Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Economics => Topic started by: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 12:47:09 PM



Title: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 12:47:09 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: OmegaStarScream on October 30, 2015, 12:48:38 PM
Bitcoin mining farms are mostly all in China , invetors are mostly all in china and as you can see they have all the huge trading volumes (Huobi & OKcoin) and they are probably doing some market manipulation since they have shitload of coins as I said .


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 12:51:50 PM
Bitcoin mining farms are mostly all in China , invetors are mostly all in china and as you can see they have all the huge trading volumes (Huobi & OKcoin) and they are probably doing some market manipulation since they have shitload of coins as I said .

Note that with 0 fees you can trade the same coin over and over and over.

More volume does not automatically mean higher prices, and more supply definitly does not automatically mean higher prices either. Just because they have more Bitcoin doesn't mean that they should be more expensive.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: traderbit on October 30, 2015, 12:54:36 PM
Bitcoin mining farms are mostly all in China , invetors are mostly all in china and as you can see they have all the huge trading volumes (Huobi & OKcoin) and they are probably doing some market manipulation since they have shitload of coins as I said .

Note that with 0 fees you can trade the same coin over and over and over.

More volume does not automatically mean higher prices, and more supply definitly does not automatically mean higher prices either. Just because they have more Bitcoin doesn't mean that they should be more expensive.

If they have more volume it means that they can manipulate easily.
Easier than the exchanges that have less volume and less traders.
I think that the exchange rate and fees affect the price too.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: gentlemand on October 30, 2015, 01:31:00 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Snorek on October 30, 2015, 01:42:59 PM
China are now leading party when it comes to bitcoin market. It will be natural that price will be first shaped on Chinese exchanges and then carry all over.
It won't be long before we will have that higher bitcoin price in US and EU.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: 1Referee on October 30, 2015, 01:45:58 PM
It looks like Huobi is comming back to earth, which makes the difference between them and other exchanges "just" $16 instead of $30 earlier this morning. They were probably hoping other exchange would follow to +$360 but it didn't happen. Huobi peaked at around $366 while the peaks of other exchanges were $30 lower!! Would be nice to hear from a Chinese trader at Huobi why there is such a huge difference.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: doublemore on October 30, 2015, 02:00:58 PM
It looks like Huobi is comming back to earth, which makes the difference between them and other exchanges "just" $16 instead of $30 earlier this morning. They were probably hoping other exchange would follow to +$360 but it didn't happen. Huobi peaked at around $366 while the peaks of other exchanges were $30 lower!! Would be nice to hear from a Chinese trader at Huobi why there is such a huge difference.

Now down to $14 gap, people need to relax. If there are $30 gaps for a month or something then it might be because of some other reason.  Check the china volume right now though its at record highs.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 02:08:12 PM
It looks like Huobi is comming back to earth, which makes the difference between them and other exchanges "just" $16 instead of $30 earlier this morning. They were probably hoping other exchange would follow to +$360 but it didn't happen. Huobi peaked at around $366 while the peaks of other exchanges were $30 lower!! Would be nice to hear from a Chinese trader at Huobi why there is such a huge difference.

why didn't europe and america follow though?

is there a reason not to follow china?


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Raimonn on October 30, 2015, 02:09:00 PM
I think the difference could be with the local coin that is more controlled by chinese authorities. Euro and dollars are easy to exchange than Yuan.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: mtnsaa on October 30, 2015, 02:19:37 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: zimmah on October 30, 2015, 03:43:56 PM
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.

that would only make it cheaper to produce and therefore they could sell them cheaper.

most of the reasons given in this thread are reasons why bitcoin should be cheaper in china.

the only valid reason i heard is that CNY is not easy to move out of china


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: spazzdla on October 30, 2015, 03:48:36 PM
They are driving the rise the other exchanges are catching up via arbitratoin.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CIYAM on October 30, 2015, 03:50:54 PM
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)


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: randy8777 on October 30, 2015, 04:02:34 PM
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)


they will ban bitcoin again once they see cash is flowing from china into other parts of the world. i hope they will be a bit more friendly towards bitcoin and embrace it instead of fighting it.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: techboy2 on October 30, 2015, 06:01:43 PM
Bitcoin mining farms are mostly all in China , invetors are mostly all in china and as you can see they have all the huge trading volumes (Huobi & OKcoin) and they are probably doing some market manipulation since they have shitload of coins as I said .

Should this not be the reason why China should be cheaper, not more expensive.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: arbitrage001 on October 30, 2015, 06:34:32 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: DrPaid on October 30, 2015, 07:07:03 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CoinNation on October 30, 2015, 07:09:31 PM
Most miners are in China, when they stop selling, the price will not drop but rise. I do not know the exact catalyst for this rise. Maybe the block chain meeting in China?


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: ridery99 on October 30, 2015, 07:54:27 PM
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.

I don't know prob china boyz mo xpensive cause they hav more fiat to throw and market overheated usa eu only following and soon dumping in china too you know.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: uki on October 30, 2015, 09:12:23 PM
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)
For now they have green light on BTC and taking into account the size of their market that makes China the leading force in Bitcoin.
Mining has already been biggest in China and that is also an established fact. 2+2=4. As soon as the central government sees Bitcoin as a threat to their plans, they will change the light to red. the only question is when it happens. And that is actually the clue of the story. 


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Mickeyb on October 30, 2015, 09:48:57 PM
Most often the exchanges where there is the most demand are the most expensive. This is surely the case with China at the moment. Chinese citizens are fuelling this upward movement and that's why all of the other non-Chinese exchanges are lagging in price behind them.

This is the only logical explanation.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: StevenLiang on October 31, 2015, 01:29:29 AM
Most often the exchanges where there is the most demand are the most expensive. This is surely the case with China at the moment. Chinese citizens are fuelling this upward movement and that's why all of the other non-Chinese exchanges are lagging in price behind them.

This is the only logical explanation.

I would be agree with these.
When some currency got popular among citizen (same as bitcoin or alts) The price will going up. China had a great economy strategy so far, they did not want increase their Yuan Currency price globally. So until today many of business people and merchants buy goods from China or with Yuan.

For some information, i recently start to investing on Yuan too. (And from this info, i believes people would be invest and hold Yuan)


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: tarmi on October 31, 2015, 01:40:23 AM
Most often the exchanges where there is the most demand are the most expensive. This is surely the case with China at the moment.


before going down mtgox had a big surge in demand too.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Amph on October 31, 2015, 12:41:01 PM
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


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: TastyChillySauce00 on October 31, 2015, 12:57:40 PM
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  ???


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CIYAM on October 31, 2015, 01:35:36 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CoinNation on October 31, 2015, 05:13:41 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CIYAM on October 31, 2015, 05:16:40 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).


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: jeffthebaker on October 31, 2015, 05:17:19 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: dothebeats on October 31, 2015, 05:23:11 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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: uki on October 31, 2015, 08:13:19 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 (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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: bct-user on October 31, 2015, 08:56:14 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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: CoinNation on October 31, 2015, 10:23:34 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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: bct-user on November 01, 2015, 06:15:36 AM
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 ???
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Luqman on November 01, 2015, 04:15:17 PM
"China can do anything"


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: mixan on November 01, 2015, 06:05:49 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: mcplums on November 02, 2015, 12:47:34 PM
Could someone please explain how manipulating exchange volume affects the price on that exchange? Seems like the two are unrelated to me.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Pierre 2 on November 02, 2015, 04:33:55 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: Amph on November 02, 2015, 07:41:49 PM
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


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: ./Quetra on November 02, 2015, 08:33:04 PM
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


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: zimmah on November 02, 2015, 10:32:58 PM
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?


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: NorrisK on November 02, 2015, 10:44:57 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: traderbit on November 02, 2015, 11:20:12 PM
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.


Title: Re: Why is China so much more expensive?
Post by: n2004al on November 03, 2015, 03:46:47 PM
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.