Mt Gox - Fees

[Jessynoo]

Newbie here,

I just recently found out about Bitcoin, got myself a MtGox Account and a couple of BTC.
I understand that BitCoin is not all about speculation, I've read quite a bunch of very interesting posts here and there, so this is rather about experimenting with the available tools.

Now that I'm a bit more familiar with the principles and that the rally has slowed down a bit, I thought I'd give a try to tracking the market and issuing small orders to account for local variations.
I tried to account for the 0.65% fee per trade and apparently failed to do so, as the fees have absorbed just about all my gains.

Here are the notifications I received by email:

You Sold 10 BTC for 18.89!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.511!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.601!
You Sold 10 BTC for 18.979!
You Sold 5 BTC for 18.919!
You Sold 5 BTC for 18.979!
You Sold 5 BTC for 18.919!
You Sold 10 BTC for 18.979!
You Sold 10 BTC for 18.97!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.3!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.3!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.4!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.4!
You Sold 9 BTC for 18.97!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.4!
You Sold 15 BTC for 18.9!
You Bought 10 BTC for 18.3!


and here is the corresponding Mt Gox account history

   Sold BTC   10 for 18.7673   -10   187.673   30.718   925.288
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.6302   4.968   -92.555   40.718   737.615
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.7208   4.968   -93.005   35.75   830.17
   Sold BTC   10 for 18.8557   -10   188.557   30.782   923.175
   Sold BTC   5 for 18.7962   -5   93.981   40.782   734.618
   Sold BTC   5 for 18.8558   -5   94.279   45.782   640.637
   Sold BTC   5 for 18.7962   -5   93.981   50.782   546.358
   Add BTC   xx   50   0   55.782   452.377
   Sold BTC   10 for 18.8557   -10   188.557   5.782   452.377
   Sold BTC   10 for 18.8467   -10   188.467   15.782   263.82
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.4179   4.968   -91.5   25.782   75.353
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.4179   4.968   -91.5   20.814   166.853
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.5185   4.968   -92   15.846   258.353
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.5185   4.968   -92   10.878   350.353
   Sold BTC   9 for 18.8468   -9   169.621   5.91   442.353
   Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.5185   4.968   -92   14.91   272.732
   Sold BTC   15 for 18.7772   -15   281.658   9.942   364.732
   Bought BTC   9.94 for 18.4197   9.935   -183   24.942   83.074
   Sold BTC   7.54 for 18.7771   -7.543   141.636   15.007   266.074
   Sold BTC   6.61 for 18.7772   -6.607   124.061   22.55   124.438
 
As far as I understand you get:

a 0.65% commission on the price you ask when you sell
a 0.65% commission on the price you bid AND on the coins you get when you buy.

I must say this is not really how I understand "0.65% fee per trade".
With the volume of trading that Mt Gox now has, I'd have expected a little more details, something more professional and more transparent about the underlying computations.

What do you guys think ? Is that normal and are there some other fees I should be aware of?
Cheers

[kokojie]

yes mtgox fee is rather high, a flat fee based model (or at least past a certain dollar amount) would've been more sensible. The current fee model encourage buy and hold instead of frequent trading. By frequent trading, you are more than likely to lose money in fees.

[moneta]

I tried to account for the 0.65% fee per trade and apparently failed to do so, as the fees have absorbed just about all my gains.

The way fees are applied seems to confuse a lot of people.
They are also a bit high.

As far as I understand you get:
a 0.65% commission on the price you ask when you sell
a 0.65% commission on the price you bid AND on the coins you get when you buy.

You pay:
0.65% of the BTC amount when you buy
0.65% of the USD amount when you sell

Here are the notifications I received by email:
You Sold 10 BTC for 18.89!
You Bought 5 BTC for 18.511!

These are the actual trades that occurred, they do not include fees.
In the first trade you sell 10 BTC for 18.89, so you get 188.9 USD before fees. You pay 0.65% of the amount you get (1.227 USD) and keep the rest (187.673 USD).
In the second trade you buy 5 BTC for 18.511, so you get... 5 BTC before fees. You pay 0.65% of the amount you get (0.032 BTC) and keep the rest (4.968 BTC).

and here is the corresponding Mt Gox account history
Sold BTC   10 for 18.7673   -10   187.673   30.718   925.288
Bought BTC   4.97 for 18.6302   4.968   -92.555   40.718   737.615

Okay, this IS confusing, anyway if you look at the third and fourth column, it's the same as in my calculations above.
For the first trade, you give 10 BTC (third column) and get 187.673 USD (fourth column), which is 188.9 USD minus 1.227 USD fee.
For the second trade you get 4.968 BTC (third column), which is 5 BTC minus 0.032 BTC fee, and you give 92.555 USD (fourth column), which is 5 BTC times 18.511 (the original rate).

Anyway, you can just forget this last confusing part, since after the relaunch the history page was redone, and now shows trades and fees separately.

[Gandlaf]

Give Mark a break!

Yes, the fees are a bit steep, but he still has to pay for the franchise, after all he just bought the exchange and probably got a bit more than he bargained for...

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20110630.html

CLARIFICATION OF MT. GOX COMPROMISED ACCOUNTS AND MAJOR BITCOIN SELL-OFF

Dear members of the press and Bitcoin community,


I. Background

March, 2011 – MtGox.com (Mt. Gox), now the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange, was purchased by Tibanne Co. Ltd. As part of the purchase agreement, for a period of time, Tibanne Co. Ltd was required to pay the previous owner a percentage of commissions. In order to audit and verify this percentage, the previous owner retained an admin level user account. This account was compromised. So far we have not been able to determine how this account’s credentials were obtained.

...

Mark Karpeles - CEO
Tibanne Co. Ltd.

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20110630.html

...
I'm sure Mark is very busy with mtgox so has been neglecting Kalyhost.

Mistakes were obviously made but I don't think Mark is being greedy or incompetent here. He needs to hire more people and he knows this. But which if you have ever tried to do you know takes time which he doesn't have much of these days.

Jed,
obviously mistakes were made but given that these haven´t exactly been the first ones in MtGox´s history, it would be very interesting to know what percentage of commission you are taking and for what period of time, furthermore what your additional(finanicial) interests in MtGox still are. You´re message when handing it over(paraphrasing): I´m bored and I just dont want to invest that much time ( http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=4187.0 ), was less than honest, especially given the fact that you were facing legal action in connection with prior inconsistencies( http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3712.0 ).

Are you willing to verifiably disclose what your current interests in MtGox still are(does Mark actually have the funds to compensate for losses?; are you skimming off all the profits?) or are you going to keep this cloud of uncertainty hanging over MtGox customers and therefore the wider Bitcoin community?

[Jessynoo]

Okay, this IS confusing, anyway if you look at the third and fourth column, it's the same as in my calculations above.
For the first trade, you give 10 BTC (third column) and get 187.673 USD (fourth column), which is 188.9 USD minus 1.227 USD fee.
For the second trade you get 4.968 BTC (third column), which is 5 BTC minus 0.032 BTC fee, and you give 92.555 USD (fourth column), which is 5 BTC times 18.511 (the original rate).
Anyway, you can just forget this last confusing part, since after the relaunch the history page was redone, and now shows trades and fees separately.

Thanks a lot for the explanation.
I was indeed confused because the former interface would indeed show up my fees on Asks and my fees plus the seller fees on Bids.
I'm glad to learn that it was just a confusing display.

Give Mark a break!

Look, I was only enquiring to get my bot settings right, not flaming anyone's name.
I'm sure Mark wouldn't mind admitting that the documentation is sparse and agreeing to a 3rd party explaining his computations on the public forum.

My bot is doing day trading anyway, so we're talking many low profit trades, and Mark will get the best of my gains at the end of the day.

[semarjt]

Give Mark a break!

Yes, the fees are a bit steep, but he still has to pay for the franchise, after all he just bought the exchange and probably got a bit more than he bargained for...

25.6mil 30d volume x .0130 (0.0065 on each side) leaves 330k this month..no?

Yeah, sucks to be him.