Why different exchange markets have different prices

[Bushuqa]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

[1715107114]

1715107114

[1715107114]

1715107114

[1715107114]

1715107114

[1715107114]

1715107114

[Quartx]

Well there are many factors to factor in when it comes to the prices on the different exchanges.

Given the transaction fees + the fees implemented by the different exchanges, it would usually not be profitable to buy at the cheap end and sell at the expensive end. Time is an issue.

In addition, some traders favor specific exchanges as they have a vested interest or holding on there, you also need to take into account, bots, automated traders, and even time zone differences from different countries.

The only thing that is certain that between the major exchanges, the price of btc in usd will usually fluctuate between 1-15% based on many factors, most of which i have listed above.

[Bushuqa]

i tottally get the second part of your message, but i am not sure why it would not be profitable to switch markets
For example moving bitcoin from 1 wallet to other is free, then selling for 1135 sounds way better then for 1070 and buying the same in opposite dirrection.
What do you mean exactly by not being profitable? That is the part i did not fully understood.
Maybe a short mathematical example would help

[calkob]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

It all comes down to supply and demand on different exchanges.  what people are willing to sell it for and what people are willing to buy it for is what dictates the price. 

[el kaka22]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?

Yes, you are most welcome to do so and you can make instant profits by doing this type trading across exchanges. This type of trading is termed as arbitrage trading and people are loving to do this as it will not involve risks as you can make profits by just making buy and sell in quick times (no waiting in between buy and sell).

The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

Bitcoin prices are being determined when people buy/sell it. When one exchange is very much concerned about verification and accommodations, it will have very less volume and hence prices will be moving slowly. That must be the reason cex prices are lagging. You can buy from any exchange where prices are comparatively low.

[Quartx]

i tottally get the second part of your message, but i am not sure why it would not be profitable to switch markets
For example moving bitcoin from 1 wallet to other is free, then selling for 1135 sounds way better then for 1070 and buying the same in opposite dirrection.
What do you mean exactly by not being profitable? That is the part i did not fully understood.
Maybe a short mathematical example would help

Like el kaka mentioned, some people do this kind of trading to get profits from the margins quickly, however, buying and selling may incur different fees, add the withdrawal fee and the volatility of the prices to +-100 in short periods of time, by the time you transfer the what you bought from A to B, there are occasional periods where the price at the higher price point would have stabilized. Also probably why people convert to altcoins before hand for even more drastic profit margins

[JeffBrad12]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

Because the different volatility of the market will give the different volume and supply. The volatility if the market are making everyone to still buy on that market and not try to buy on the other place with the cheap price. The arbitrage trade is very risky. don't try this at your home.

[thebatletbet]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

because bitcoin not central price
so every exchanger can difference price, only supply and demand in exchanger can get difference bitcoin price
bitcoin not fix rate price, not regulation if all exchanger must same price

[pooya87]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

the reason is always because of the exchange platform and their options.
for example poloniex doesn't have a USD market at all, that is an altcoin with the same value as USD called USDT. and also cex.io is a direct fiat deposit and you can use credit cards so they are different.
for example btc-e usually has lower prices during volatile times but that is because depositing and withdrawing money has huge fees and that fee always defeats any possibility of making profit from what you are describing which is also known as arbitrage trading.

[Idrisu]

This is also exist in dollars exchangers and others currencies and this what expert called arbitration. There will ever be different on different exchangers because of volumes, time and place. Many arbitrage traders are taking advantage of it to gug out profit every days.

[Bushuqa]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

Because the different volatility of the market will give the different volume and supply. The volatility if the market are making everyone to still buy on that market and not try to buy on the other place with the cheap price. The arbitrage trade is very risky. don't try this at your home.

I feel that you might have a strong point in there but i did not fully get the idea, could you offer a concrete mathematical example?

I am looking for a BTC is.... on ... market if i .... and ... then ... type of explanation, that would make it clear why is so risky

[zedicus]

This is also exist in dollars exchangers and others currencies and this what expert called arbitration. There will ever be different on different exchangers because of volumes, time and place. Many arbitrage traders are taking advantage of it to gug out profit every days.

Yeah and another thing is that. Different trading platform are not synchronized with each other. Meaning their prices are independent with each other. It varies because the price in every platforms depends on the traders itself. That's why when you compare the prices of a certain coin (or even bitcoin), you can see a slight difference in its price.

And as what have been said above some traders took this opportunity to generate profit or a strategy called Arbitration. It is buying at a platfrom with the lowest price then transfer the coin into the platform with the highest selling price.

[arwin100]

This is also exist in dollars exchangers and others currencies and this what expert called arbitration. There will ever be different on different exchangers because of volumes, time and place. Many arbitrage traders are taking advantage of it to gug out profit every days.

Yeah and another thing is that. Different trading platform are not synchronized with each other. Meaning their prices are independent with each other. It varies because the price in every platforms depends on the traders itself. That's why when you compare the prices of a certain coin (or even bitcoin), you can see a slight difference in its price.

And as what have been said above some traders took this opportunity to generate profit or a strategy called Arbitration. It is buying at a platfrom with the lowest price then transfer the coin into the platform with the highest selling price.

Thats why we can see some arbitrage trader since market price on each trading sites are different from one another and to lucky for the people if they spot a cheap coin on other site and sell on site who's price are bigger, I've lucikily done this for many times and yet try to spot for another coin that gives me another income from it. And also my other conclusion is other sites got different whales support and maybe thats the reason why we can see some downfall on other exchangers.

[valta4065]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

They're doing it.

Of course it's an entire job to do the correct arbitrage.
Not as easy as it seems because you have to take into account all the fees and the time needed to do the transfer ^^

[Kevin77]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

They're doing it.

Of course it's an entire job to do the correct arbitrage.
Not as easy as it seems because you have to take into account all the fees and the time needed to do the transfer ^^

Yes, the time delays to  get approved for withdrawal and then network conformations are biggest enemies to kill our plans of doing arbitrage trading. I tried any times to trade across exchanges but got many similar hurdles to throw away myself out of those earning opportunities. Maybe having enough accounts and funds on those exchanges would be a solution here.

But usually buying prices in one market would be higher than what seller do offer in another exchanges. So arbitrage opportunities are very rare and being ready with funds across exchanges are not feasible for many traders.

The prices gaps across exchanges are usually convergences in quick time usually.

[amacar2]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?

You have taken example when bitcoin price was dumping really hard so difference look huge at that time. But if you look right now, difference is of only few $ and there will be always some difference in price between different exchanges due to lots of factor like the payment processor they support for deposit/withdrawal, trading fees, fees on deposit/withdrawal, number of active traders and daily trading volume in those exchanges etc.

[FLoving]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

Because the different volatility of the market will give the different volume and supply. The volatility if the market are making everyone to still buy on that market and not try to buy on the other place with the cheap price. The arbitrage trade is very risky. don't try this at your home.

I feel that you might have a strong point in there but i did not fully get the idea, could you offer a concrete mathematical example?

I am looking for a BTC is.... on ... market if i .... and ... then ... type of explanation, that would make it clear why is so risky

For a simple person in simple words I will say that different exchanges show different prices because of the crowd on different exchanges. Suppose on one exchanges there are many people to buy bitcoins and the sellers find that they can easily sell at high price so the price at that exchange increases while in others where the buyers are not much in number the sellers try to keep lower in order to get some buyers.

[iqlimasyadiqa]

because each exchange has a user that is different. anybody can perform different actions. This makes different prices.
usually an exchange that has a lot of users will have a competitive price.

[raven7886]

Interestingly enough, they all have their own marketplace software. So, the person who sells bitcoin on one exchange for altcoin, is not exchanging it on another at the same time. You get to do it only on one exchange.
Meaning the highest volume exchange will have less risk and less volatility.

Tough the one that starts new and has low volume might be more open to speculation and prices will change quickly depending on the people.

[avatar_kiyoshi]

say.. BTC is $1070(sell) on poloniex and $1135(sell) on cex.io why would anyone sell his bitcoin on poloniex at the moment and not transfer them to cex and sell them in there?
The reversed is still true, why would anyone buy on cex since the bitcoin is way cheaper on other markets?

Because the different volatility of the market will give the different volume and supply. The volatility if the market are making everyone to still buy on that market and not try to buy on the other place with the cheap price. The arbitrage trade is very risky. don't try this at your home.

I feel that you might have a strong point in there but i did not fully get the idea, could you offer a concrete mathematical example?

I am looking for a BTC is.... on ... market if i .... and ... then ... type of explanation, that would make it clear why is so risky

Arbitrage bitcoin is risky, besides the fluctuation and volume, you need to consider transaction speed, it's very necessary if you want to do arbitrage.
You said transfer amount of btc is free.. No, exchange charge the fees too. Although the fees is near free compared with other payment processor.

I think altcoin is good to trade arbitrage, because typically more fast.