Bitcoin Forum

edit:nvm u fix it

I don't think I have ever seen the prices so close on Bitstamp and BTC-E

Interesting, I thought the Gox gap was closing a few days ago (it was only around $5 to Bitstamp) but now it's growing again.

Any speculation as to the cause of this? Withdrawal hiatus is over, surely price should be equalizing by now?

Q: Why would you sell on Bitstamp when Mt. Gox is 10% higher, and has just moved up 5% without Bitstamp moving?

A:
1. You don't really like money all that much
2. Once a bear, always a bear
3. Manipulation
4. Retardation

Well, the price proves the withdrawal problems are not over.

And indeed I did not receive my EUR withdrawal from mtgox ordered many weeks ago via 'international transfer'.

aye 85.22 and 85.49 atm

I think Bitstamp is being hammered by sellers who want fiat. CampBx might have the most accurate price at present.

Care to explain how price could be manipulated in this way? I honestly have no idea, I'm just another dumb sheep new to this whole thing.

And even if the majority of users are retards (which I doubt) all it takes is a handful of people with a lot of fiat to see the profit opportunities and buy a shitload of coins from Bitstamp to sell at Gox and make easy money on the gap, thus closing it more and more in the process.
Or am I missing something here? Simply trying to apply logic but it doesn't add up.

But haven't Gox always been really slow with withdrawals? I've heard of cases where money has taken over a month to arrive.

QED. People are reluctant to send their coin to Gox to trade for Fiat because it is extremely difficult to actually take possession of the Fiat. A continuously rising percentage of small trades appears to be leaving Gox for other exchanges. The whales are still there because no place else can really accommodate them. Yet.

Over the last 24 hours to me it looks like we are seeing co-ordinated buying in Gox and dumping on BitStamp at   > 10% slippage, not to mention using market sell orders on Bitstamp thereby increasing the slippage. It's happening again as I speak. Either someone is suddenly getting more nervous about their fiat on Gox or perhaps they know something.
Watch with interest ...

The other interesting thing to note is that this fiat on Gox could buy and hold and move the coins of exchange if they were confident in medium term price outlook.
That they are not is a worrying sign in iself IMO. A sign of the impending demise of Gox and the impact it will have on confidence and price.

Just my opinion ... I have no facts to back it up, just watching the unusual price action and speculating as to motive.

Interestingly, the last buy order on BitStamp was a market buy ... probably from an arbitrageur who had sold on Gox. I bet if he had stuck a bid in and waited, it would've got hit ...

Ok, I will.

http://shrani.si/f/0/yD/4NrZY7CU/render.png

mtgox 97
bitstamp 87
btce 86
campbx 90


lol

I've been tossing and turning all night thinking about this.  Let me do some math out loud here.

I can deposit $10,000 to my Dwolla account and then deposit that to my CampBX account = $9999.75
Using current numbers I can buy $9999.75 worth of Bitcoin $89.53 = 111.69 BTC - 0.55% fee = 111.08 BTC
Transfer to MtGox = 111.07 BTC
Sell on MtGox for $95.99 = $10,661.61  which is a $661.61 profit
Then I can wire transfer out for a $25 fee, right?  Leaving me with $10.636.61 for over $600 profit?  I'm unaware of any other way to get USD out of Gox into my bank account.  Gone are the days of Dwolla transfers for 25 cents.  However, when you deal with $10k a $25 transfer fee ain't shit, right?

Why isn't arbitrage killing this huge spread?  I don't get it.  I am HORRIBLE at math, literally horrible, but is this not a sure fire way to make money?  You could even rinse and repeat, right!?

Because your usd wire transfer from mtgox may cost only $25, but it's not arriving! (from what I hear here, and the huge widening spread confirms that)

Ofcourse if it is arriving, rinse and repeat!

Good luck getting your $ withdrawal processed by Gox  :D
How long are you prepared to wait for your *possible* rinse and repeat ?

that can be a problem

I thought the wire transfers were flowing again.  People were posting proof of transactions into their bank accounts.  To answer your question I would be willing to wait a month for a 6% profit to get bank into my bank account.  What if I could rinse and repeat 12 times a year?  Would that be a 72% profit for the year?  What other old-ass traditional stock, commodity, ETF, bond, forex trading, etc can net you that??

^This. The selling pressure on BitStamp is IMO irrational.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=251895.msg2786714#new
And check several other threads in service discussion

Draw your own conclusions, but it seems 'flowing' is not the right word. 'Trickling' perhaps. I think your month would be very optimistic. Bear in mind that you are also taking on serious counterparty risk during this time. Your % profit is simply betting on the probability of Gox becoming insolvent over that (unknown) time frame. That's the trade.
If I were you, right now, I would be factoring in a 3 month wait time. Just a guess ...

EDIT : I do not have an agenda here, I am merely stating my opinion of things as I see and interpret them. YMMV

We've seen ~1k buys/dumps!

So you're telling me that there are people who think that the risk of cashing out via MtGox is greater than the risk of holding large amounts of BTC through one of the greatest bubble crashes in history?

You may be right, but it just doesn't ring true to me. I think most BTC holders are further along the risk/reward curve than that.

I can understand a gap -- but I think the gap is unnaturally wide. People shorting on bitfinex accounts for some of the gap but not all. The dumps we saw earlier today reminded me greatly of previous irrational dumps we saw on Gox. Anyway, we'll see...

The last large buy on MtGox was about 8k IIRC, dumping this on Bitstamp would drive the price down to 60, which is insane for just one day.
And the dumps on Bitstamp started before this last large buy on MtGox. Something does not make sense.

Hey, I think we are actually largely in agreement ... something does not seem to quite add up right now and the gap seems unnaturally large.
Further than that, anything I say is pure speculation and I have no idea of the reality of the situation

You are right ... Gox solvency vs holding BTC may be a tough call for some as clearly there are insufficient bids on BitStamp to provide a clean exit for those with large fiat balances on Gox

But all the slow withdrawal process means is delayed profit. If you have a lot of capital even doing this once will earn you quite a bit which you'll have in a month or two. I'd sure do it if I had access to that kind of money to spend on BTC.
Or has trust that Mt.Gox will pay you at all already died?

The spread gonna go up uP UP.

Watch out for 100% premiums as gox curls it's death toes.

again 10% gap

Yeah 10% spread between CampBX and Gox right now.  Madness.

Gap between CampBX and Gox has been narrowing all day.  Currently only $1 difference.  Other exchanges not following that trend, however.  Anybody care to post another gap graph?  I don't know where you are getting them.

Yeh.. But what happens when you never receive the Gox payment?

ppl got fiat back from bitcoin24 and bitfloor, that's the advantage when you deal with fiat it can be reverted and it leaves more traces than blood 

Bitcoin24 some, but most, probably 80%, not yet and largest account is still frozen. Chances are high it will be returned but until then, it's not.

The gap makes sense;

The Gox price is artificially high because they cannot process withdrawals in a timely manner (up to 3 months in many cases).

As many people need funds that are in their account or are afraid the cumulative effect of slow withdrawals and many other problems Gox have had recently could spell the end for Gox, they are forced to transfer their Fiat into Bitcoin creating + rise in value on the exchange. The opposite effect (- effect) happens on all other exchange as the coins flow into them for sale.

There's no money to be made from arbitrage the prices aren't random on each exchange it's just a reflection of the above. If you monitor the difference in price between say btc-e and bitstamp there's a pretty consistent $1 diff or 1/88= 1%.

The 1% difference on these exchanges possibly reflects the higher cost (1%) of depositing money onto Btc-e

Gox customer service is worryingly don't give a fuckish with a bit of sarcastic "Dear valued customer" thrown in for spitish reasons (possibly staff know they're soon to be unemployed and don't like taking shit from pricks like me!!). I really wouldn't risk your money trying to Arb from exchanges to Gox you stand to make 5-10% as a one off if they don't go out of business and they get their problems sorted. I'd say there's a 25% if you're going to leave money there over the next 3 months you could lose it all.

if the money is there, it can take more time and more paper work, users will get the money, this is the advantage that fiat have

Can you give me the url for this? Also cavirtex with 10k up to $92 with gox at $100.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=USD&span=24h

Why would you sell at Mt. Gox, at any price, when withdraws do not work?

1. you're delusional
2. you're stupid
3. you like to have a fake balance that you can't really use
4. you are a gambler (and hope your withdrawal will go through)

(hint: there are better places to gamble, with a much smaller house edge)

From the look of the spread out Askwall on btc-e I think we will have a new high today.

We really need a graph btw.

10 BTC arbitrage Volume
http://i44.tinypic.com/2ah9q49.jpg (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

100 BTC arbitrage volume
http://i43.tinypic.com/atd9k.png (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

1000 BTC arbitrage volume
http://i41.tinypic.com/20abaxy.png (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

10000 BTC arbitrage volume
http://i42.tinypic.com/25r2hpj.png (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

visit http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage

I think people have the situation backwards.  The BTC purchases on Gox are clearly not being dumped on other exchanges as that would have caused prices to plummet on these small exchanges which they are not.  So I think thouse holding USD on Gox are not particularly trying to flee Gox, they still on average wish to convert USD to BTC just like they always have.  

The rise in price is being driven on Gox is driven by BTC miners not offering a supply of new coins to Gox, as the miner rightly concludes if they can not get the resulting USD in 3 months anyways, why not just wait until then to sell when the price might be higher.  This is why we have seen a drop in the BTC depth on Gox decline by about half the volume of the large purchasing spikes.  I believe after a whale buys a large sum of coins he stimulates smaller day trader to do about an equal volume of rapid back and forth trading, all the coins of which are just being re offered at new prices, so total depth is unaffected by these trades, but volume is increased.

https://www.cavirtex.com/orderbook

look at that gap

BTC from Fort Gox have been dumped on other exchanges, but not enough to explain the missing BTC on Gox.

This (mini?) rally came too soon for me, I just initiated today another euro deposit to Bitstamp, I just hope to catch the next valley with it.

read this because some users did have some problems
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270716.0

I'm still long Bitcoin, just not MtGox.

So I've shifted from 100% MtGox to about 50% physical, 45% wallet, 5% gox.

Not sure what percentage of gox-withdrawers are like me, but this could account for decreased volume without depressed prices.

When I got in, they were at $5, so the net risk didn't really justify diversifying.
As value went up, I adjusted a little.
As Mt. Gox's reliability (subjectively speaking of course) decreased, I adjusted a lot.

Eyes wide open, money in an exchange is at increased risk of loss. That risk is part of the equation one accepts when trading.

+1

Bitfloor just paid me back yesterday, and luckily, I was able to withdrawal as soon as news hit about bitcoin24 and did not loose any money. I try to never keep more than a few BTC in a trading site.

Any explanation for the high EUR price at bitcoin.de? It's only a couple of euros below Gox's EUR price, while Gox's EUR price seems to reflect EUR/USD exchange rate and GoxUSD price. Isn't there an arbitrage opportunity between bitcoin.de and Bitstamp? Buy at Bitstamp, sell at btcde, rinse, repeat? Of course the depth at btcDE is not that great, but still?

Trading on btc-e has been depressing lately. Nobody wants to get in at 95... I get the feeling this will last till either gox & bitstamp break the previous resistance or it doesn't even get that far and it plummets right after the top without the chance to unload.

As long as their new bank is not tied into trading, it still takes 2-3 days for a bank transfer to clear (and for you to buy/sell coins).
(IF you didn't know, right now trades are account to account, so you have to wait for funds to clear.)

Also, the volume there is quite low, relatively. But, there is an opportunity, it is just that your money is tied up for 3 days or so at Bitcoin.de, then you need another 3 days or so to get it back to Stamp.
So, you are talking a week for 10%, which is doable, but you might miss a move.
Gox has the volume and seems like the best place to trade, if you are good.

They no longer allow americans on their exchange (if you have a US address, your trading is restricted).

They no longer allow non-german EU residents to trade over 2500 EUR per calendar year (because after 2500 EUR they have to fully verify you and they can only do this currently in germany).

As such there's alot less of the volume sellers who normally buy on different exchanges just to resell on bitcoin.de, but still lots of small volume buyers who are driving the price up (because they aren't effected by the inability to transact over 2500 EUR a year).

I would imagine the volume on bitcoin.de is significantly down as well since the Fidor bank announcement.

Yes, I emailed them about the American thing. I have had an account for a while now and once I updated things and said I was a US Citizen, things were suspended. I emailed them and asked about when they would allow me to trade again. They said maybe in 2 weeks. But I noticed the caps on trades. I don't get it. I have a residency permit in Germany, so I don't want bad treatment regarding this.

I would pay the premium price there (Gox like) as I trust the German banks more than the Slovanian (Bitstamp) banks.

Well, it looks like bitcoin.de might have just cut off their nose to spite their face and they are going to have to adjust their policy as they won't generate enough money.  ;)

@Its About Sharing your obligation of being US citizen apply world wide not just if u are in US

The problem is FATCA. This describes the situation...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/americans-giving-up-passports-jump-sixfold-as-tougher-rules-loom.html

I cant quite get over gox said 2 week until withdrawal will be fixed, no usd withdrawals, but hey money can still come in as fast you want.

two weeks go and then what, essentially perma withdrawal problems

How hard can this be? you would get a new bank or system that could cope.

One wonders at how long this can keep up. Gox must either solve the problem, or its over. You have to start thinking about fractional reserve going on, for both USD and BTC.

Go long, and by long I mean 3 years+. Ride this all out.

Actually you can thank the US Government for this. It makes a lot of financial sense for many financial institutions outside the United States to refuse to do business with US Citizens or residents. The reason FATCA and the compliance costs it imposes on those institutions. I would go as far as saying that I would not be surprised if  MTGox ends up "solving" its withdrawal problems by simply refusing to do business with US Citizens or residents. The problem is far wider than Bitcoin. The bottom line here is that the US government has effectively turned ex-pat US Citizens into financial pariahs all over the world.

Thanks for the info guys. I wasn't aware of FATCA. I have an unlimited German residency permit and live in Germany now but am still a US citizen. I do not report/file taxes in America and have heard that is fine.
I don't want to give up my citizenship, that has never entered my mind. I love the country, but the government (or is it corporations?) are just destroying what it once stood for.

I understand the US Government is ostracizing it's own citizens both in and out of the country with it's near totalitarian laws. Man, what has happened to this country?

I'm going through the Gox procedure as a backup account. Any recommendations for others, especially considering I'm in Europe? I know of Stamp. If too off topic, just a link please.

@facta http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/11/technology/eduardo-saverin-facebook-citizenship/index.htm  ;D

I do not know who has given you this advice, but I strongly suspect it is very wrong and very dangerous. I would go straight to the source. http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/U.S.-Citizens-and-Resident-Aliens-Abroad (http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/U.S.-Citizens-and-Resident-Aliens-Abroad)

As Bitcoin exchanges Bitstamp seems to be the choice for now especially if you are in Europe and can use SEPA. I have not used them myself so I do not have direct experience with them. Here in Canada I use Virtex; however in a somewhat similar and stricter fashion to bitcoin.de one has to be a Canadian citizen resident in Canada to use them. MTGox is currently having a lot of issues with fiat withdrawals, I expect that this will eventually get sorted out especially for currencies other than USD and MTGox will remain a viable and strong business; however there are many on this board that have a very different point of view that is worthy of consideration before risking any funds there.

Thanks for the advice.

There is a provision on double taxation and not having to pay taxes twice. Germany's tax rate is much higher than in America, so there is little chance of having to owe taxes in America, but point is taken. But after 10 years here, I'm not sure I want to raise eyebrows there. Even if wrong, I have yet to meet a person who has been living here filing taxes in the States.

There is a good discussion on it here and a lawyer (user "anwalt") chimes in.
http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t29771-15.html (http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t29771-15.html)

cavirtex just added a merchant API, I think it'll make the prices there even lower as you have a higher selling demand (I just don't see how most merchants would want to keep BTC instead of fiat).

mtgox - bitstamp arbitrage history for last 24h

http://i39.tinypic.com/2qlye6f.png (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

1) Volume of 10 BTC:
arbitrage opportunity in orderbooks (MKT Price %) - 14.109 %
arbitrage realized in trades (VWAP Traded %) - 14.337%

2) Volume of 10 BTC
arbitrage opportunity in orderbooks (MKT Price %) - 14.451 %
arbitrage realized in trades (VWAP Traded %) - 14.522%

2) Volume of 100 BTC
arbitrage opportunity in orderbooks (MKT Price %) - 14.157 %
arbitrage realized in trades (VWAP Traded %) - 14.523%

Interesting that there are also both 1000 BTC Volume and 10000 BTC Volume arbitrage percent visible.
Although MKT Price arbitrage is less than 12% for 1000 BTC Volume.
And for 10000 BTC Volume it even negative for half of last 24hours.

While realized arbitrage in trades shows significant percent for 1000 and 10000 BTC Volume. As high as 14.025 %.

Interesting...

you can't cashed out from gox - or it takes forever - so this is meaningless

if it is meaningless for you it does not mean that the same is true for someone else, right?

Or the whole thread is meaningless or even the whole speculation forum :)

It is interesting to see while the immediate arbitrage right in orderbooks between mtgox and bitstamp available in 10000 BTC capacity on both exchnages. Although the ~5+% profit will be eaten by cumulative transcation fees.

And keeping in mind all accusations about gox withdrawals  nontheless trading is going on and trading volume is big enough. And the price  of trades shows significantly  bigger profites should they actually realized.

Here you can see the arbitrage calculated on actual trading volumes of last 10000 BTC traded on both exchanges shows that trading price difference between gox and bitstamp is stable thru last 24h at above than 11% and for the last two hours above 12%
http://i41.tinypic.com/2yu0l5w.png (http://bitcoin-analytics.com/#arbitrage)

16 USD gap


LOL

19 USD gap  :o

Think bitstamp will soon break 100 USD :)

Bitstamp on the daily chart looks very strong. Four hits at that $100 resistance. Looking at $125 after it breaks through.

You can by Bitcoin for $90 CAD at Virtex right now. That's about what? $87 USD.

$20 gap.

That's fucking ridiculous. My guess is one of these exchange services is intentionally creating the gap so they can force their clients into taking a lower valuation.

Now we go from elation to worry. Nice to see the price on GOX go up and on HUGE volume/buys, but when there are crickets elsewhere, it is very very worrisome. So, they got their coins, but do they want to risk a 20% loss of funds? And the slippage can turn huge as the other exchanges probably can't handle that volume. Or do they just hold? It has been the latter for a while. I don't see large sells at the other exchanges. Sort of like people are saying FU to GOX.

This is a bit like all the chip sales from Yifu's Avalon scam/debacle (which I unfortunately got in on the smaller side), the writing is on the wall...

With a large, persistent gap between Gox and other exchanges, the only people buying Gox coins are those with fiat already on the exchange.  And that's truly scary for the near-term future of bitcoin, as many people believe Gox USD price is a metric of bitcoin value, and will be deeply disappointed by the likely coming crash in Bitstamp value.

I'm sure Karpales has made a graph of the total withdrawal amounts pending vs. time since the withdrawals were suspended.  How many USD millions are now pending?  5?  10?  20?  Any students of crashes have learned that the build up happens slowly, but when it finally starts, it happens very fast.

Stamp has shown some strength recently. I'm happy about that.

But, the big buys on Gox has really caught my attention. It seems like big pocketed people (very big) took us from $65 to here. When will they run out?
I really would love to know how much money is in their bank ready for buys. I don't mean money we can see on the orderbook. These big market orders are always unexpected, though they seem
spread out a day here and then two days later there.

Let us not forget that Gox was often equal with Bitstamp. Money might be going into Stamp as we speak, though I suspect it might wait for a pullback, unless they have some inside info...