Bitcoin Forum

Why BTC price in BTC-e is 2-3% lower than other markets?

it is quite natural to happen dude may only differ a few dollars not too much
if the difference is higher. of course people will choose an exchange that has a higher price ?

It's purely because a few whales control the entire BTC-E exchange and thus keep the price low on purpose, to use it in their benefit to make profit through arbitrage trading.

Sometimes exchanges show such behaviour when there are issues with fiat withdraw or deposit. MtGox had high btc prices at the end because it took ages to withdraw bitcoins. Maybe btc-e has deposit problems? So buying pressure is low?

I think I read something about bank transfer problems they have some weeks ago.

One should always check rates at different exchanges before buying or selling bitcoins.Each exchange has different volume of trade and that determine their rates.

It is normal, to see differences of price between different exchanges, nothing new and nothing strange.
Price of BTC on an exchange is dependent on volume, number of transactions, speed of withdrawal and some others factors.
If you see exchange 'lagging' behind the market it is because some of these elements are maybe slower.

I think that it's much simpler than what most people think. Just take a look at btc-e's fees and you'll realise that it's not convenient to trade big sums there. It's an unregistered exchange and they are not offering convinient ways to deposit/withdraw fiat with minimum fees. They do it through payment gates but it's still expensive. For example USD deposits have a 5.5% fee with perfectmoney and 2% with OKpay, other two options aren't available for automated deposits above 500 USD. Usd withdrawal is 0.5% for OKpay and 0.5% for perfectmoney, other gateways for withdrawal have fees ranging from 1% to 7%.

It's not that whales trade in btc-e, it's the opposite. Whales trade in other exchanges and with no interest on trading in btc-e due to them being an unregistered exchange and having high fees and limited options for funding/withdrawals.

It is an exchange that does not demand verification of the traders. So they have people that trade. And difficulties in both withdraw and deposit would not justify a onesided difference in price compared to other exchanges.

It does, it's not easy to do arbitrage when depositing and withdrawing leeches a significant percentage of the initial sum. There's no outside liquidity to force Btc-e to catch up with other exchanges fast enough.

i have noticed that when price of bitcoin or any of the altcoins change especially when the change is fast and big (not necessarily this case but generally) these differences happen because exchangers are not connected to each other and sometimes those with less activity (less trade volume) take time to sync with others when people start buying or selling to balance it out.

This. It's harder to deposit to BTC-E than to the other exchanges

That sounds like an explaination. When it is hard to deposit then it is hard to buy coins. Maybe more coins are sold too. At the end it means less buying pressure, so a lower bitcoin price than on other exchanges.

I think it happens often dude you will see higher prices in other markets or other exchange. you can try to look at livecoin.
they have a higher price but even so. you would not possibly be able to do arbitrage here ? because you're going to get only loss. because it was interrupted by a fee

This was the first site I ever traded at and I was naive enough not to notice I was bleeding out in fees. Expensive learning lesson,thought I was smart enough just to ignore the troll box. Some interesting ideas on why they are usually on the lower end of value.