee, allowing people to trade as much as they want, often times buying/selling to themselves to pump up volume and force a price manipulation. It's simply a minor discrepancy in price due to the lack of fees over in China. Also, one could argue that the $300 ceiling didn't exist in China, since they don't look at USD, which allowed them to cross over it easier.

CIYAM

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Quote from: CoinNation on October 31, 2015, 12:13:41 PM

Those volumes are unbelievable. If the Chinese exchanges charge 0.2% trading fee, the exchanges will be very rich.

Basically the volumes should be ignored - they can be faked even if trading fees apply because if the exchange owns the accounts then the trading fees simply go back to the exchange.

Exchanges don't let you inquire about the balances of accounts - so they could create their own accounts and simply credit them back the fees to equal zero fees anyway (the Chinese approach is actually more *honest* as you directly know that the volume can't be trusted).

CoinNation

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Quote from: Amph on October 31, 2015, 07:41:01 AM

i also think because there are fake volume and everything is manipulated in their exchange, to encourage maybe foreigners to use their exchange more

Those volumes are unbelievable. If the Chinese exchanges charge 0.2% trading fee, the exchanges will be very rich.

CIYAM

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Ian Knowles - CIYAM Lead Developer

Quote from: Amph on October 31, 2015, 07:41:01 AM

since there are still restriction for chinese there, for taking out money

Huh?

The restrictions were for putting money *in* (since the 2013 boom until recently that has been very hard to do) and those are the ones that have (at least for now) disappeared (there was never any restrictions on taking funds out).

Don't confuse the currency controls that are put in place for Chinese moving funds overseas with those of Bitcoin exchanges.

TastyChillySauce00

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Quote from: Amph on October 31, 2015, 07:41:01 AM

Quote from: DrPaid on October 30, 2015, 02:07:03 PM

Quote from: arbitrage001 on October 30, 2015, 01:34:32 PM

Quote from: CIYAM on October 30, 2015, 10:50:54 AM

The reason is that you can now buy BTC with RMB from banks (supposedly not possible since 2013).

If you understand the issues of "capital control" it is not hard to see why this would push the value of BTC up.

(the real question is how long until they "ban purchasing" again)

Spot on.

Chinese citizens are using mining and bitcoin as a way to move money out of China.

Exactly this. Well we will see how long it lasts as they ease off.

i also think because there are fake volume and everything is manipulated in their exchange, to encourage maybe foreigners to use their exchange more

since there are still restriction for chinese there, for taking out money

are you sure with what you've said? i'd never hear about market manipulation, and if they'd already know about it then why they didn't go to another exchanger site? ,its pretty strange Huh

Topic: Why is China so much more expensive? (Read 2761 times)