Bitcoin Forum

I dont get it, why is there a 10$ spread between btc-e and gox? Am I missing something here, or is it raining stupidity?!

Maybe, the prices are not updated correctly.

MtGox is easiest for those filthy-rich Americans to buy bitcoins and drive the price up, but they cannot sell their bitcoins. The exchanges that offer liquidity are a buyers market. Also, BTC-E has multiple currency pairs and volume for arbitrage. New upstart exchanges are following this model. I am against serious exchanges trading in alt coins if they want to play with the big boys on Forex. I hope that's what MtGox is working on. Bitcoin is more than enough to rock the entire global currency market.

Trouble withdrawing $ funds from Gox. makes arbitrage difficult...

This question gets asked anew every single day. Might be a good idea to read or search posts rather than create new ones that just ask the same old thing ...

The difficulty of getting fiat into and out of different exchanges are the number one cause of pricing discrepancies.

everyone else is stupid, and you are smart

so go ahead and make the free money instead of posting about it

Spreads start to form when people cannot take advantage of arbitrage, make no mistake if there is an arbitrage opportunity people will be doing it. Arbitrage is a basic economic principle and the first thing people take advantage of.

If there is a constant $10 spread, its because people cannot buy/sell from both exchanges in a timely fashion to make use of the arbitrage opportunity.

My guess would be that getting USD out of Gox and back into BTC-E is too difficult to be worthwhile. I'm not even sure if you can get regular USD withdrawals out of Gox at the moment.

Once Litecoin is added to Gox the spread will be in cents.

Here is a video tutorial of a guy using some "arbitrage software" he designed himself...

https://www.mybtc-trader.com/index.php/tutorial/31-mtgox-btc-to-btc-e-btc-in-50-seconds

He doesn't make much per trade, but if you do it all day it adds up to a tidy sum for little effort..

Or Litecoin will also be more expensive on Gox than everywhere else.

Actually you might be right, adding Litecoin may not actually affect the USD value and won't allow for arbitrage.

Actually I am not sure why I thought it would make a difference in the first place.

If litecoin were to be added, it would just have the same end result we have now. If we would start with the Gox litecoin price being equal to the litecoin prices on other exchanges, people would buy litecoin on Gox in order to transfer it to btc-e and sell it for USD. Resulting in the same price discrepancy we have right now in bitcoin USD value between the different exchanges.

This lag has been evident between Gox and Bitstamp of late as well, it comes and goes, as nobody knows, the true monetary flows between all these foes.   ;)

Did u even watch the video?  He uses services which do not exist any longer , for example Bitinstant ;)

I've been looking into this for a long time.

Basically, it can't currently be done efficiently - you can't get your money out of Mt Gox when you sell your BTC there. People are waiting weeks, sometimes months before they see their USD or EUR move out of Gox.

There are a few inconclusive reports that moving larger (> 5 digit sums) of money out of Gox makes it go "faster" but there are contradictory reports for that as well.

Try it with 1 BTC or so, see how long your withdrawl takes :)

Yeah I'm tempted to try it but I don't need the risk (and stress) of trying to get USD out of Gox.  It just isn't worth all the hassles.

i've been thinking of doing that with bitstamp and a local exchange but the way it looks is that, the market depth for the local exchange is very thin and the prices change rapidly away from the bid/ask price.

furthermore, the price difference is so low i need at least 100 bitcoins or cash equivalent on both exchanges to make it worthwhile.

of course there is a small issue with speed (speed of sending bitcoins between exchanges) can be solved by having bitcoins/cash on both exchanges at the same time.


the biggest problem is the lack of fast updates for the prices,market depth and a trading system. I am doing futures trading and shares trading now and for effective trading, i need the prices to be shown to be in a quick and straightforward manner that updates as the market moves, so that i can see what is the latest market price, bid/ask and market depth.

The answer to the OP needs to be a sticky

I'm suspicious that MtGox themselves are using their own exchange to arbitrage through personal accounts.

The main cause of the huge spread is due to the withdrawal delay at mtgox, from various postings, about 8-12 weeks delay.

If your investment capital is limited, you will have to wait 8-12 weeks after each arbitrage trade before you can repeat the cycle.

You will have to factor the cost of fund wire in/out of both exchanges, and also the transaction fees from both the exchanges.  

After you work out the potential profit, compare it against other investment options over the same period of time, such as a Time Deposit Saving Account, Ultra short term Mutual funds etc.

Do your own ROI calculation and risk assessment.

Proceed to exploit the situation if there is profit to be made.  It's your own money, there is no need for random people on Internet to approve your investment action.

The market values mtgoxUSD less than btceUSD by about 10%. This is just part of the market forces. If you value goxusd higher, by all means arbitrage.

Could it have something to do with the difficulty of getting fiat up to BTC-E?

How many times can this be asked per day? This is getting out of hand. There should be a Red Announcement somewhere on the site..."You're not genius, there's a reason that gox is 10% higher than the rest!"

Considering the market share it's cost them over the last six weeks I don't think that's a winning bargain for them.

Someone asked this similar question here recently:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=263909.msg2831541#msg2831541
Many of the exchanges are poor quality is part of it.