Bitcoin Exchanges Arbitrage

[jerry0]

BTC is around 13500 on kraken.  BTC is around 14300 on gdax.  If thats the case, can't you just send usd to bitstamp.  Then you buy btc.  Then once you do, you sell it on gdax for 14300?  The thing is when you buy btc on kraken, you get it immediately right?  Then you send the btc to gdax and then sell it.  However, it takes a while for the btc to hit gdax right since i heard btc is taking a while to send?  However if you pay a higher fee wouldn't it get there faster?


Because it seems after fees, wouldn't this be profitable?  Thus the most important thing is get as much usd money to bittrex as possible... then sell it immediately at gdax?  However i believe one issue is coinbase/gdax has a limit on how much btc you could sell right depending on your level?  Thus the most usd you could probably sell on coinbase or gdax a month might be 10k?  However as you have a longer account you get higher limits.  So couldn't you just send a bank wire to bittrex and then sell it on coinbase/gdax.  Then once you receive the money in your bank account from coinbase/gdax, wire that money to bittrex and keep rinse and repeating it assuming there is a big spread to make it worthwhile?  Because there is around a 800 dollar difference.  I cant imagine the fees and wire wires you send and receive to bank from kraken/coinbase would be that much?

[swedenrt]

You can give try..but btc transaction time? think about that

[dillpicklechips]

I think you know the answer to your questions. You need to have a significant amount of bitcoin to make a profitable arbitrage since if you will do it small then fees will eat it up especially now that the blockchain is congested. You need to pay a higher fee since someone might take it before you. And also, keep in mind the limits.

[jerry0]

can you explain what you mean with that?  so when you buy the btc from kraken or another exchange that sells btc at the low price, assuming you already have usd or usdt... wouldn't you get the btc immediately?


so i assume the issue here is the 2nd part of the situation where you have to send to gdax/coinbase right?  however, couldn't you pay a high fee so the btc will get to gdax/coinbase... well as long as sure the fee is not too high?  Then once the btc gets there, when you sell it on gdax/coinbase, you get the usd immediately right?  

[DaMut]

no you can not do that right now absolutely.
right now the network itself too crowded and if you make a transaction i am afraid that you will get it in the next day or even worst than that.
from that side alone we can tell that Bitcoin arbitrage is not profitable.
on the other hand some exchanges like Kraken can not be accessed when this kind of movement happen..
so i doubt you can buy some or sell some on that kind of exchanges right now.
and lastly,if you do not have a quite many Bitcoins for the arbitrage in the end you will only losing it.
because we need to spend a lot of money(for more than $5) for every transaction that we will make when doing it.
stay away from Bitcoin arbitrage right now absolutely,you will end up holding it other than gain a profit from that move.

[alani123]

Kraken is very slow lately. It's only usable if you have API access at most times so I'd suggest to stay away.

Anyway, use Bitstamb. The gap between GDAX and Bitstamp is very big, especially on EUR markets. This is in part due to some delays in FIAT deposits due to issues with Coinbase's bank but it is a great opportunity to do arbitrage. The risk lays on the fact that you could be loosing out while trying to make money because arbitrage opportunities like this close too quickly. It's only due to Coinbase's banking issues in combination with the recent massive rise in bitcoin prices that this is still going on.

[jerry0]

well let say you have 50k in usd that you want to transfer from your bank to say kraken or another exchange that you could buy btc a lot cheaper.  You send them a wire... fee is around 50 dollars i assume?  Then let say you have around 50k in usd in kraken or those exchanges where you can buy btc lower price.  You notice a big spread.  Let say 700 dollars.  Let just say btc is 10k at kraken to make it simple and 10700 at gdax/coinbase.  You buy it at kraken... with fees im guessing its like 10050?  Now send that btc to gdax/coinbase.  How much in fees would you have to pay to get it sent to gdax/coinbase fast?  Like 50 dollars or 100 dollars?  Because let say its 100 dollars to make it ridiculous.  Even if you do, when it gets to gdax/coinbase, let say the price is now 10600.  Now you sell it and say you get back 10550.  When you wire that to your bank account, let say fees are 50 dollars.  Well you cashed out 10500.  It cost you say 10050 to get usd from your bank to kraken.  So here you profit around 450 dollars?  Then you do this again with funds from your kraken account and repeat?  But once you run out of money on kraken, you wire from your bank again to kraken or another exchange and do it again?


when you say there are limits, what do you mean?  you mean cashing out through coinbase/gdax and there is monthly limit?  But doesnt that go up as you have history?  But there are no limits when sending money to kraken or other exchange and buying as much btc you want right?

[jerry0]

Anyone can explain?


Also can someone tell me why the btc selling price on bittrex is always a few hundred dollars less than compared to gdax/coinbase and gemini?


Because if that is the case, isn't it foolish to sell btc on bittrex? 

[jerry0]

There is over 900 dollar difference between this.  Can someone explain this?

[a.north]

It’s usually the case that exchanges that except fiat trade at several percent higher or more than those that just trade crypto. Take a look at CEX.io as another example. All coins there typically trade at least 10% or more than Bittrex, for example.

This type of thing certainly isn’t a new idea. I’ve seen and heard it discussed countless times, but I’ve never actually heard of anyone doing it successfully or in a way that made it worth it. If someone has, I’d love to hear about it.

I think it is difficult to due various logistics, trade limits, liquidity, wait time etc., and I think it is especially true now given the insane transaction fees and wait time, as mentioned above.

If you had a ton of capital to throw around and offset the fees, sure it would work, in theory anyway. I just doubt that at the end of the day it would very worth it unless you had hundreds of thousands of dollars, very liquid accounts, high trade limits, daily withdrawals/deposits etc.

Even then, you are competing with the few people who are or may be doing it successfully, and I’ve also seen several bots that claim to do this automatically. There is a New Zealand exchange, Crypto- Something, Cryptnomator, perhaps, that even always you to do this right from their platform with several coins.

So yeah, in theory it works, in practice, not so easy.

[Davinus]

It seems that the most profitable arbitrage that you can do at the moment is with Ethereum, not bitcoin.

And do not try to do arbitrage with BTC because the fees are going to eat all your profit.

Ethereum is at $730 on bittrex - $680 on Poloniex.

[Pursuer]

It seems that the most profitable arbitrage that you can do at the moment is with Ethereum, not bitcoin.

And do not try to do arbitrage with BTC because the fees are going to eat all your profit.

fees are a fixed amount for bitcoin or anything else when you withdraw from an exchange. for example it used to be 0.002 if I am not mistaken in bittrex before they started becoming a scam service.

Ethereum is at $730 on bittrex - $680 on Poloniex.

according to coinmarketcao.com both exchanges are at $684.77 and I think you checked the price in ETH/BTC from one exchange with ETH/USDT from the other exchange, that is why you saw the difference.

[jerry0]

Right now btc is around 15300 on coinbase, 15100 on gemini, 14750 on kraken, 14350 on bittrex and 14250 on binance. 


Can someone explain why the price difference is so big?  Also is there a reason bittrex and binance are so much less than coinbase/gemini?  Does it have to do with them being an exchange where they have a lot of altcoins whereas coinbase/gemini only have btc, eth and litecoin?


Could you deposit fiat and withdraw fiat bank wire transfer with binance? 


The thing that is confusing is say you could sell your btc on coinbase/gemini and get usd and say you could buy altcoins at the prices bittrex has... then you could get a lot more but you cant do this because coinbase does not offer other altcoins.


Can someone explain this? 

[JariKriting]

bitcoin arbitage is very dificult
why ?, because process withdraw to fiat money is very long time, fee transaction fee withdraw fiat money, confirmation transaction bitcoin and more
and bitcoin price is very high, so not competitive return with big capital money and very long time process

and before transaction finish, bitcoin price in exchanger is ready corection and same price

[integrap]

Bitcoin price is usually high on gdax. You can try one time and then sell there. Then you can use gdax. If you see another coin is lower on gdax you can send back to kraken again. But nowadays arbitrage is not easy because of mass transactions on blockchain and you should pay more fee.

[Caladonian]

Bitcoin price is usually high on gdax. You can try one time and then sell there. Then you can use gdax. If you see another coin is lower on gdax you can send back to kraken again. But nowadays arbitrage is not easy because of mass transactions on blockchain and you should pay more fee.

It's the transaction timeframe that's really affecting the arbs trade mate, if the delayed took affect after you send your btc then for sure downfall will take place and chances to lose your investment, just my own scent if this can easily be done won't you think that each traders here won't do that? Just saying mate.

[michellee]

I won't do this if the time of transaction getting lack and needs to wait for a long time because when the transaction is confirmed, there is no guarantee for the price that still stays at the price before and maybe we cannot make a profit at all. it is better to stay at one exchange and trade for another coin. but if you have much of money, then you can send some amount to that exchange so you can trade for another coin too.

[wayaneka]

Arbiratge is good way to make profit but the problem is we should be create many account of exchange and also some exchange require verification personal ID . Ithink this is will be complicated. And other problem when confirmation transaction to long , the price possibility to change again. And also fee of transaction Bitcoin to any other exchange so high now.

[maydna]

you need to know how long the transaction gets confirm because this is a problem for us when we want to do arbitrage trading especially if we want to send our bitcoin to other exchange. but I don't think that this is a good idea if we still have a problem in the transaction and if we got delays of the transaction then we cannot sell our bitcoin to get the profit and it is not worth. I prefer to stay at the exchange and do the trade as long as we can make a good profit, I think it is the same as we send our bitcoin to other exchange.

[orka39]

BTC is around 13500 on kraken.  BTC is around 14300 on gdax.  If thats the case, can't you just send usd to bitstamp.  Then you buy btc.  Then once you do, you sell it on gdax for 14300?  The thing is when you buy btc on kraken, you get it immediately right?  Then you send the btc to gdax and then sell it.  However, it takes a while for the btc to hit gdax right since i heard btc is taking a while to send?  However if you pay a higher fee wouldn't it get there faster?

Thats good. Just try mate. Put your fee higher to get quicker transaction. Try also to see the other price, more exchang you check more chance you have to gain profit with this strategy.