anyone successfully arbitrage trade bitcoins

[superkawaii]

there has been a significant price difference between markets lately even up to a hundred dollars difference

anyone take advantage of this and do this on the reg ?

[1715377389]

1715377389

[1715377389]

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[granolageek]

The problem is that since Dwolla dropped Bitcoin, there is no quick way to move fiat. If you have dollars on CampBX, you can indeed buy BTC and sell them for a profit on another exchange. You then have to collect those dollars, and then snail mail a money order to CampBX to repeat the process.

Even when (if) CampBX gets ACH transfers working, the dollar side of arbitrage will take about a week. With the current volatility that is an extreme risk if your goal is to accumulate Bitcoins. If you're ok with dollars you can lock in a profit.

[phlogistonq]

That demonstrates very clearly some of the benefits of bitcoin over dollars.

[superkawaii]

The problem is that since Dwolla dropped Bitcoin, there is no quick way to move fiat. If you have dollars on CampBX, you can indeed buy BTC and sell them for a profit on another exchange. You then have to collect those dollars, and then snail mail a money order to CampBX to repeat the process.

Even when (if) CampBX gets ACH transfers working, the dollar side of arbitrage will take about a week. With the current volatility that is an extreme risk if your goal is to accumulate Bitcoins. If you're ok with dollars you can lock in a profit.

yeah moving the money quickly seems to be the biggest obstacle , my idea was to buy on btc-e and sell on mt,gox

rinse and repeat

[deepSix]

The logistics are the problem. Its moving that real world money about, even with SEPA its 3-4 days.
There was around a £100 price difference between Bitstamp and Bitbargain (which isn't an exchange but rather a bitcoin market place) but eveyones realised that now and its drove the price down with too many sellers.

Lets say you invest in 1btc and you say got it for 600usd on btstamp (making up the prices) sent your 1btc to MtGox and got 670$ for it, minus the trading fee. Then assuming you live in the Sepa zone you wire that money to your account. Thats another exchange fee + the fee your bank usually charges to accept that transfer. Then ANOTHER fee to send the money back to the exchange, that and the fact its taken nearly 7 days to get the money from one exchange to another. In that time you would have probably made more money hanging on to the btc.
And thats with SEPA international can take even longer.

[antimattercrusader]

How would you go about getting USD into BTC-E without giving up your 1st born?

The logistics are the problem. Its moving that real world money about, even with SEPA its 3-4 days.
There was around a £100 price difference between Bitstamp and Bitbargain (which isn't an exchange but rather a bitcoin market place) but eveyones realised that now and its drove the price down with too many sellers.

Lets say you invest in 1btc and you say got it for 600usd on btstamp (making up the prices) sent your 1btc to MtGox and got 670$ for it, minus the trading fee. Then assuming you live in the Sepa zone you wire that money to your account. Thats another exchange fee + the fee your bank usually charges to accept that transfer. Then ANOTHER fee to send the money back to the exchange, that and the fact its taken nearly 7 days to get the money from one exchange to another. In that time you would have probably made more money hanging on to the btc.
And thats with SEPA international can take even longer.

This is exactly the bullshit of the primitive, extremely pathetic banking system.

[gooryheta]

Clearly demonstrates the advantage of bitcoin and why bitcoin is future of payment system

[superkawaii]

Clearly demonstrates the advantage of bitcoin and why bitcoin is future of payment system

yeah dude 100% especially being able to avoid inputting your personal info into those dodgy eastern european sites , that stuff makes me hella nervous

[kireinaha]

As others have said, depositing USD to BTC-E is damn near impossible, and there have been several threads recently on this forum that speak of BTC-E receiving ACH transfer but failing to deposit the money into accounts for long stretches of time, and sometimes not at all. Even if you have access to a bank account in Japan to withdraw JPY from Gox, it seems the financial risk is too high to warrant the trouble.

It seems that a bitcoin based economy could resolve these hassles (until government banking regulations step in, anyway) but if such a reality existed, there likely wouldn`t be any opportunity for arbitrage anyway, since the exchanges would have similar prices.

[dopamine]

The problem is that since Dwolla dropped Bitcoin, there is no quick way to move fiat. If you have dollars on CampBX, you can indeed buy BTC and sell them for a profit on another exchange. You then have to collect those dollars, and then snail mail a money order to CampBX to repeat the process.

Even when (if) CampBX gets ACH transfers working, the dollar side of arbitrage will take about a week. With the current volatility that is an extreme risk if your goal is to accumulate Bitcoins. If you're ok with dollars you can lock in a profit.

yeah moving the money quickly seems to be the biggest obstacle , my idea was to buy on btc-e and sell on mt,gox

rinse and repeat

Good Luck Getting cash out of Gox is like 4 weeks

[kireinaha]

Good Luck Getting cash out of Gox is like 4 weeks

People say this all the time, but what I want to know is if this applies to only wire transfer or for domestic Japanese bank withdrawals as well? If OP has JP bank account somehow (his alias is superkawaii afterall), the withdrawal should be fast (from what I understand). But even then, just depositing USD to BTC-E might be the biggest problem which is basically unavoidable.

[porcupine87]

The difference between exchanges is now 50$ and more. You need at least 2-3 days to transfer (even if Gox instantly would tranfer your dollar to you target bank account or credit card). On MtGox yesterday the low and high was 200$ difference.

How do you want to use arbitrage there?

[passo]

happycoins let you buy bitcoin from bitstamp with dutch internet banking. Takes 2 minutes to pay and another few minutes to get your coins. Then you got btcdirect where they let you sell your coins at gox prices and you get the money the day after you made your sale.  Its only in euro and the difference at gox and bitstamp has to be quite big cause there are some fees you have to pay.  It also requires you got a dutch bank account with cash on it.

at the moment you would loose money on this unless you got cash on btc-e.

[dahongfei]

Many Chinese are doing this for days.

Current best arbitrage strategy is to buy from mtgox/bitstamp/btc-e and sell on any Chinese exchange.

The profit is somewhere between 5-40% for the past week depending on your cost to move money.

I did it once with my Janpan friend through Mt.Gox two days ago with 60 BTC, and both of us made a solid 8,000 USD in a commercial break time.

The spread is much narrower now, but still very profitable.

If you can move money quickly into bitstamp/btc-e, you can do this too but a trustworthy Chinese partner is needed.

[Xer0]

In that time you would have probably made more money hanging on to the btc.

probably. but only if it constantly keeped rising

[User705]

As others have said, depositing USD to BTC-E is damn near impossible, and there have been several threads recently on this forum that speak of BTC-E receiving ACH transfer but failing to deposit the money into accounts for long stretches of time, and sometimes not at all. Even if you have access to a bank account in Japan to withdraw JPY from Gox, it seems the financial risk is too high to warrant the trouble.

It seems that a bitcoin based economy could resolve these hassles (until government banking regulations step in, anyway) but if such a reality existed, there likely wouldn`t be any opportunity for arbitrage anyway, since the exchanges would have similar prices.

Can you point out the threads about btc-e.  They take wires don't they?

[Dargumin]

In the UK you can get a chinese currency bank account with Bank of China (there are 4 branches here, 1 an hour from where I live).  But I'm uncertain if you could withdraw from BTC China (directly or via tenpay) to it.  Is this possible in the USA?  

Failing that, if you could just uproot, quit your job and live anywhere for a year to arb bitcoin would Beijing be THE optimal place to do it?  The biggest arbs seem to be between BTC-e and BtcChina, is it easy to fund BTC-e from China?  

[Odrec]

As others have said, depositing USD to BTC-E is damn near impossible, and there have been several threads recently on this forum that speak of BTC-E receiving ACH transfer but failing to deposit the money into accounts for long stretches of time, and sometimes not at all. Even if you have access to a bank account in Japan to withdraw JPY from Gox, it seems the financial risk is too high to warrant the trouble.

It seems that a bitcoin based economy could resolve these hassles (until government banking regulations step in, anyway) but if such a reality existed, there likely wouldn`t be any opportunity for arbitrage anyway, since the exchanges would have similar prices.

Can you point out the threads about btc-e.  They take wires don't they?

I have transfered USD to BTC-E twice using Perfect Money from my bank account and I didn't have any problems but the process does take a big chunk on fees and 2-4 days.

[Xer0]

In the UK you can get a chinese currency bank account with Bank of China (there are 4 branches here, 1 an hour from where I live).  But I'm uncertain if you could withdraw from BTC China (directly or via tenpay) to it.  Is this possible in the USA?  

Failing that, if you could just uproot, quit your job and live anywhere for a year to arb bitcoin would Beijing be THE optimal place to do it?  The biggest arbs seem to be between BTC-e and BtcChina, is it easy to fund BTC-e from China?  

this UK-branch stuff is tricky. im not good in talking english so i called their zurich branch
they told me, this offer is made for people owning already a hsbc account in china who travel to uk
you can still create an uk hsbc account but thats not a tenpay-compatible chinense ledger

[Dargumin]

In the UK you can get a chinese currency bank account with Bank of China (there are 4 branches here, 1 an hour from where I live).  But I'm uncertain if you could withdraw from BTC China (directly or via tenpay) to it.  Is this possible in the USA?  

Failing that, if you could just uproot, quit your job and live anywhere for a year to arb bitcoin would Beijing be THE optimal place to do it?  The biggest arbs seem to be between BTC-e and BtcChina, is it easy to fund BTC-e from China?  

this UK-branch stuff is tricky. im not good in talking english so i called their zurich branch
they told me, this offer is made for people owning already a hsbc account in china who travel to uk
you can still create an uk hsbc account but thats not a tenpay-compatible chinense ledger

Thanks for your reply

I'm not sure about HSBC,we have those on every street corner, but "Bank of China" is different right?  Ha to be fair I dont want it to be THAT easy because then too many people will be doing it haha.