Exploit?

[dimka]

Hey everyone, I just thought of this, even though it was most likely thought of, but here goes.

So there are many places to buy and sell bitcoin, some places like Mt.gox always sell around 30 bucks higher than coinbase. So what if we buy from coinbase and sell at mt.gox, isn't that a huge exploit?

Again I'm sure this was thought of but, could someone please explain?

[newbminer]

To be quite frank, I wouldn't call this an exploit, however just good strategy.
It's like if you go to an antique shop and buy something for $100, you wait 5 years and go to a pawn shop and sell it for $300 - you've made a profit.

What you're talking about is just buying low, selling high, which is what most people do.

[dimka]

Hmm, this seems to easy, I will investigate further, but your analogy isn't close, its buy and sell right away, just to another person for a little more.

[deepceleron]

Type "arbitrage" in the search box.

You'd have to figure out how to get your fiat out of mtgox and into another exchange in less than six months.

[dimka]

Type "arbitrage" in the search box.

You'd have to figure out how to get your fiat out of mtgox and into another exchange in less than six months.

Right now at coinbase I can buy/sell one bitcoin for 932, at mt.gox I can buy/sell one for $1018. Thats a crazy amount of money...

[1234567]

Type "arbitrage" in the search box.

You'd have to figure out how to get your fiat out of mtgox and into another exchange in less than six months.

Right now at coinbase I can buy/sell one bitcoin for 932, at mt.gox I can buy/sell one for $1018. Thats a crazy amount of money...

Yes, but the time it takes to transfer USD to coinbase after selling on Gox means what you're doing is effectively gambling--there's no way to tell which exchange will have a lower USD/BTC price once your money finally arrives, and the price of Bitcoin could change dramatically while your money is being transfered. Arbitrage sometimes works on smaller altcoins with fast transaction speeds, but since Cryptsy's (the only exchange that has enough volume with most coins to make arbitrage feasible) deposit/withdrawal systems are so incredibly slow/broken, it's usually not worth your while.

[dimka]

Type "arbitrage" in the search box.

You'd have to figure out how to get your fiat out of mtgox and into another exchange in less than six months.

Right now at coinbase I can buy/sell one bitcoin for 932, at mt.gox I can buy/sell one for $1018. Thats a crazy amount of money...

Yes, but the time it takes to transfer USD to coinbase after selling on Gox means what you're doing is effectively gambling--there's no way to tell which exchange will have a lower USD/BTC price once your money finally arrives, and the price of Bitcoin could change dramatically while your money is being transfered. Arbitrage sometimes works on smaller altcoins with fast transaction speeds, but since Cryptsy's (the only exchange that has enough volume with most coins to make arbitrage feasible) deposit/withdrawal systems are so incredibly slow/broken, it's usually not worth your while.

Well I knew there was a catch, thanks for showing me

[koshgel]

Type "arbitrage" in the search box.

You'd have to figure out how to get your fiat out of mtgox and into another exchange in less than six months.

Right now at coinbase I can buy/sell one bitcoin for 932, at mt.gox I can buy/sell one for $1018. Thats a crazy amount of money...

Yes, but the time it takes to transfer USD to coinbase after selling on Gox means what you're doing is effectively gambling--there's no way to tell which exchange will have a lower USD/BTC price once your money finally arrives, and the price of Bitcoin could change dramatically while your money is being transfered. Arbitrage sometimes works on smaller altcoins with fast transaction speeds, but since Cryptsy's (the only exchange that has enough volume with most coins to make arbitrage feasible) deposit/withdrawal systems are so incredibly slow/broken, it's usually not worth your while.

This is a great first post/explanation of why it isn't super easy to buy/sell on multiple exchanges.

[mjc]

Hey everyone, I just thought of this, even though it was most likely thought of, but here goes.

So there are many places to buy and sell bitcoin, some places like Mt.gox always sell around 30 bucks higher than coinbase. So what if we buy from coinbase and sell at mt.gox, isn't that a huge exploit?

Again I'm sure this was thought of but, could someone please explain?

It's called Arbitrage and highly profitable if you can make it work.  It's actually needed in order to keep all the exchanges up and running.  I think when you explore your options in doing this that the problem is with moving fiat around.

If you buy low on one exchange sell high on another you have to extract the fiat so you can repeat.

Since extracting fiat o MT Gox is near impossible if you are in the US, you'll need to solve that problem.