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I frequently see bids that are greater than asks on the Gox ticker API, and even in their trading UI. The ticker often bears little resemblance to the order book.
Amateurs.
And yet they've got the most liquid market, narrow spreads and faster transfers in/out for USD and BTC.
What are you gonna do?
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It's not just a flakey API either. Here's the Mt. Gox UI, offering to sell coins for more than the cost to buy them. Unfortunately those trades never execute.  |
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How is it that bids are sometimes greater than asks on Mt. Gox?
Here's from the orderbook api 5 minutes ago.
See how the highest bid is greater than the three lowest asks? How can this happen?
bid/ask price quantity
------- --------- -----------
bid 16.839 33.3125
bid 16.87 0.16
bid 16.9211 5.94033484
ask 16.91 0.32
ask 16.92045 1.9435
ask 16.92109 9.59792994
ask 16.92839 0.2
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Because there are so many listings on our site, we can't immediately catch all listings that violate our policies.
Yeah, it's really hard to find all the bitcoin listings. Step 1 - type 'bitcoin' into the search box. Step 2 - press <Enter>. They're really giving it the old college try, aren't they? |
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There were some big differences between Gox and TH a couple days ago, but they've been very close since then.
Hard to make much when TH is so shallow, and after paying commissions on both sides.
You'd need to keep a decent balance of both USD and BTC on each exchange, and periodically rebalance them.
Really requires automation which won't be possible until TH releases their API.
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Still broken now, 40 min later.
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Believe me, I tried to get some discounted btc.
Seemed like a great opportunity to arb against Tradehill, but that doesn't work so well when the Tradehill sale executes but the Gox buy doesn't.
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Screenshots   |
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The ticker has been showing an ask of 15.1001 for the last 5 minutes, but the order book shows lowest ask of 17+
WTF?
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How can bids on Mt. Gox be greater than asks sometimes?
Here's a 5-minute stretch from my arb bot log where the spread was inverted:
mtgox 17.1039/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.1039/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.1039/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.1039/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.1039/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0909/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0908/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
It eventually corrected itself:
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09079, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09069, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09069, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0821/17.09069, tradehill 17.2/17.24
mtgox 17.0748/17.08209, tradehill 17.2/17.24
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Stupid thing is: I have to change back into BTC in tradehill since they can't pay me fiat decently, so if buying/selling doesn't even out statistically, I have to pay the fee twice when doing arbitrage.
Can't you take your fiat in dwolla pretty easily? |
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Disparities similar to this have been ongoing for 30 minutes, continuing at this moment.
Who's arbitraging these exchanges?
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That makes a lot of sense. I saw this quote from http://www.btcvc.com/, which summed it up better than I did: "Unless an economy with goods and services based on Bitcoin can be established, Bitcoin never has the potential to be anything more than just a vehicle with which to transfer value from one currency to another ...
If Bitcoin only exists as a medium to exchange with other currencies, Bitcoin will become an untraceable version of Forex that's plagued by fraud.
The only way to sustain the economy of Bitcoin is to invest in businesses based in providing goods and services in exchange for Bitcoin." I'm looking forward to helping build real, productive services denominated in bitcoin. |
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I'm not worried about the Ponzi games. The ones I've seen are very open and transparent. The good ones publish every transaction publicly and the block chain validates that they're telling the truth.
So it's unlikely that people are getting deceived or exploited when playing them. And it's probably a natural phenomenon with a new currency and a new economy.
I just thought it was pretty amazing that the game in the original post goes on forever, as long as there's at least one deposit in 7 days.
Nobody's going to get rich quick, but that game could go on a very long time (unlike most of the others that end in 12 hours).
Is that typical?
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Thanks @kiba. I was hoping there was more to the bitcoin economy than what I'm seeing in the forum. There's some productive activities at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade but they seem to be pretty small. It's good to know you're doing routine transactions with bitcoin and producing real stuff. Zero-sum activites like forex and pyramid games are fine, but they're not going to grow the bitcoin economy or extend it beyond the speculator set. |
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Seems like a good question to me. Forex, gambling, pyramid schemes, porn, money laundering and black-market babies are all well and fine. Fiat can get you the same things. But I want a real bitcoin economy with more productive activities too. Maybe even activities that fiat isn't so good at providing. There are some real goods and services at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade, but they seem like more of an afterthought. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's all pretty new after all. Seems like bitcoin's low transaction costs would be great for micropayments, and its worldwide acceptance would work really well for crowdsourcing small tasks. I can think of dozens of opportunities that aren't focused on the currency itself. I'm a newbie, so correct me if I'm wrong. Is the productive part of the economy growing as fast as zero-sum sectors like forex and pyramid games? |
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I'm new around here, so please help me understand how much of a real bitcoin economy there is.
By 'real', I mean productive, creative activities that grow the economy.
I'm seeing a lot of currency trading, which is a zero-sum activity.
I'm also seeing a lot of Ponzi/pyramid and gambling games (not that there's anything wrong with that), but you'd have a pretty shitty economy if that's your main product.
It seems like we'd need a significant ecosystem of value-producing activity, real goods and services denominated in bitcoin, before bitcoin can graduate to a more mainstream currency.
Aside from Silk Road, how does anybody have an estimate of the 'GDP' of the bitcoin economy?
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Most of the doubling pyramids have a definite end time. Most only last 12 or 24 hours. But here's one that goes on forever as long as there's at least one deposit in 7 days. http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20087.0I'm pretty new here so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this could go on a loooooooong time. What am I missing here? |
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