Bitcoin Forum

Here's my issue with BTC.  Unlike stocks and currencies, there's no centralized exchange for BTC verses fiat.  I was looking at the BTC to USD rate and everyplace is different.

Google = 477.17
Coinbase = 479.92
BTC-E = 475.01
GHASH = 501.18

Obviously I'm not even touching the spread.  Each exchange does whatever they like without reporting via common framework to tie buy/sell prices together.

ETFs are probably going to offer what you are looking for: a centralized platform offering definitive bid/ask price sets to institutional investors and that will be where to look for a valuation of Bitcoin from the financial world.

............ do you even bitcoin?

I'm not even sure what this means... but thanks for the sarcasm...

There might be arbitrage opportunities here. Think about it!!

Centralized.. Bitcoin..  its just a no.

Whats the problem with that? you can get the average price if u want to anyway

So, you think it makes sense that any exchange can set a random price?  GHASH is obviously way off base compared to everyone else, I feel that the global price should be global and not left to individual entities.  The way we are currently running, I can create an exchange and say that BTC is worth 200USD instead of 477USD.

Currently, each exchange works independently of each other, so, which price is the correct price?

I completely agree with.Even though it depends on the volume of Coins onto each exchanges.There should be at lest a tying system within them.

Price is different because each exchange has different level of trust. And the bank changes them different rate when customers do wire transfer.

When all fees factor in, you will be surprise how close the price really is.

I'd buy shitload of your 200$ BTC then. Do you see where is it heading? I strongly doubt you do, otherwise you would not start this retarded thread.

Nothing wrong with asking newbie question and learning how the market work.

Google the term "arbitrage" to see why prices on btc around the world track each other.

I'm retarded because I brought up a scenario...  The funny part is that you'd assume that I'd be selling my shares at 200 and not buying other peoples coins to then dump at a higher price...

Before condemning someone for their questions or thoughts, maybe you should look at the entire picture.  I hold a Series 7 and 15... not that you know what they are...

Thanks for your answer, I'm fully aware of the term arbitrage as I worked the link between Tokyo, London, Sydney and US for trading Yen/Dollar FOREX.

Exhanges don't set the price............

I can go put a bitcoin for sale on any of my exchanges for $1 if I felt like giving wealth away.

price isn't set for bitcoin anyway, those difference are quite normal, just look at the biggest one

Well, it sounds strange if you are familiar with forex market, you should know there is no centralised forex exchange in the world. As well, there are several markets for equities depending on the country though, that's how high frequency trader raised. Even though there are aggregating price quote system infrastructure in forex and equity, fundamental is the same as current bitcoin market.

Speaking of arbitrage, there are many arbitrager in equity market much more profitable than bitcoin market for brokers considering market size. Even now you can see price gap between forex markets don't you? Yes the unit price differs a lot in BTCs but if you multiplied the forex gap by the order size, gap is so huge.

My issue is rather that the BTC market is so thin in terms of trading volume. That is just the reason that bitcoin market has not been like equity or forex market YET.

The exchanges do not do whatever they want, they match buy orders with sell orders, make sure that both the buyer and seller get their respective bitcoin/fiat, and collect a small percentage of each trade. The prices on each exchange are different (google is not even an exchange, it is likely getting the price vai the winkdex) because the buyers and sellers at each exchange are willing to trade at slightly different prices.

But within each market there is still an open and close price... And yes, our US open and midday price will vary from London's opening, but it's usually close to inline with our price when they open and obviously based on a put or a buy... They will reach across the wire and do transactions until one market closes.  That's the point, the different markets exist because no one market is open 24/7.  And yes, even within the same market, one trading house will have a little different price than another, but all of the traders are linked together and ultimately the close is logged and you can go to the Wallstreet Journal and see the prior days activity within a market.

Bitcoin is a different entity all together, the market is based on where you park your bitcoin, but yet the market is 24/7.

Whatever, it is what it is...

MtGox offered much higher exchange rate than the average market price before going bankruptcy. There are some issues there. They are happy for your deposit,but always find excuses for your withdrawal request. They are manipulating the price. They are dead. I think the value of BTC in a reliable and secure exchange won't depart much from the average market value.

The rate on Mtgox is a lot lower than market price before closing the door and going bankrupt.

It was higher when customer can still withdraw bitcoin but not able to withdraw fiat.

This defeats the purpose of BTC.

Customers were able to withdraw fiat, it just took a long time. When it took longer then expected to withdraw their money from gox people would panic buy the bitcoin back and withdraw their bitcoin onto another exchange that could deliver fiat more quickly.

The price of bitcoin crashed on gox when customers were unable to withdraw their bitcoin because they thought holding fiat would be safer then holding bitcoin at an exchange with no bitcoin.

The whole idea of centralized exchange would be contrary to the idea behind bitcoin.

if the exchanges are centralized then what will it help that bitcoins are decentralized, exchanges should also be decentralized

They did not offer any rate, it was the rate that the market on their exchange provided. The reason it provided such rate was because people were having trouble getting their fiat out of gox. This was reflected in their exchange rate and the confidence that was given to them by the public.