Bitcoin Forum

Do I need to transfer as bitcoins, or is there a way to transfer USD from one to the other.

If I have to first purchase BTC in Gox then sell it back to USD once my BTC hits CampBX, that's a $7 loss per coin just because BTC is valued less over at CampBX.  Suggestions, please! :)

There nearly always are price differences between exchanges but what keeps them mostly in the same range is the result of the trading arbitrage that occurs. 

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage

The reason traders aren't taking advantage of the current arbitrage opportunity between Mt. Gox and other markets is because there is no way to withdraw USD funds from Mt. Gox presently as they've halted that, temporarily, reportedly.

As a result, only those with excess cash willing to let a USD balance accumulate at Mt. Gox and at the same time send more cash to other exchanges (such as Camp BX) are the ones performing the arbitrage.

You too could send dollars to Camp BX (they have a number of methods in which they accept USD funds) but presumably you are not looking to commit additional USD funds but instead wish to use the same funds already at Mt. Gox.   That's you and everyone else with that same desire, without any mechanism for that to happen.

Neither Mt. Gox nor Camp BX allow account-to-account (A2A) transfers of USDs so there's no way to get funds across from one account holder to another.    If you'ld like to know how this could be offered again, ... BITSTAMP offers a Ripple gateway.   If Mt. Gox were also to run a Ripple gateway as well then moving funds the way you are looking to do would be trivial.

I think that "arbitrage" is the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" that in actual reality doesn't exist.

It has been used many times in history to fool people into joining into schemes (Charles Ponzi's being perhaps the most famous) but your chances of making money out of such "opportunities" are slim at best.

Thanks for the replies, however I am still confused.  The best way for my situation is to eat the $7 per coin loss to move the funds into my checking account via dwolla?

Yes - correct - if you have the finances and the knowledge then I'm sure you can make money out of it (but for the majority of people that is simply not the case).

If you need to transfer the funds NOW, then yes, unfortunately -- Camp BX is the only other exchange in which bitcoins can be sold for Dwolla.  And yes, there is about a $7 difference between the cost for you to buy them at Mt. Gox and then sell those coins at Camp BX (not even including the loss to exchange fees).

If you trust that Mt. Gox will resume with a cash-out method for USDs (including Dwolla, or maybe bank wire transfer even), you might be better off leaving the funds at Mt. Gox until they resume that capability.

Also, if all you want is an ACH transfer to your bank account, you can sell your re-acquired coins at a better rate by using Coinbase.  The funds are then sent to your bank account in the same manner (ACH) as Dwolla would do.