Exchange arbitrage?

[Planethill]

OK, this may be a complete newb question.  There is a $200 difference in BTC price between Coinbase and Mt Gox.  Why couldn't someone buy a coin on Coinbase, send it to Mt Gox, then sell it for profiit?  X10?    It seems too simple.  Whats the catch?

[KWH]

OK, this may be a complete newb question.  There is a $200 difference in BTC price between Coinbase and Mt Gox.  Why couldn't someone buy a coin on Coinbase, send it to Mt Gox, then sell it for profiit?  X10?    It seems too simple.  Whats the catch?

This has been asked many times. Try it and then withdraw fiat from Gox, report back here.

[jonanon]

OK, this may be a complete newb question.  There is a $200 difference in BTC price between Coinbase and Mt Gox.  Why couldn't someone buy a coin on Coinbase, send it to Mt Gox, then sell it for profiit?  X10?    It seems too simple.  Whats the catch?

Withdrawing fiat from Gox is neigh on impossible 

[keithers]

Because you will probably end up losing money than gaining money, when you cannot get the money off of gox

[Planethill]

Because you will probably end up losing money than gaining money, when you cannot get the money off of gox

Got it.  I assume this is also why their price is so much higher than everyone else?   The price is artificial due to people not being able to get the cash out?

[jonanon]

Yes that is exactly the case 

[princecash]

That withdrawer problem have to do with US dollars and not Euro or other currency.

[Nova!]

You can get money out.  It just takes awhile and is kind of expensive.
Some places will take MtGox codes though.  You can convert those.

I've managed to arbitrage trade multiple exchanges using a combination of BTC and MtGox codes, but it's a complicated manual process and the money you make isn't worth it unless you have $10k - $100k to play with.  At that level there probably isn't enough liquidity though.

[jonanon]

That withdrawer problem have to do with US dollars and not Euro or other currency.

It has got to do with ALL currencies, not just $

[Sonny]

Because you will probably end up losing money than gaining money, when you cannot get the money off of gox

Got it.  I assume this is also why their price is so much higher than everyone else?   The price is artificial due to people not being able to get the cash out?

Exactly.

You can get money out.  It just takes awhile and is kind of expensive.

You need to wait for months to get the withdrawal, instead of a while.