Bitcoin Forum

I just bought some bitcoins on Korbit and sent them to Coinbase to turn into USD (sending to Europe for Euro is possible too).

After paying the fees because of the arbitrage, I actually made money!

Here is the breakdown. 

371,000 won paid for 1 bitcoin
according to XE.com that is worth $341
Coinbase will buy it right now for $349 but will charge me about $4 in fees so really $345
So basically I just got better than market value buy sending Bitcoin. 

Had I sent the money with KEB as I normally did before, they would have charged me 1104 won per USD.
So they would have given me $336 but.... that is not including their fee, plus my banks fee in America brings the total to $301. 

So sending money from KEB -> US bank account takes three days and means 371,000 won to $301
Sending money from KEB -> Korbit -> BTC -> Coinbase -> US bank account means 371,000 won to $345, but only takes a couple of hours. 
And again the official XE rate right now is only $341, so basically I just got paid for $4 above market rate for using Bitcoin to send money home. 

All these steps are a bit complicated and not for somebody who doesn't have tech skills, but if you have the time to look into it and the ability to set up these accounts, it is a pretty good deal. 

How does this work? 

Instead of my banks having to use a big international clearing house as a middle man, I became the middle man, kind of my own banker.  I looked at the markets and found a good time to buy and sell.   

I'm pretty curious what would big brother react if your little arbitrage business goes bigger scale.

Wouldn't they track your transaction history in Korbit and accuse of breaking foreign exchange control law and impose a nasty amount of penalty lol

Good luck mate!

I have trouble following your reasoning here.  I assume you are talking about the US government when you say "big brother."  The IRS has outlined how US citizens should be treating bitcoin when it comes to filing their taxes.  It isn't illegal to buy or sell bitcoin in Korea.  It isn't illegal to buy and sell bitcoin in the US as far as I know.  If a US citizen is realizing capital gains buying and selling bitcoin and they are reporting it properly when they file their taxes I don't see how this could possibly be illegal. 
Plus keep in mind we are talking about a few dollars here.

I see this method of international money transfer as a smart way to avoid nasty banking fees.

Sure they won't care about a few dollar transaction, but I am simply saying this could be raising flags to money laundering detection team if the scale go bigger.