Arbitrage opportunity??

[aspiring]

Yes its possible to make a profit from it, but problems with withdrawing and the fees make it impossible for most people. If you can figure it out though, Im sure you could make a killing! 

It is true whilst doing this with only a thousand dollars invested is barely profitable because international wires have such ridiculous fees (hence BTC FTW)

The flip side is that it becomes very profitable when you are bankrolling USD50k a day.

A word of warning, this has a different risk profile to speculating on Bitcoins, as Arbitrage has in all honesty not out performed Bitcoins insane increase in value over the past few weeks. But again, this is tailored to the segment of our investors that would rather want to see a steady 5% return per round trip on their Government backed currency (Australian Dollars / US dollars / Chinese Yuan) than speculating on the unpredictable fluctuations in the value of Bitcoins.

To keep our machine churning, we're always struggling to find enough bitcoins to buy at market rate with USD. If you think you can help. PM me.

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[MilesJohan]

I am looking to buy BitCoins. When I was doing a little research on trading websites, I found something interesting, yet strange.

Some of you are familiar with the term arbitrage. For those who don't, arbitrage means "the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset." Which basically means making money out of nothing. And in the world of finance and economics, arbitrage doesn't exist because the prices reach to a point of equilibrium.

Anyway, price of BTC on MtGox is $212, and on BTC-e it is $203. Now what stops me from buying BTC from BTC-e and sell them on MtGox?? Thus making a profit of $9 for every BTC.
I am sure something is weird here and this doesn't work for some reason because everyone would be doing so. Can someone who knows about trading in these sites explain to me how the process work? and how come they have different prices of BTC? and if I can't use this arbitrage opportunity, what would be the reason?

Thank you

People have being doing arbitrage for long.. but the problem is you have to be in Japan to do it cause MtGox's account got closed down and they don't have any more USD!!!

[Feneusens]

I am looking to buy BitCoins. When I was doing a little research on trading websites, I found something interesting, yet strange.

Some of you are familiar with the term arbitrage. For those who don't, arbitrage means "the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset." Which basically means making money out of nothing. And in the world of finance and economics, arbitrage doesn't exist because the prices reach to a point of equilibrium.

Anyway, price of BTC on MtGox is $212, and on BTC-e it is $203. Now what stops me from buying BTC from BTC-e and sell them on MtGox?? Thus making a profit of $9 for every BTC.
I am sure something is weird here and this doesn't work for some reason because everyone would be doing so. Can someone who knows about trading in these sites explain to me how the process work? and how come they have different prices of BTC? and if I can't use this arbitrage opportunity, what would be the reason?

Thank you

If you have a Japan bank you an do that....

[trepex]

...
BTC-E has always had lower prices, because it's hard to get money in.
...

This is not true from Europeans.

I pay 1% deposit fee (or 15€, whatever is more) by using a SEPA money transfer to them.
The last 2 times it took 2 days, this week it took 3 days.

I am very happy with them. But the € price is not so much better on BTC-E compared to MtGox than it's the case with $.

[Thenen]

So BTC-e is hard to get money in, and MTGox is hard to get money out.. oh man...

[l.j2300]

Well for me a BTC-E wire deposit has taken more than 12 business days. Another problem people are facing with wire transfers to BTC-E is after they are funded and you trade their USD for BTC, they put a money hold (for about 30 days) on the BTC so you cant withdraw until they verify your uploaded documents (ID and utility bill). The problem is once you send the documents, their support team takes very long to respond. I hope they fix their support system to answer tickets quicker.

[MarketTime]

Well for me a BTC-E wire deposit has taken more than 12 business days. Another problem people are facing with wire transfers to BTC-E is after they are funded and you trade their USD for BTC, they put a money hold (for about 30 days) on the BTC so you cant withdraw until they verify your uploaded documents (ID and utility bill). The problem is once you send the documents, their support team takes very long to respond. I hope they fix their support system to answer tickets quicker.

Oh that really sucks, any suggestion on a better trading website?