Bitcoin Forum

BitstampBTC is, at least since Gox's Dwolla seizure, clearly below the MTGOXBTC price. Furthermore, the market depth on Bitstamp is heavily skewed to the sell side.

The obvious conclusion would be that this reflects the perceived risk of holding currency in Mt. Gox accounts, as well as difficulty in getting funds out. You can make about 3% on arbitrage after fees, buying on Bitstamp and selling on Gox, but it seems that's too dicey a proposition for most - to make any real cash at 3% you'd have to lock in quite a lot of funds.

However... What does the situation tell us about who's buying bitcoins in general? Traders must concern themselves with the concerns outlined above. Joe Schmoe, just looking to buy bitcoins to either hold or spend directly, however, would be interested in getting the best price. Yet, not much buying is going on at Bitstamp.So does the bid/ask disparity between gox and bitstamp tell us something about the ratio of currency speculation to "naive" buying interest?

It seems short-term speculation must currently be very significant in determining the price versus buying to hold or use, otherwise the bid/ask on bitstamp would look quite different.

WTF  :o


The emperor wears no clothes  :'(

Because its impossible that the explanation is that people have a hard time sending fiat to Bitstamp?

this hasn't been going on very long at all... no one has had time to respond to this price disparity... ie new investors haven't transferred enough money to bitstamp to make that difference... have patience...

May be it is, but it has always been the case...
And the price difference was not so huge with MtGox

The thing about the arbitrage between bitstamp and gox is that once you sell the coins on gox, you can't move them back to bitstamp unless you want to wait a month on a SEPA withdrawal.
That plus i don't really feel safe holding large amounts of fiat on gox (or bitcoins for that matter)

Entirely possible, although I was under the impression getting fiat in and out of Bitstamp was easier, not harder, than with gox. Am I wrong?


Yes, as I noted, that's an issue for traders - I was wondering what the low level of buying interest on bitstamp tells us about buying interest in general, apart from traders.

Verification was very fast, SEPA takes 1-3 workdays.

On Gox? I haven't tried a SEPA withdrawal myself, but i've read about 3 week/ month delays... They even give a warning that it will take about 3 weeks...
Bitstamp is much better in that aspect.

This is a question about sentiment isnt it? The chart says sentiment has discovered an acceptable price. The arrangement of volume says sentiment believes higher prices are not sustainable, and lower prices are welcome (short term time frame). Smart buying has not been significant enough to test £160 again despite all news and/or VC/Angel money.
Less any significant announcement very soon, or the SR players running low on operating BTC, what else is there to reason that market buy orders need to be executed (short term time frame)?

Time to use volume on Bitfunder, me thinks. Smart money there, people.

It has been going on for a year or so that Mt. Gox was having a higher price than other exchanges (with the exception of China) and my theory about it is that it is a sign that it is big money that needs big liquidity that is now entering bitcoin.

Oh, sorry to be unclear. I was talking about Bitstamp to confirm Bitstamp is quite fast.

The walls on Bitstamp look so damn scarry, but weren't moving for days.


Could you elaborate on that? Are you saying: if you're bullish, you should invest BTC in shares, to gain even more? ;)

From Europe, Bitstamp is a superior choice in terms of speed etc. Fast SEPA with no fees.

Im saying spread the volume around abit, while exchanges are so low on volume. Its not advice, but peeps should realy start to diversify and desiminate their BTC more and more, for more reason than one.
I dont do the bull/bear thing, but i get the sense you feel you need to be bullish on the exchange price, to be buying or selling shares. That would be a wrong assumption. Moreover, owning shares can be a nice hedge against spot price falls.
For a start its not just shares, but funds, and options also. Most of them pay dividends. Check out the rate of % return in dividends a few of these are paying.
Fact is, you own a share that can be traded in or out on the order books. You get high dividend returns. Shares like ASICMINER averaging 5% daily gains at the moment. Whats not to like?
As an example, yesterday i bought 5x Call option on ASICMINER, with 18 June expiry...... i hit breakeven 2 hours ago!

So all im saying is, there are other ways to keep the interest going while exchanges decide what to do next.

the reason for bitstamp price is :

bitfinex which one can use as an arbitrage tool between gox and bitstamp.. stopped  offering gox bids.. due to the latest news around gox (dwolla).
it was an easy profit: buy on bitstamp(trough bitfinex).. sell on gox. hence price was always in synch with gox on bitstamp.

bitfinex is working on a solution: api to allow bots and marketmakers, it  will be up (well i guess somewhere in the comming week(s))

once we got volume on bifinex.. bistamp will follow gox price again  (like it did when bitfinex a few weeks ago started their integration with bitstamp)

Also the move of bitfinex to not use gox anymore is probably temporary until gox get's its shit together(but with goverments this can take a while so this is more of a long term view)

so what i'm doing now: sepa new fiat over to bitstamp and buying cheap coins.. (i'm not rich so it will be just what i can afford to lose and will not move price much )

because i know the price will go up as soon as the api thing is working on bitfinex Or when gox orders are allowed again on bitfinex.
now if many people buy new cheap coins on bitstamp with new fiat.  it will sync with gox soon enough.


now for the big ask side;.  it will go away once gox price goes up..    the bids will follow   also there enough buy power at bitfinex to eat those 4k walls at bitstamp
once price at gox is high enough :)  and there are enough bid offers.. on bitfinex and bitstamp (which might be when api + bots are up)

so basicaly.. if you have some fiat left to play with..  buy cheap coins at bistamp.

this! i used to work with btc24   but now it's bitstamp :)

bitstamp volume implies price won't go above 120-130 for some time, but may dip below 100 and quickly recover.

Basically, there is a chance of high volatility to occur in the price, that's a big surprise.

Same here, I used both until btc24 got shut down. Luckily I was all in bitcoin when btc24 got into problems, so I've got my money back now. Another good reason to prefer bitcoins over fiat to leave on exchanges. :)

It's interesting to see that this is only active thread I could find in the forum that talked about the price disparity between Gox and BitStamp.

Right now there is a 9% difference in the price at Gox ($107) versus BitStamp ($98).  This has been ongoing for the last few days now, and in past weeks as well.

I'm intrigued; variances like this would never last this long in a mature market.