Bitcoin Forum

I am the owner of www.Bitcoin-Brokers.org and I have an opportunity for members of this forum.

I have a thread which can be read here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237164.0

There are many other threads on the internet about Bitcoin-Brokers, but that is the thread which I started and view every day.

After reading through the thread you should be able to see that Bitcoin-Brokers is experiencing so much growth that there is now a line up of buyers who are ready to buy, yet not enough bitcoins to sell them. Every day there are more and more bitcoins sold, and every day it becomes harder and harder to keep up with the growth on the buy side of the equation. Bitcoin-Brokers seems to attract a lot more buyers than it does sellers. For this reason, it has become necessary to tap other sources to keep up with the buy side of the business rather than run the risk of developing a reputation of being an unreliable source.

Here is the opportunity:

Bitcoin-Brokers will create a structured environment which allows members of this forum to arbitrage and become Bitcoin-Broker's supplier of bitcoins.


It is a risk-free arbitrage opportunity.  


Qualifications to apply for this arbitrage opportunity:


-Must have either a Bitstamp or BTC-e trading account.
-Must have a bank account.

Please no PMs here....just use the helpdesk at www.Bitcoin-Brokers.org

This is an immediate opportunity.

Thank you.

I'll reply here since you've made this new thread.


Somebody with enough fiat and bitcoins to act as a constant liquidity provider for your site is going to run into a significant problem - a personal bank account in the US that receives cash deposits from random people all over the country and wires out all received funds to an offshore bitcoin exchange is very quickly going to be identified as a high-risk account, probably reported for suspicious activity, and surely closed.

What if you instead arbitraged between people who want to buy bitcoins and traders who want to cash out their fiat from BTC-e and Bitstamp (or any exchange that allows account-to-account transfer of fiat balances)?

Bitcoin-Brokers opens accounts on both of those exchanges and announces that they will buy fiat balances at a 1% premium (the person selling fiat receives 1% more in their bank account than they sold). Bitcoin-Brokers can then locate a bitcoin buyer who can deposit cash in the appropriate bank account.

Once that transaction is successfully completed, Bitcoin-Brokers can buy bitcoins with the fiat balance, give the bitcoin buyer their funds, and keep 1% + the spread between the exchange they are buying on and Mt Gox in bitcoins as profit.

Note that as your volume increases the act of you buying bitcoins will tend to bring down the spread.

If you need more people willing to deposit fiat into bank accounts, you can also service people trying to move fiat into the exchanges.

An arbitrageur can throttle the amount of deposits into their account. Simply tell Bitcoin-Brokers how much business to send through an account, and that limit will be respected. It would be very easy for a single account to have a few thousand dollars per day deposited into it. At that level, $3,000/day in deposits nets the arbitrageur approximately $120/day in profits. Approximately 26 days per month means one bank account can net that arbitrageur $3120 per month. Walk down the street open account a different bank, rinse and repeat, $6240 per month...all from $3,000 a day in deposits.

I like it this way better. This places the majority of profits in other people's hands making them financially motivated to work with Bitcoin-Brokers. I could see people earning fantastic incomes from this. The only limitation for the arbitrageur is the amount of business that is sent to them from Bitcoin-Brokers.

This is essentially free money for an arbitrageur who sees the value in this opportunity. Many people are wanting to hitch their wagon to something to participate in the Bitcoin Boom, this is one option.

What if you instead arbitraged between people who want to buy bitcoins and traders who want to cash out their fiat from BTC-e and Bitstamp (or any exchange that allows account-to-account transfer of fiat balances)?



I would run into the same problem (good problem..but still a problem), there are too many buyers in relation to sellers. For whatever reason, the helpdesk is flooded with an imbalance of buyers overpowering sellers. I have had to turn away more business than I care to admit.

What Bitcoin-Brokers needs is a steady flow of bitcoins.

Bitcoin-Broker's first transaction was just 2 weeks ago for a whopping 0.28 bitcoins. It was the only transaction for the day, and it sold for approximately $30.

A couple days later, 6 more coins were loaded onto the website. Those sold in one day. This inspired approximately $3,000 worth of bitcoins to be loaded on the website by various sellers which sold in a couple of days.

Last Wednesday there was about $5,000 worth of bitcoins sold on the website. Thursday was the 4th..banks were closed. Friday there was $5,000 worth of bitcoins sold at which point customers were placed on a waiting list because we sold out half way through the day, and since that time I am sitting with $5,000 worth of back orders, plus whatever new business that Monday will bring in.

An arbitrageur would have made approximately $200 last Wednesday working with Bitcoin-Brokers, and would have made another $300-$400 on Friday if there had been access to more bitcoins. This is a really big opportunity, since Bitcoin-Brokers creates a guaranteed environment for somebody to make pretty incredible money...literally thousands of dollars per month the very first month, and it is in an industry which is growing as fast as bitcoin.

This is an indication that your price is too low.

Somebody with enough fiat and bitcoins to act as a constant liquidity provider for your site is going to run into a significant problem - a personal bank account in the US that receives cash deposits from random people all over the country and wires out all received funds to an offshore bitcoin exchange is very quickly going to be identified as a high-risk account, probably reported for suspicious activity, and surely closed.

I would want to offer this arbitrage opportunity to multiple people. Some people may want to approach this as a side gig, a day here and a day there, while other people may try to build their own little empire alongside Bitcoin-Brokers. Bitcoin-Brokers can create a trading environment as large or as small as the arbitrageur felt comfortable with. Additionally, the arbitrageur could work as many days a week as they want.

This is an indication that your price is too low.

It has nothing to do with that at all. Some sellers have set price levels at which we are no longer permitted to sell at. In this recent sell off that we have witnessed two of my largest suppliers who still have bitcoins to sell instructed to stop selling their supply simply because of the prices offered in the open market had fallen too low in their opinion.

The reason why this is happening is because buyers see the great value in being able to buy their bitcoins at a bank. The fact that it is at a really low rate is just a bonus in the transaction.

I am interested in your idea here, I recently setup a bank account in another jurisdiction so I can more effectively setup arbitrage- 5 figure trades. However, at the moment, I am just not game to trust a brand new website, no rep forum member and new business with my money. What can you do to allay my fears?

I can allay your fears. Would you be able to contact me through the helpdesk at Bitcoin-Brokers?

Thanks.

It is guaranteed. Bitcoin-Brokers will guarantee a 4% profit on every transaction. The only thing that is not guaranteed is the amount of business that can be generated every day. That is up to the buyers, not Bitcoin-Brokers.

Perhaps you are not understanding, so I will attempt to paint a clearer picture for you:

This is how it would work:

Buyers request to purchase bitcoins from Bitcoin-Brokers. Bitcoin-Brokers instructs the buyer to make a cash deposit into your bank account for a predetermined amount (this is how Bitcoin-Brokers works now already and the buyers love it and keep coming back to buy more and more). In this case, let’s say the buyer wanted $1,000 worth of bitcoins. You would be made aware of all the deposits that were going to be made into your account that day.

You would keep watch of your online bank account, and verify that indeed the deposit had been made, and it was in cash. With good funds in your account, you are now able to purchase $1,000 worth of bitcoins from BTC-e (as an example).

Using a spread of 4% (which is the locked in rate I will guarantee you on every transaction) this is how a hypothetical transaction would play out:

BTC-e prices of $70.00/bitcoin.

Your $1,000 purchase at BTC-e would net you 14.2857 bitcoins

Bitcoin-Brokers is only forwarded 13.7142 bitcoins.

This would net you 0.5715 bitcoins or 4% before BTC-e transaction fees of 0.5% (I believe this is their current rate). Remember…you have received $1,000 cash deposit into your bank account which gets balanced off against the $1,000 BTC-e purchase.

Now Bitcoin-Brokers has acquired bitcoins for effectively current MtGox rates (since 4% seems to be the average spread between BTC-e and MtGox......sometimes its more or less, but on average it sits around 4%), and Bitcoin-Brokers simply forwards 98% to the buyer. This concludes the transaction with you netting 4%, Bitcoin-Brokers netting 2% and the buyer acquiring bitcoins for effectively 2% above MtGox inclusive of all fees.


As I said...guaranteed. The arbitrageur could effectively tie their proverbial wagon to Bitcoin-Brokers and ride this bitcoin growth wave with Bitcoin-Brokers. Its risk free guaranteed cash. Guaranteed because I am the owner of Bitcoin-Brokers, and I am declaring that this is how it will be.

guarandteed ? .... so you will give us money for free ?

For free? Of course not. You would need to work with me as an arbitrageur. The very first arbitrageur who has a Bank of America account will immediately walk into $2500-$5000/month worth of net profits from the get-go if they decide to take down all the business that can be sent to him or her.

"Free money"......no......."Great opportunity for the right person".....absolutely.

Anyone who are able to deposit into btc-e already doing this.

What value do you bring ?

That is NOT correct. There is nowhere in the world which offers you the ability to have a buyer deposit cash into your bank account based on MtGox rates.

There is not one other company in the bitcoin industry that will let traders buy bitcoins out of the open market and turn around and resell it to us with a built in 4% profit margin. That is what Bitcoin-Brokers is offering.

Additionally there is not another company other than Bitcoin-Brokers who will guarantee you a return. You can try to go it on your own, but most people will fail if they try to do this on their own. Bitcoin-Brokers created the framework in the trade which allows you to make guaranteed money on EVERY transaction despite if the market goes up OR down.

No BTC-e trader has the ability to this anywhere.

Frankly if you tried to do this on your own, you are a trader or aribitrageur who needs skill, talent, timing, and years of trading experience only to hope to MAYBE make a profit.

With Bitcoin-Brokers, you can have no skill, timing, or years of trading experience and still be guaranteed to make the same guaranteed profit.

Anybody who sees this as anything other than a GIFT, simply fails to understand what is being offered to them.

I am actually becoming interested.

I have a citibank account and willing to become your bitcoin supplier. My only requirement is I need to receive non-reversible fund first. This is actually a pretty lucrative transaction for the long run.


Let me know.

I have it set up that you are guaranteed to be paid in cash-only deposits. This is exactly how it has been working already at Bitcoin-Brokers with existing private sellers, and it works perfectly. This eliminates any time being wasted with wire transfers, checks etc. Additionally, since the deposits are made in cash, which you can verify first, you are completely protected.

Feel free to contact me through the helpdesk and I can speak with you personally about getting you set up.

Dan

Request sent on the help desk.

Replied.

Ok, interested as well. Let me make sure that I am clear.

My main limitation would be in how many BTC I have and how long it takes me to replace the BTC i send to you. I would not be able to buy the BTC to send to you with the cash that is deposited correct?

Correct.

Bitcoin-Brokers will create an opportunity for the arbitrageur, though each arbitrageur needs money to do this. You cannot use the buyer's money to finance the purchase. You must have your own money already.

Realistically, I wouldn't even bother considering this unless you have at least $5,000. I say this amount because you will need to cycle your cash back into the exchanges to buy the bitcoins.

If you are making 4% on $5,000 you are netting $200. Now you need to wire transfer that money back to the exchange which will probably result in a $50 fee by the time the smoke clears.

Hopefully that makes sense, but feel free to contact me through the helpdesk if you have other questions.

Thanks.

For how long are we holding the BTC in this case?
Msg sent on your website. Will wait for your reply on how to proceed.

There have been a couple people PMing asking what banks seem to be the best option to use.

Without a doubt, the best bank is Bank of America. Bitcoin-Brokers sees that bank requested more than any other bank. The next most popular bank seems to be Wells Fargo. Suntrust and Chase seem to be decent as well.

In order of popularity:

1)Bank of America
2)Citibank
3)Wells Fargo
4)Chase
5)Suntrust

replied.

I fail to see how this would be profitable. How would you move the funds back to the exchange? BTC-e does not accept wire transfers from US banks, and they're now charging 4% to deposit via OKPay.

I've been doing bitcoin arbitrage for a few months now and in my experience 4% is not enough of a spread to be profitable, even before BTC-e doubled their fee for OKPay deposits. 4% doesn't cover the costs of cycling funds back into the exchange.

I do not have an account there, but I was under the impression from reading their website, specifically this link:
https://btc-e.com/page/2

that US Wires were accepted.

Who is correct? You or BTC-e?

I suspect their FAQ simply hasn't been updated recently. When trying to deposit via bank wire, this is the prompt you'll see (account info redacted):

https://i.imgur.com/4xjc2Y4.png

Thanks for pointing that out. What are all the deposit options for US residents at BTC-e?

What is the situation at Bistamp?

Does anybody have an account there who could weigh in with knowledge?

Thanks.

A comment on the mechanics of this (in connection with your other thread discussing how you guarantee the price to the seller).

This is how I would structure it...

1) Seller deposits BTC to Bitcoin Brokers.
2) Bitcoin Brokers lists only 80% (20% cushion for market volatility) of those coins for sale. Or maybe it can be an estimated vol.
3) Buyer agrees to pay a fixed FIAT amount (makes it easy for the buyer). They have 24 hours or whatever time frame - this can be fed to estimate volatility and adjust the available coins. In fact, you can make the time frame enterable - the faster you can pay after clicking "buy", the more coins available for sale.
4) Buyer goes and deposits money, takes the pictures of the slip + teller's card.
5) Brokers verifies this information, clicks a button (or something).
6) Button triggers a macro that snaps/timestamps + screenshots Gox prices, and sends it through an API to the seller (or maybe just updates their account, which the seller polls).
7) Seller receives update and immediately executes the offsetting transaction.

There still seems to be a manual step of verifying pictures, unfortunately, which means you'd need enough people to cover 24 hours, or cut the hours.

The way that you described works perfect from where I stand. The verification of the deposit slip is a pain, but it is a necessary pain. It really adds that extra layer of protection for everybody involved.

Your business model doesn't sound.

It will only take 1-2 transactions for all your suppliers to realize there is nothing in it for them.

Wanna bet?

You need to remember the issue right now which Bitcoin-Brokers is attempting to address is a supply issue, not a price issue.

I wanted to see the bitcoins sourced from the cheapest place possible so I could pass on the savings to the end user, but at the end of the day, I would rather have the bitcoins at a slightly higher price than having no bitcoins at all, which is the exact attitude of most customers. They will understand.

With that being said, I will adjust this offer for members of the bitcoin community.

I will guarantee you 4% on every transaction with Bitcoin-Brokers, if you can supply from any of these three exchanges:

1)MtGox
2)BTC-e
3)Bitstamp

The way pricing has been up until this point at Bitcoin-Brokers has been 2% above MtGox for the buyers.
The new pricing will have to be raised to reflect the extra costs involved to obtain a dependable supply.

Some clients may consider buying elsewhere because of the slightly higher prices. Yet there will be an even higher number of clients lost if they cannot obtain bitcoins at all.

Things will continue as they are for the time being as far as pricing, but once the arbitrageurs begin to work with Bitcoin-Brokers, the prices will rise.

So as I have said before. Bitcoin-Brokers guarantees the suppliers 4%, and now the bitcoins can sourced them from any of the three exchanges.

What you're failing to understand is that the two are actually one and the same. You have a lack of supply because the price is too low. Allow the price to fluctuate freely and it would rise, increasing supply and decreasing demand until an economic equilibrium is reached.

Oddly, despite the above misconception, throughout the remainder of your post you seem to recognize the fact that your prices need to rise to attract more suppliers.

The issue has always been:

1) Trust
You are asking seller to trust you with their bitcoin for the deposit requirement. Any seller willing to trust you can offer to sell on their own on this forum for sending bitcoin first.


2) Risk
The 4% mark up doesn't mean the seller is taking 4% profit. There are fee involved in moving money around and commission to the exchange. There are also risk on exchange blowing up and money getting stucked on exchange. There are also risk of money confiscation as it already starting to happen in some European countries.

The deposit requirement required seller to take additional risk of the value of bitcoin. When you add all the risks i mentioned, does the small profit really justify all the risks. No doubt you will find some newbies for the whole scheme, but it isn't going to take them long to realize what they have given up; or event which will make them take losses and then withdraw themselves from the scheme.

The only thing that I am failing to understand is how you think you can tell me what is happening in my own business.

Considering I am the one who speaks with every customer, and oversees the entire business, I find it amusing that you feel you can tell me where the issue is after I have told you otherwise.

This has nothing to do with economic equilibrium. I had made the same mistake that you are making right now. That assumption is that there is ever going to be a balance of buyers and sellers at Bitcoin-Brokers.

Look at it this way:

Imagine you had hopes of setting up an ice cream brokerage business. You had visions of allowing buyers and sellers to come together and create a little ecosystem where buyers and sellers would come together, and buy and sell among each other, and the broker makes  a cut for bringing the transaction into play.

3 weeks into your new ice cream brokerage business, you have a line up down the block with every kid from within the neighborhood waving money at you. They don't care about the price, the don't even care about the flavor of the ice cream...the just want whatever you got a whatever price. That's one side of your proverbial ice cream truck.

Now on the other side of your ice cream truck you have a couple of sellers of ice cream, who don't have anywhere near enough inventory to keep up with your supply. You ask them if there is anything you can do to get more ice cream, and they say "no". They only have a small amount and they are surprised how quickly their ice cream is selling, and if anything they say that they will run out of ice cream soon and not be able to even supply the small amount that they supplied up to this point.

As I have said before, the issue that Bitcoin-Brokers is having, is a supply issue.

This may be the issue with you, but this is not the issue with others. Every single bitcoin which has been sold, has been placed into escrow first. The issue is lack of supply.



[/quote]

2) Risk
The 4% mark up doesn't mean the seller is taking 4% profit. There are fee involved in moving money around and commission to the exchange. There are also risk on exchange blowing up and money getting stucked on exchange. There are also risk of money confiscation as it already starting to happen in some European countries.

The deposit requirement required seller to take additional risk of the value of bitcoin. When you add all the risks i mentioned, does the small profit really justify all the risks. No doubt you will find some newbies for the whole scheme, but it isn't going to take them long to realize what they have given up; or event which will make them take losses and then withdraw themselves from the scheme.

[/quote]

The seller will gross 4% on every transaction. There are fees to accomplish this, but that has never been a secret.

If you bought at MtGox and you were a new trader you pay the maximum 0.6% fee. Then you pay a Wire transfer fee of lets say $50 to cycle your cash from bank back to exchange.

Let's say you are working with $10,000 as a nice round number.

You are going to make $400 from Bitcoin-Brokers before your fees
You will pay approximately $60 in fees to MtGox, and $50 to the bank.

This leaves you with a net of $290 or 2.9%


Depending on each person's financial strength the earning potential can increase. For example, and arbitrageur who had $20,000 to play with would be looking at the following:

You are going to make $800 from Bitcoin-Brokers before your fees
You will pay approximately $120 in fees to MtGox, and $50 to the bank.


This leaves you with a net of $630 or 3.15 %

Bitcoin-Brokers will also accept bitcoin purchases from CampBX and CAVirtex.

From what I understand CampBX does accept money orders, as well as accepts Dwolla, so this would eliminate the wire transfer costs.

Additionally, Bitcoin-Brokers will accept bitcoins from CAVirtex from Canadians who wish to arbitrage.

CAVirtex allows cash deposits into their accounts which also eliminates the wire transfer fees.

I am trying to make this as easy as I can for anybody interested.

The laws of economics are immutable, no matter what your business is, in the same way that the law of gravitation is the same no matter what country you live in.


If there's never going to be a balance, it's because you refuse to raise your prices. Price ceilings which are below the market equilibrium will always, without fail, attract more buyers than sellers. It's an economic fact and it's an unavoidable consequence of holding prices lower than they should be.

For determined individuals, it's entirely possible to wire money internationally and buy up large sums of bitcoins to resell through your service. But doing so comes with risks which cannot be ignored. Unless you can offer high enough profit to justify taking on those risks, I rather doubt you'll be able to attract the supply you want.

I'm speaking not only from an economic perspective, but as an active re-seller of bitcoins. 4% is the bare minimum which I aim to make on any sale, and that's on top of the fees I pay. My average profit is 6-7%, which puts my sell prices at about 8-10% above the spot price on any exchange. And yet I still have a multitude of buyers and probably need to raise my own prices because I ran short on supply just today.

The bottom line is, for 4% it's easy for me to decline your offer. If you were offering at least 6% I could consider it.


Do you seriously think that, no matter how high the price is, supply will be unaffected? Offer a substantial enough profit margin and I can guarantee that those ice cream suppliers would find ways to get more inventory. The same applies to any product or service.

All the hiss and wind and basically you're just angling for a bigger cut of the action ... I bet you make a good haggler in the bazaar?

I admit when I am wrong. In this case, I was wrong. I had my fingers in my ears and was refusing to hear what needed to be heard.

I think it was Winston Churchill who once said

"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else"

I suppose this Canadian acted in the same way with respect to this issue. I am sorry. Thank you for helping me see this situation properly.



Effective immediately www.Bitcoin-Brokers.org is changing the manner in which pricing is determined on the site. The website will be adjusted within the next few hours to reflect the changes, yet I wanted to announce the upcoming change here.

Sellers can now list their bitcoin for sale at whatever prices they want.  Bitcoin will be available at different prices at different banks. When a buyer requests a quote, they will be presented with the available inventory of bitcoin at each bank, along with the price which each seller needs to be paid. Bitcoin-Broker’s fee paid by the buyer is 2%. There are zero fees paid by the seller of bitcoin.

Buyers will then choose which bank and price they prefer.  Bitcoin-Brokers will then forward the necessary deposit instructions to the buyer to complete the transaction. After the buyer has made the cash-only deposit into the seller’s account, the buyer will need to photograph the deposit receipt and upload that receipt to the same support ticket that was used to initiate the transaction as proof of deposit.

The proof of deposit is forwarded to the seller who confirms the deposit has been made into their account via their online banking. The seller then grants Bitcoin-Brokers permission to release the escrowed bitcoin to the buyer and the transaction is complete.

The buyer is always guaranteed to receive bitcoin because each seller needs to place their bitcoin in escrow with Bitcoin-Brokers prior to Bitcoin-Brokers presenting the seller’s bitcoins as available inventory to interested buyers.

FAQ

Q)
The price of bitcoin moves up and down in the open market. At what point through the transaction are  prices determined?

A)This depends on two things which are both up to the seller. Sellers have the choice of working with Bitcoin-Brokers in a couple different ways. If sellers simply have a supply of bitcoin which they want converted to cash deposits, then Bitcoin-Brokers will use the time on the buyer’s deposit slip as a point of reference to establish the pricing of the bitcoin.

If the seller is buying the bitcoin directly from an exchange to pair off the order, then Bitcoin-Brokers will allow the seller to take a screenshot of the paired off purchase. The price which is displayed on the screenshot will be used as the price. This will allow the seller to “lock in” a guaranteed profit. The screenshot will also be forwarded to the buyer as a form of receipt, so the buyer has confidence that the price they paid per bitcoin was in fact the actual price at the time it was purchased out of an exchange.

Q)How long after a deposit has been made, and proof of deposit supplied before bitcoin are released to the buyer’s wallet?

A)Bitcoin-Brokers will release the bitcoin as soon as we are given authorization from the seller to do so. We allow the seller until 8:00 am PST the following day to confirm the deposit and authorize the release of bitcoin. In the event that proof of deposit has been submitted, and the seller becomes unavailable for any reason,  Bitcoin-Brokers will complete the transaction on behalf of the seller with the seller’s escrowed bitcoin. If this happens, the time on the buyer’s deposit slip will represent the time at which pricing of the bitcoin is determined in all cases.

Q)Do quotes ever expire?

A)Yes. After a buyer has been presented with deposit information, Bitcoin-Brokers needs to place a hold on the seller’s escrowed bitcoin to ensure that we only sell what we can deliver. The buyer has until 6:00 pm their local time to make the deposit and upload the deposit receipt as proof of deposit (2 hour extensions may be granted if the buyer needs extra time to make it to the bank). If the deposit has not been made by the cut-off time, the quote expires, the hold is taken off of the bitcoin, and the bitcoin are available for sale again to a new buyer. As a buyer, if you miss the cut-off time, never attempt to deposit with the same deposit information. Ask Bitcoin-Brokers for a new quote.

Q)I am a repeat buyer. Should I open a new ticket for each new purchase? Or should I re-open the same ticket from the previous transaction?

A)Please re-open the same ticket. That way all conversations regarding all your transactions can be found in one place.

Q)I bank at the same bank as the seller. Can I simply perform an account to account transfer?

A)No. The only form of payment which is acceptable is a cash deposit.

Q)Will Bitcoin-Brokers escrow a private bitcoin purchase where the buyer and seller have already found each other and they simply need a trusted source to use as an escrow service?

A)Yes. The fee for this is 1%. Minimum transaction size for these transactions are $1,000. There are no maximum sized transactions.

Q)As a seller, can I ask for my bitcoin back?

A)Yes. Your bitcoin can be returned at any time. There is a 1% fee to return bitcoin.

Q)Are there any minimum transactions values?

A)The minimum transaction amount at Bitcoin-Brokers is $100.

Sayulita, consider very carefully how you structure the confirmations / time allowances.

Time delays should be minimized because any delay is market risk for one party.

It is true though that since once the deposit is made, the transaction is so to speak "binding", it's at least not a free option to any party (being short these options is my constant worry with anything like this).

So a drug dealer deposits cash into my account, which I then launder by purchasing Bitcoin and kicking it back to him by proxy (you).  When shit hits the fan, where does the paper trail end?  Oh, that's right, my bank account! 

Anonymous cash in, negotiable instrument (wire, ACH, whatever) with all MY info out.  All for a measly 4% or whatever the margin is now.  Ask yourself, why would the OP put it this way:


They want it at whatever price, they don't care.  Seems legit.  If it sounds to good to be true people...

And to think that I was just about to give up on this conversation as being futile! It takes fortitude and humility to publicly admit error, and for that you've certainly earned my respect. I think that your business, in terms of total bitcoins exchanged and thus net profit, will improve as a result of this realization and subsequent changes. How long will it take you to implement your proposed changes?

They have already been implemented. Transactions today reflected the changes.

I figured as much, since I'd assumed that you're doing manual trade matching. I'm intrigued enough that I may have to give it a try. :)

Nice thought actually.

Any buyer can abuse the system doing the following:
1) Order bitcoin.
2) Wait for confirmation on price.
3) Wait an hour or two. If price goes up more than fee, honor the deal. If not, discard the deal without consequence.

There are no time delays or anything of the such.

This is how it works:

Buyer is given deposit information.

Buyer goes to bank and makes a deposit.

Timestamp on the deposit slip is matched against the price in the market at the minute the deposit was made to establish the price per BTC. There is no way to abuse the system as you have said.

I totally understand there has to be some kind of BTC deposit to make this work in a loop. The only thing I am concerned about is depositing 10-20 BTC in someone's account for a long run. If this concern goes away I am ready to join in.

That is a very nice feature. Currency fluctuation is one of the risks I have to account for on localbitcoins, because some buyers will try to exploit price changes in just that fashion. Where are you pulling historical market data from -- is it the price on a particular exchange or a weighted average?

FYI, you can fix that with better formulas: http://localbitcoins.blogspot.com/2013/06/this-is-first-in-series-of-posts.html

Looking at the prices of MtGox at the same time displayed as the timestamp on the bank receipt.

Touché. I'd read that post before. It's about time to implement it.


Cool, I was just wondering if you were using MtGox data, or a weighted average, etc.

This is bad news. Sorry guys. 

You need to fill out paperwork whenever you make daily cash deposits of $10,000 or over, and whether you do or don't, the bank will report to the govt whenever they get $10'000 deposited in cash in a day, or if in a series of transactions over the course of longer than a day. The penalties for not complying are incredibly stiff, can be forfeiture of 50% of the funds. So an account holder whose taking in random cash deposits from all across the country every day, not reporting any of it, they'll feel rich for a time, then they'll get walloped.

The the OP:  too many potential customers is a great problem to have. If you can't borrow funds or obtain investment capital, tighten up your belt and save more money so that it can. Because what you're asking for will land people in hot water, no matter the promise of spectacular returns. You can't structure a business around running all your money through people's individual accounts. Sorry there's so much money left on the table, but we all see the gap between btce and mtgox, no surprise there.

Best solution is to cultivate trust. Have the cash get deposited to your account, then buy btc from us.

If this takes off and people start getting daily deposits of the amount you describe, not moly will their accounts be quickly shuttered and maybe frozen, but you'll end up with many angry customers demanding why they're not getting the bitcoins promised because the "arbitrager" couldn't make good after having their account frozen

Moreover, say customer deposits money int person x's account,person x buys btc and sends to you, and you don't fulfill (send them to customer), when person x asks who they can sue, the lawyer will respond "we'll, who received the money? Oh? Joe Schmoe from bitcointalk? Lets serve papers."

Or, more logically, your customer deposits to jimbobs account. Jimbob keeps the money. Says he had no clue who bitcoin brokers is and assumes his aunt Cindy deposited the money". What then?

I do like hen people come up with business ideas, but this one has so many holes the only way you can't see them is if your rose colored glasses have fogged up completely...

If this were true how does a big business like Walmart, Home Depot, Burger King, etc work ... surely they get more than $10k in cash sales in short amounts of time? Are you telling me that Walmart is filling out paperwork everyday they get more than $10 k in 'random' cash sales?

Or is this another case of one law for them and one law for the rest of us?

Why would I make it up?

Yes, Walmart and Burger King likely fill out a currency transaction report everyday. There's nothing illegal or wrong about it so theyed have no problems doing so. It's a simple form. I knew a Guy who owned a used car lot, and he had a pile of them, routinely filled them out whenever someone bought a car and paid cash. And the penalties, again, are pretty still for not doing so...

Banks have to report daily cash transactions of over $10,000 or transactions that they believe are broken up in order to stay below that threshold (structuring). If you're depositing at a branch, they'll tell you. And if you decline the transaction, they'll then report that. But if you're not even at the branch, if people all a ross the country are making small deposits, even if they don't aggregate $10'000 in a single day, but rather over a week or a month, the banks software will certainly notice this's e generate a report. But you need to, too,otherwise thats where penalties can kick In. And you had better make certain that your tax return matches up with the deposits that are hitting your account. (Ie, your account takes in $50,000 in cash deposits, your tax return had better show more than W-2 work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report
http://www.bankersonline.com/security/sar/ctrsars_08.html
http://www.fincen.gov/whatsnew/pdf/CTRPamphletBW.pdf
http://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/2003/OCC2003-48a.pdf (a 2003 version of the form)

It's best just to let this guy run transaction through his own businesses account. If he's asking users to escrow their coins with him, then he should have customers deposit cash to his account and then transfer your cash back to you from his account.

Really he should do that anyways. All it takes is one dishonest person on this forum deciding to keepa large deposit and there goes his business and reputation.

You have just described why all the incentives are now in place to not use any bank at all for cash handling (regardless of bitcoins) ... p2p cash and bitcoins are clearly simpler and with less friction than all the palaver you describe above.

They're not "now" in place, those laws are from the 80's at least. Not a recent development.  There's certain incentives for bitcoin, yes, but there's reality that its going to be a long time, if ever, that you can avoid the need fir banking services. Food. Rent utilities. Getting paid. Sorry, were all stuck with banks for a while.

I like that. A user posted yesterday or the day before about 190 btc being stolen from their wallet. Kapoof. Gone someone breaks into your bank account, its inconvienent, but at the end of the day, you won't lose much, and you'll likely see someone prosecuted. You lose $15-$20k in btc?

"Wow that sucks dude. Why weren't you using a offline wallet?"

If soneone familiar with bitcoin can lose thar muxh, imagine what would happen once less savvy people start usung it? Irreversible e currencies fail just as much as our current system, just I'm different ways.

This is totally wrong ... do your homework before you come here spouting off about regulations you seem to have little knowledge of.

You're saying that Currency Transaction Reports are what? A recent tool the government concocted to attack bitcoin?

Does Wikipedia count as research or would you prefer I pull up the actual legislation? Seriously don't get the aggression here. All I can say is try using Google before launching attacks.

From Wikipedia, the date of mandatory Currency Transactuon Reports is October 26. 1986. :
When the first version of the CTR was introduced, the only way a suspicious transaction less than $10,000 was reported to the government was if a bank teller called law enforcement. This was primarily due to the financial industry's concern about the right to financial privacy. On October 26, 1986, with the passage of the Money Laundering Control Act, the right to financial privacy was no longer an issue. As part of the Act, Congress had stated that a financial institution could not be held liable for releasing suspicious transactional information to law enforcement. As a result, the next version of the CTR had a suspicious transaction check box at the top. This was in effect until April 1996 when the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) was introduced.

Or Bitcoin Brokers could also average out the median rate for different percentages into one unique offer.

For example, if they have 30 sellers who give them 100 BTC to sell on their brokerage site:

If,
10 BTC are at MtGox +10%
and the rest are MtGox +5%

Then they should sell all of it at the average median rate rather than:

90BTC at +5%
and
10BTC at +10%

=================

It might possibly make the sales go much faster.

So you are wrong ... unless 1996 was "sometime in the '80's? ... this was when they actually started asking customers this kind of crap ... or you have evidence that you were asked for such a report in 1980's?

Currency Transaction Reports still exist. They were augmented by the addition of Suspicious Activity Reports.

Currency Transaction Reports are for when a customer transacts in over $10,000 of currency.

Suspicious activity reports can be filed at any time, for any amount, and is what gets filed when a customer is suspected of trying to avoid having a CTR filed, among other things.

heres the CTR from 2003, now its become an e-filing apparently.

http://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/pages_manual/OLM_017.htm

I doubt you even had that much cash in the '80's to know anything about it ... you are just going by what you have read in wikipedia and now .gov links ... yeah, good troll but you are yet another internet book-wise street-fool.

Forget about getting funds into BTC-E, that is easy.

how are you going to get funds out of Gox?

One question - why the anger at me? I'm just telling people stuff to help them cover their own asses. Or would you rather people stay shut up about rules that exist that you don't like, so they can learn about things the hard way?

Of course I didn't have enough money to worry about that back in the 80's. But i was alive during them.

And whether you believe it or not, a big part of my job is actually dealing with banks on a daily basis. And one of my firms clients lost a LOT of money (lots more than most anyone here will ever deal with, I bet) from not doing a CTR. The bank should have notified him, but they didn't (oops) and when the IRS came knocking, after a couple year tussel, he had to turn half of it over to them. Not for doing anything wrong, mind you. The cash was fully 100% documented when it came out of the bank and when it was put back in. But the lack of the paperwork still bit him in the ass.

So. Yell and swear and call me names, but at the end of the day, I'm only try to let people know that there are laws on the books that could cause this sort of thing to harm them. If you think I'm doing them a disservice, well, I don't know what to tell you.

Why would you have any funds there? You only need to interface with a single online exchange in order to re-sell bitcoins.

What's the easiest way for someone in the US to get funds into BTC-e?

If Okpay charge 4% fee, then it is not worth the risk and effort to send money into BTC-E.

First off you are a liar saying that the regs have been around since (forever) in the 80's ... so I wouldn't trust anything you say beyond that, as you seem to have an agenda. Nice story about the big bad IRS showing up ... the agency of fear, intimidation and enforcement for the police state funding mechanism.

No anger, just painting it as I see it.

How to get funds out of mtgox?

I do not have an account there, but according to their FAQ section regarding withdrawals they allow you to withdraw your money in bitcoin.

If this is the case (and I am not sure if it is), but wouldn't Bitcoin-Brokers be the perfect solution for somebody wanting to get their money off of MtGox?

From the threads that I keep reading, there appears to be some sort of delay when MtGox account holders want to withdraw money to their bank accounts by way of a wire transfer. I am hearing reports of people waiting days or weeks to get their cash.

If it is just the wire transfers which are holding the process up, why not just transfer the balance in bitcoin from MtGox to Bitcoin-Brokers, who will then find a buyer the same day for the bitcoin who will make a cash deposit into the seller's bank account.

This would eliminate the entire waiting period which people are experiencing right now. It would also eliminate the wire transfer cost, and the person would be paid above MtGox rates for their bitcoin.

Few questions:
Say I deposit 10 BTC with you guys. I am now waiting to sell 10 BTC to a buyer. so I actually have 20 btc in m hand. I find a buyer after 2 days. I fund the escrow with 10 new BTC and the deal is done.

1.
Now in say 10 days BTC drops down 30% in value and I want to get my BTC out. Do you guys close the account quick and give the 10 BTC back if the seller wants to? How quick can you guys do this?

2.
How about you guys take USD in reserve instead of BTC? I understand this doesn't fulfil the requirement of escrow. In that case maybe you only keep say 10% of the actual BTC a person can trade as a deposit. And if the seller isn't able to fulfil the buy order in a specified time he is charged a 5% fine (just giving a random number here).

1)Anytime you escrow your bitcoin, you can ask for it back with a 1% fee. The BTC cannot be returned though until the end of a day if there are outstanding quotes. Yet if there are no quotes on your escrowed BTC, and you request to have it returned immediately. No delays.

2)It just cannot happen that way for many different reasons. The way things are set up now are great, and they are going to stay this way. I am flexible, but it would have to be a benefit to the overall business to change, and what you suggested, wouldn't be in the best interest of the business as a whole.

You should never guarantee profits, regardless of the venture.

Arbitrage plays are fairly attractive when it comes to BTC & other cryptocurrencies, but bank-roll size is going to be what determines profitability.

-Johnny
www.americandatafarms.com

I have both. What exactly do I have to do to get "guaranteed profits"?

Great. If you have an account at either Bitstamp, or BTC-e, as well as a bank account at a major bank such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, SunTrust etc then you are in business.

Contact Dan at the Bitcoin-Brokers help desk to get set up.

awesome

very refreshing to see this on this forum. kudos

Good news for whoever wants to make good money with Bitcoin-Brokers, there are more openings now available.

To qualify, you will need a funded account at Bitstamp and at least one major US bank account such as :

BOA
Wells Fargo
PNC
Citi
TD
Regions
US Bank

Hi - i just want to say that i set up an account with Bitcoin-brokers and have been buying on the dips -I JUST BOUGHT @ 448.00! AWESOME!  Best price execution and making money on all trades thus far!  They are super fast, efficient and if you have any questions the help-desk is a real person and is there for you instantly - WELL DONE BITCOIN BROKERS! A++