Bitcoin Forum

Someone needs to do something about this already.

MTGOX is at $385 while Vircurex is at $290 right now.

Bitstamp is at $352, and even BTC-E is $50 different than Gox at $339.....

I know its trendy for everyone to say Gox sucks here, but lets have an intelligent discussion void of the nonsense logic that the biggest US exchange is "irrelevant".

IQ required please.

Also the spread is roughly the same as it always has been in percentage terms.

Pretty sure Gox isn't reliable due to the USD withdrawal problems, so it's price is inflated. I think Bitstamp is the best price indicator.

i am pretty sure the owners of the big exchanges are making big money through the huge difference in prices.

I think the reason china exchange is higher then mtgox, is they don't have many early adopters selling, creating a much bigger demand then supply compared to the rest of the world. And the rest off us can't exactly put bitcoins in there and transfer the money from china to home.

Yeah, BTCChina is currently ruling the market, BitStamp and co. are just slow to catch up.

That is indeed interesting observation.   If fiat can't move freely between borders, then the amount of Bitcoin per border (i.e. country) is also limited.   So this makes the total Bitcoin pie if much bigger than expected.   Let's say China needs 1/4 of all BTC,  U.S. the other 1/4, Europe 1/4 and there rest of the world the remaining.  That means the U.S. trading public sees only a limited supply of 11 million/4 -> A little less than 3 million bitcoins!!!!

Someone?  Explain?

And why does anything have to be done about it.  People will use the exchange that meets their particular needs at the best value available to them.


???

I'm pretty sure MtGox is a Japanese exchange.

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Subject: Computers $800 difference between the merchants!

Someone needs to do something about this already.
Apple Mac Mini computer is at $600 while Dell Alienware Aurora is at $1400 right now.

I know its trendy for everyone to say Apple sucks here, but lets have an intelligent discussion void of the nonsense logic that a huge US company is "irrelevant".

IQ required please.

The main thing that bitcoin is trying to solve.
Moving money easier.

You managed to go complete nonsense on that comparison. Isn't it clear enough that only bitcoin is being compared in the OP ? Translating your comparison back to coins, what you're effectively doing there is comparing bitcoin vs litecoin in USD terms and saying that one is worth more dollars than the other, lol really ?

The only thing you got right was pointing out that Mt.Gox is not an USA company, congrats.

You are completely mistaken. The OP is not comparing "only bitcoin".  The OP is comparing "exchanges", each with their own features, and costs, and benefits, and issues.  I'm not comparing bitcoin to litecoin, I'm comparing MtGox to Vircurex (and to BitStamp, and to BTC-E) and saying use of one is worth more dollars than the other.  And yes, really.



Is that so?  Perhaps you are falling back on preconceived notions.


Thanks.

Add litecoin to all bitcoin exchanges. The idea being to encourage arbitrage trading between all exchanges and force the equalization of prices across the board.

Fail……
it is ONLY difficult for US to move fiat around the world… you can bet your life that some of the exchange operators have a 'deal' that allows them to cross trade, at the same time as limiting the ability of their clients to withdraw funds.
After all if everyone could do it, then the price would soon even out.
 

1. Just as DannyHamilton mentioned, the title "Hero Member" does not guarantee the post quality at all. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see bitcointalk account trading. Never judge the post quality or user reliability based on the title solely.

2. Mtgox WAS the biggest US exchange, and is losing its market share rapidly.

3. The bitcoin price is a lot higher at mtgox. But, if you try to sell your bitcoin at mtgox, you need to wait for weeks (if not months, hopefully) for your fiat withdrawal even after verification. The support there is very bad as well.

4. Mtgox's price has always been a lot higher than its competitors, why didn't someone try to earn easy money to "buy low sell high", and bring the prices to the same level?? Well, the answer is simply that it is not feasible due to the extremely long withdrawal delay at mtgox.

I hope my post is helpful to you :)

It seems possible to rotate cash and coins between exchanges for profit, and incidentally equalise prices, but the price difference suggests that most speculators are bullish and they don't want to risk having too much cash frozen in the banking system in a bull market.

To combat delays, they could have extra cash on hand to buy more coins at a cheaper exchange, but why wait if the price is going up? Hence they are all-in and have no spare cash. 2) They're sceptical of MtGox so they don't send coins there either. Therefore MtGox's prices are higher due to a BTC shortage, not a ca$h shortage.

Moving USD crap between exchanges is at best a 'pain in the time consuming ass'

Correct, the inability to get ca$h out of the exchange in a timely and reliable manner creates a surplus of ca$h already in the exchange.  The fastest way to withdraw value from the exchange is to convert the ca$h into BTCTC, withdraw the BTCTC, and sell them elsewhere.  This outflow of BTCTC creates a BTCTC shortage.  The ca$h surplus and BTCTC shortage naturally results in an increase in exchange rate as expressed in the form of $/BTC (or a decrease in exchange rate as expressed in the form of BTC/$).

Short answer, the global bitcoin market as a whole is still very small and immature. Market forces that would correct this kind of thing haven't kicked in enough yet to close this spread.

To get a sense of how small bitcoin still is with the 4 billion USD market cap seen as late, remember that Twitter recently had an IPO followed by trading on the open market where its market cap went up by several tens of billions all on the opening day!

The situation MtGox has themselves in is itself a good illustration of how immature the bitcoin space is, other asset classes don't have major exchanges that can't find a decent banking partner. Blame some of this on MtGox, blame some of this on the fact that they've got themselves involved in a strange new thing called bitcoin.

But, with there being other exchanges, it all goes beyond that: in a more mature market, it shouldn't matter that MtGox is only able to do 10 wire transfers per day and that their SEPA withdrawals are slow too. They have decent Yen withdrawal, folks who don't want a long wait should be bringing their bitcoin elsewhere to sell.

Arbitragers in Japan with access to this should be wiring their funds to Bitstamp and BTC-e, buying bitcoin, selling on Gox and getting Yen back fast. A well enough resourced person could even borrow bitcoin to sell on Gox at the same time as their buy on Bitstamp so that bitcoin network transfer times don't become a factor. Unlike China, I don't think Japan has a capital control situation that makes this too hard for wealthy and resourced Japanese folks to pull off.

But there is another factor at play, any arbitrager has to look at the depth of the order books to see what really can be done, prices at the top of the order books can't be the only indicator.

In a more mature market, some of the forces I've mentioned will close these gaps between exchanges. In time they probably will.

But that's the thing about market forces, they don't act as fast as they are sometimes idealized to. We're all very spoiled by how very fast bitcoin transfers are.

Let's put this basic fact about the pace of market forces in perspective. Labour markets are perhaps one of the best examples of those that are incredibly slow. Try cutting wages in absolute terms in a deflationary environment -- as an employer you'll have a riot on your hands even if your cuts are well below the deflation rate (higher wages in real terms). Try convincing a friend to leave all their social ties behind and move for employment opportunities to another region in the same country. Try retraining for a new career.

Thank you. I've always thought that it was the other way around and it had no sense to me.

priority for withdrawls?


BittBurger, once upon a 'before your time' there was bitinstant and aurumexchange to trade between exchanges. They shutdown

It looks like there is someone that can do arbitrage well for China to Japan (MtGox), resulting in their exchange rates to be close.

Such is not as refined between the other exchanges. The higher the overhead, the larger the price difference.

There is a lot of money to be made here, so chances are this will be resolved in the future.

That's actually an excellent idea.

How does that change anything? For trading purposes it is exactly the same as bitcoin.

The price differences come down to ease of moving fiat.

BTC-e charges 2% for OK-pay deposits, and OK-pay also charges 2%. So $375 on BTC-e * 1,04 = $390 on Bitstamp. Because it costs you $390 to get $375 of value into BTC-e.

Same for Mt.Gox, withdrawal difficulty is hard.

In China, there is premium because of high demand, and it costs $$ to move BTC from the Western world to China. Eventually China will lead though.

No benefit for bitcoin at all.

Use the btcchina price and convert it to whatever currency. Its the most accurate price :)

Why would btcchina have the most accurate price, huh?

Anyone making $$$ trading the difference on the exchanges?  ???


I know it can be done... even if it requires some kind of Japanese connection for quick withdrawals via Mt Gox :D

That's a problem local to Mt. Gox.  Legit exchanges where you can get money out don't have that problem.

I highly doubt that.

he used "quick" and "Mt.Gox" in one sentence

This
+1

That's all..  We must keep % in mind.. and understand how fiat is an ancient and innefficient model.