Price gap between bitcoin exchanges; Regulation of BTC-E and others

[regexlove]

1. Why is  BTC-e cheaper?     (Part of it may be related to euro<->usd? (see Kraken) - still cheaper; BTC-e has 0.2% fee plus 15€ deposit fee: if i'd buy bitcoin for 1000€ its more expensive than other exchanges - that may be one reason but - but  some people, market makers, may buy many times more at a time and then the 15€ fee will be low in percentage)

Next to the discount,  what are possible higher, systematical
disadvantages in buying at BTC-e: located in  bulgaria? unregulated?, requires no verification? mysterious?
compared to  
coinbase: 'expensive', regulated, well funded in USA,  
ANX: 'cheap' HongKong, requires postal address verification, yet maybe less than others?  
or Kraken:(Europe too cheap despite it seems well regulated/requires lots of verificatio
etc.

Even when the discount may not make a great difference to anyone it still must mean something:
Why is $/€-cashflow to BTC-e incentivized like this?

What doest  it mean to the World vs depositing elsewhere?  
Is it bad?  
Are there more/most criminals on BTC-e?  
Are there all european miners selling their bitcoins or what?  How many of them prefer to stay unverified for liberterian but legal reasons only?

2. Are there any statistics giving clues about exchanges,
what demographics / groups of people are using them and for what purposes?
Are there any studies/datasets yet of tainted bitcoins, which could be an indicator - or any other studies analyzing the blockchain?

Market prices snapshot from bitcoinaverage.com(and anxpro.com):
exchange |  percent of daily volume  |   Last price
Bitstamp    30.12%        239.15 USD
itBit    16.80%                239.65 USD
Bitfinex      14.51%         240.62 USD
OKCoin.com    (china)  11.46%   239.70 USD
BTCCHINA   
Coinbase 10.87%        240.25 USD
BTC-e (east europe?)   9.57%            236.53 USD
LocalBitcoins    4.83%    284.08 USD   ( ~20% fee in average for inperson transactions? - *Well i assume last price is close to average, i guess most transactions are small?)
ANX (hongkong)            237.50
Loyalbit   0.65%        238.85 USD
Hitbtc (europe?)   0.59%    252.25 USD (market often accused of manipulation?)
Coinsetter   134.92    239.00 USD
BitKonan     88.78    238.86 USD
Bitex.la (south america)   0.05%    21.51    240.04 USD
Kraken (europe)    0.02%    7.59    238.00 USD

[rebuilder]

You seem to be looking at incentives for buyers, but what about sellers? They're the ones who decide to sell at a lower rate than they could get elsewhere, so I'm guessing the answer lies with them. What withdrawal options does BTC-E offer - I assume ID verification is not an issue there unlike other exchanges...

[poncho32]

You seem to be looking at incentives for buyers, but what about sellers? They're the ones who decide to sell at a lower rate than they could get elsewhere, so I'm guessing the answer lies with them. What withdrawal options does BTC-E offer - I assume ID verification is not an issue there unlike other exchanges...

Their site FAQ suggests they accept bank transfer deposits, but refuse to send money out via bank transfers. I have never traded there so I have no direct experience of making deposits or withdrawals. However, their FAQ offers far more forms of deposit than forms of withdrawal. It mentions Western Union, and Dwolla as acceptable for withdrawals, although the fees for both of them must be quite hefty.

Do you accept any alternate forms of payment such as Debit/Credit Cards?

At this time, BTC-e is currently not accepting any of these payment methods. All transactions carried out on our website are irreversible; therefore use of payment methods that are reversible would be a detrimental venture for us. The presently supported payment methods are : US Bank Wire, EU Bank Wire (SEPA), Visa, Mastercard, Liqpay.com, unikarta.com, PerfectMoney.com, WebCreds.com, Ukash.com, Webmoney.ru.

Do you fulfill any requests to send money or carry out currency exchanges via government fiat?

Unfortunately, we do not fulfill any such requests. We choose to carry out business using registered companies such as Western Union, Dwolla, and other well-known financial companies to carry out our transfers.

[Mickeyb]

It costs customers much more to deposit and withdraw Fiat to the btc-e. There, I think lies the answer why the price is always about $5-$7 smaller than at the Bitstamp or Bitfinex for example.

[regexlove]

yes, btc-e withdrawl methods, even more expensive.
wire transfer fee 2%   at least $200 fee!
perfect money fee 2%   at least $10 withdrawal
paypal 7%  at least $500 withdrawal
epese
ecoin.cc
okpay
moneypolo
visa/master 7% at least $1000 withdrawal

Yes, this also incentivizes one-directional cashflow, but why do people sell cheap there?  
Why should people (not) deposit there?
Why is Kraken also a bit cheaper when it has maybe the most strict verification/regulation?

For who already deposited there:  Should they buy bitcoins like planed or stop participating in a one-directional cashflow
and withdraw despite of the high fee?

[rebuilder]

It costs customers much more to deposit and withdraw Fiat to the btc-e. There, I think lies the answer why the price is always about $5-$7 smaller than at the Bitstamp or Bitfinex for example.

I don't think that holds water. Why would sellers settle for a lower price if they can just as well sell at other exchanges? The obvious answer would be that BTC-E offers withdrawal options other exchanges don't, probably more anonymous ones. Their FAQ doesn't make this entirely clear and I can't be bothered to sign up just to find out.

[rebuilder]

from regexlove's list, Perfect Money stands out. Isn't that a kind of spiritual successor to Liberty Reserve? A withdrawal option that doesn't require ID verification would easily explain a slightly lower exchange rate.

[regexlove]

by visual comparision i'd be afraid you got a point
http://perfectmoney.com  http://libertyreserve.com
http://perfectmoney.is  http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110326062141/http://www.libertyreserve.com/

[RyNinDaCleM]

Ah, the age old question...
Look at arbitrage bots. It takes longer and costs more money to move fiat in/out of BTCe than any other site. So much so, it becomes fruitless to arb into a perfect equality with the other exchanges. Maybe not 5-7$ per BTC worth of fees/time, but why bother for that last 25 BTC?

Where there is disparity, there are bots to gain from it until the gains are not worth it anymore.

[Zombier0]

This is why i use btc-e all the time

[1Referee]

Ah, the age old question...
Look at arbitrage bots. It takes longer and costs more money to move fiat in/out of BTCe than any other site. So much so, it becomes fruitless to arb into a perfect equality with the other exchanges. Maybe not 5-7$ per BTC worth of fees/time, but why bother for that last 25 BTC?

Where there is disparity, there are bots to gain from it until the gains are not worth it anymore.

Yep, that's also why I solely deposit BTC in my BTC-E account in order to have some fiat there. Bitstamp is the only exchange I deposit fiat into from my bank account, because I know they handle it very well.

[regexlove]

Tried to say above that fees can not be the (sole) reason.
Fiat cash flow to btc-e is supported single-directional. Cheap for crypto buyers but not the other way around
despite this BTC-e still has too many sellers.

Crypto Buyers:   Fiat Deposit costs only 15€  which is only 0.0x-0.x% for larger amounts.
Crypto Sellers:   Fiat Withdrawal costs >=2%.    Logically sellers should take >=2% more for their BTC. Yet they dont. They are willing to receive 3% less than on other exchanges which from USA.  


Example:
If you buy 20 BTC on BTC-e and sell on bitstamp you could win ~$50.  
Yet that may only be worth if you can confirm it is clean.
Yet At the same time the sellers you bought from will have lost $200 for wire withdrawal or even ~$475 for paypal/visa/master

Which sellers would do such?
Any advantages?  Does BTC-e offer anything unique like wire from/to china/russia or anything?
Else it is obvious to assume that annoymity is worth >=3% to sellers on BTC-e.
But what percentage of sellers on BTC-e are dirty or even severely criminal?
How (much more) likely are you to have volunteered as a tool for crime for each BTC you bought at BTC-e  compared to Coinbase or Bitstamp and Kraken and Anxpro?

As said part could have another reason.  Exchanges from Europe (Kraken) and Hongkong (Anxpro ) are both also a bit cheaper - one requiring ID and a lot of verification the other at least verifiying adress (compared to none at BTC-e ) -   yet thats only ~0.5%, so the discount sellers will need to give to use BTC-e is still 6 times more.

[Atdhe]

The gap now is 40 USD. Are there some problems with btc-e deposits or something like that?

[2double0]

There seems that some sites show higher at first, and when you try to deposit/redeem, they show their actual colors.
Don't know why there is such huge gap between BTC-e and other exchanges, but when this opportunity is still available, don't miss it.
Try to deposit with smaller amounts and check whether they even let you withdraw your BTC if you buy there for cheap.

[gentlemand]

btc-e is just a really, really weird exchange compared to others. It marches to the beat of its own drum and stuff happens there that doesn't seem to happen anywhere else. I gave up trying to make sense of it an age ago.

[Atdhe]

Can you specify the stuff? Apart of the 5-50 USD gap in btc price ofc.

This is simply too good to be true. I know they charged 1% on deposits, but even that fee now is not there and they have something like 20USD flat fee for deposits. No btc-e user here?

[Atdhe]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4lc8k2/btce_on_twitter_we_again_accept_international/
found this