Bitcoin Forum

What's up with the pretty significant differences among the various exchanges?  Mt. Gox was somewhere around $940/BTC, but coinbase was at like $787/BTC.  If you were looking to buy BTC, why would you go through Mt. Gox and pay more, when coinbase is much cheaper?

Also, what do you do when you are buying something with bitcoins?  I bought a Ridge Wallet:

http://www.ridgewallet.com/

They don't officially accept bitcoin, so emailed the owner and he said they planned to start accepting bitcoins, but they were waiting on verification.  He agreed to allow me to pay with bitcoins, which I did by sending them via my multibit wallet.  I put in the amount in USD, and the conversion was done automatically.  When he got them, he said I was $10 short and cited the coinbase price.  It's definitely not a big deal, but if the item were significantly more expenses, that could make a huge difference.  

I don't know either. Especially when it takes months getting your money in and out of Mt.gox.

I think that is why. It takes so long and it's so unlikely to actually get money out of gox that nobody wants to sell on there with intent to withdraw. The sales made on gox are only those actively trading. Nobody wants to waste their time trying to withdraw from gox so I think this is what potentially inflates their price.

I would've thought this would've made the coins on there cheaper. No idea why or who buys from gox anymore.

Only a noob that had done no research would buy at Gox. The USD price is artificial because nobody can get their USD out of Gox.

Seriously, I don't understand why mtgox is still in business.

If you want to sell bitcoin, you won't go there because of the terrible delay in withdrawal.
If you want to buy bitcoin, you won't go there because of the terribly high price.

Why hasn't that made the price of coins cheaper? I would've thought this would've had the opposite effect.

Really??  No, its -higher- because you can't get money out.  Let's say they have 100,000 accounts, all with 5k on the site.  You want cash out, but alas, you can't because they basically don't do USD withdrawals and SEPA/Euro withdrawals now take months.  So how does one get money out of Gox? 

Only one option, but Bitcoin, and then transfer that Bitcoin to another wallet.  Those transfer usually are still happening with a couple days from Gox.  Since everyone HAS to buy, price is higher.  If anyone sells, your fiat is stuck.

Also, you might want to sell bitcoins (buy them cheap elsewhere, sell on MtGox, make profit) and wait for several months. Some people do not mind the long wait.

Because only money and coins come into Gox at the moment - none goes out. Like pumping air into a balloon, its only going to increase in size until it bursts.

Have you been listening at all? You can't get your money out of gox. They will likely be out of business before they send any international wires. You wanna risk it?

If you know exactly how long you need to wait, and you are guaranteed to be able to get the USD after the wait, then maybe someone would not mind the wait.

The problem is you never know how long the wait will be.
It maybe 2 months, maybe a year, or maybe never.
The site may just die and go bankrupt before you receive your USD.

I've got a friend in Tokyo, Japanese guy, last month opened an account with them, and they claim to send withdrawals to JP clients the same day, yet even he is scared of putting in any money in case it just disappears. That's how desperate the general view of Gox is now.

There are some people who have problems getting money from gox. Maybe it is the majority, maybe strong majority. But definitelly not all of them. I do not think gox will get out of business. And no, I do not want to risk it. But someone does.

If people were risking it the price difference between gox and bitstamp wouldn't be growing by the day. Gox has jumped $60 in the last day or so, bitstamp $30. This is not indicative of arbing. This is indicitative of people getting their money trapped in gox.

True.
The price gap used to be around $100, and is now $170.

And the price gap in % of price?

But a calculator dude, its really not that difficult to divide two numbers.

This is what I had in mind.  :)