Bitstamp arbitrage to depress MtGox price this week?

[old_engineer]

There's about 8k btc ($1M USD worth) on bitstamp priced below the current MtGox ask price of $122.89.  Will people bother signing up with bitstamp and sending their fiat there, or will they keep using Gox because they're comfortable with it?  An additional $1M at Gox would drive the price up to $126, a significant change in a slow week.

I think that if the Bitstamp wall gets eaten and bid orders placed with the resulting cash, whomever(s) put those underpriced BTC on Bitstamp will have hastened the end of the Gox era. Bitstamp is already at 25% of Gox volume the past day, and with just a few million USD in liquidity, they could become the dominant exchange.  No one seems to like Gox, but bigger players have had no choice up until now.

[old_engineer]

... and two minutes after posting, 2k btc disappeared from the ask wall. Coincidence?

[ronaldlee0917]

I have been doing arbitrage between the two platforms,
the main killer of making any profit is the bank wire fees and commission fees,
also having money stored on MtGox is quite a risk now given the recent events and they are very slow in handling your withdrawals which adds another layer of uncertainty. The marginal profit is not worth the time imo especially if you don't want your money to be locked up in a week or two.

[blackreplica]

Agreed. I set up a bitstamp account just recently with a view to do some arbitrage.

Having done the sums though, it's a no go for me unless the price gap widens. Hefty fees and exchange rate spreads (my home currency is not the US dollar), combined with a ridiculous amount of time spent before the money comes back to your account thanks to slow wire transfers by Gox, just doesn't make arbitrage possible...at these prices.

Being american does help though, you can arbitrage narrower exchange BTC/USD spreads since you don't get hit with daylight robbery bank exchange rates (another 3% markup over market rates, in my case) to convert back to your home currency.

Still, unless we're talking large sums, or maybe BTC-E vs Gox, where the differences are larger....arbitrage is simply not possible at the current price differential for most people

[old_engineer]

Agreed. I set up a bitstamp account just recently with a view to do some arbitrage.

Having done the sums though, it's a no go for me unless the price gap widens. Hefty fees and exchange rate spreads (my home currency is not the US dollar), combined with a ridiculous amount of time spent before the money comes back to your account thanks to slow wire transfers by Gox, just doesn't make arbitrage possible...at these prices.

I'd been using Dwolla until last week, and I hadn't realized how slow wire transfers from Gox were.  I thought 4 days, tops, but apparently it will take a lot longer than that.

Being american does help though, you can arbitrage narrower exchange BTC/USD spreads since you don't get hit with daylight robbery bank exchange rates (another 3% markup over market rates, in my case) to convert back to your home currency.

Good point - I'm American, so forgive me if I forget about the rest of the world.   I also have a 0.29% trading rate at Gox, and after buying a few hundred coins should have a 0.2% rate at Bitstamp, so the math works for me: $118*1.0059 = $118.70, a $3.5/bitcoin profit.  The wires are flat fees, a small % with five figure sums.

The only question is if the spread will persist until my Gox wire appears.  If it doesn't, I thankfully won't lose anything, I just won't gain.

[ardana123]

Profit margins are too small for the risk
For example if u move 5k u only have an 18$ profit after all the fees and commissions. Is that really worth the risk of losing a lot more in the event of a sudden price drop? Because who knows what might happen when your bitcoins take an hour to transfer to Gox.

[mgio]

I'm been doing arbitrage and making about $200-$250 a day after all fees when there is a 5% difference between exchanges (which is common these days).

I won't give away my secrets though. See if you can figure out how.

[keatonatron]

I won't give away my secrets though. See if you can figure out how.

Sure. Invest $50,000 in bitcoins  Even if you only get a 3% return and a portion of your coins are constantly tied up in transfers, you'll still make $250/day.

[Arcas]

I'm been doing arbitrage and making about $200-$250 a day after all fees when there is a 5% difference between exchanges (which is common these days).

I won't give away my secrets though. See if you can figure out how.

OKpay?

[mgio]

I won't give away my secrets though. See if you can figure out how.

Sure. Invest $50,000 in bitcoins  Even if you only get a 3% return and a portion of your coins are constantly tied up in transfers, you'll still make $250/day.

Well not quite that much money. But if you have a lot of bitcoins just sitting around like many of us who bought pre-2013 have, why not use them to make money?

If you spent just $5,000 on bitcoins last fall, you probably have about 500 bitcoins right now. That's 60k right there to play around with.

[mgio]

I'm been doing arbitrage and making about $200-$250 a day after all fees when there is a 5% difference between exchanges (which is common these days).

I won't give away my secrets though. See if you can figure out how.

OKpay?

Actually a couple of ways to do and pick whatever is the best for that day. okpay -> btc-e is one way though.

The trick is getting the money out.

[mgio]

Profit margins are too small for the risk
For example if u move 5k u only have an 18$ profit after all the fees and commissions. Is that really worth the risk of losing a lot more in the event of a sudden price drop? Because who knows what might happen when your bitcoins take an hour to transfer to Gox.

There doesn't have to be any risk. Have double the amount of bitcoins you wish to sell. Transfer one set first. Buy and sell at the same time. Then transfer the second set over. Repeat.

[myself]

is anyone really doing this ? since the ask wall on bitstamp is still there and quite big

[crazy_rabbit]

Profit margins are too small for the risk
For example if u move 5k u only have an 18$ profit after all the fees and commissions. Is that really worth the risk of losing a lot more in the event of a sudden price drop? Because who knows what might happen when your bitcoins take an hour to transfer to Gox.

There doesn't have to be any risk. Have double the amount of bitcoins you wish to sell. Transfer one set first. Buy and sell at the same time. Then transfer the second set over. Repeat.

how would you move the fiat from Gox to Bitstamp?

[keatonatron]

There doesn't have to be any risk. Have double the amount of bitcoins you wish to sell. Transfer one set first. Buy and sell at the same time. Then transfer the second set over. Repeat.

how would you move the fiat from Gox to Bitstamp?

I believe in this situation "transfer over" means withdraw to your bank account and then send a wire transfer from your bank account to the next exchange. Would probably take at least a week or so and you would incur more fees.

[miningusa]

I was really suprised by how close bitstamp and mt.gox is now. Good to see other exchanges not $10+ behind mt. gox.

[myself]

allot of talk about arbitrage, today volume on bitstamp is 2700, so allot of talk and just that

[Miz4r]

allot of talk about arbitrage, today volume on bitstamp is 2700, so allot of talk and just that

Bitstamp's volume is almost 50% of that of Gox the past 24 hours: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html

[myself]

allot of talk about arbitrage, today volume on bitstamp is 2700, so allot of talk and just that

Bitstamp's volume is almost 50% of that of Gox the past 24 hours: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html

2013-05-23 00:00:00   123.8   125.9   123   125.9   10510.69   1310079.6   124.64

vs

2013-05-23 00:00:00   119.11   119.85   118.36   119.85   2987.05   356834.5   119.46

more like 30% also mtgox price goes up not down so mtgox buyers beat any arbitrage sellers

[Miz4r]

allot of talk about arbitrage, today volume on bitstamp is 2700, so allot of talk and just that

Bitstamp's volume is almost 50% of that of Gox the past 24 hours: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html

2013-05-23 00:00:00   123.8   125.9   123   125.9   10510.69   1310079.6   124.64

vs

2013-05-23 00:00:00   119.11   119.85   118.36   119.85   2987.05   356834.5   119.46

more like 30% also mtgox price goes up not down so mtgox buyers beat any arbitrage sellers

Where did you get those numbers from? I'm seeing 20k 24h volume for MtGox vs 8.7k for Bitstamp. That's almost 50%.