Good day for arbitraging

[BlackPanda]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

The price difference will always be present in every exchange. But in my opinion it is not a rational value because the price difference will be reduced by the cost of withdrawal. For me that arbitration now requires precision and also if it happens then there must be a significant price difference so that we can get profit margins.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So we have the low prices in USD in some places, we have the high USD prices in other places, but you cannot withdraw, and there are the high prices in USDT which is not 1:1 with USD.
Not good at all for arbitrage.

Exactly. People don't seem to understand this. There is no arbitrage opportunity.

The differences in prices you can see are entirely artificial because of the fall of Tether. The exchanges that trade BTC against Tether (such as Bitfinex) are/were showing higher prices because 1 USDT is no longer worth 1 USD. The exchanges that trade BTC against USD (such as Gemini) were showing the true price. Any potential arbitrage opportunity disappears when you realize that 1 USDT =/= 1 USD.

[kaisa]

There is still one way to carry out Arbitrage execution beautifully by placing fresh funds in several exchanges. When the price of a coin goes down we can buy it then we transfer it to another exchange that has a more expensive price. it's more rational when many exchange bots thwart your plan to do the Arbitrage.

[Expert3]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

You could earn money by trading with exchanges that have wide spread like trading the same amount of bitcoin could make reasonable profits.
Ex. BTC on Exchange 1 is 6700USD
BTC on Exchange 2 is 7200USD
Selling your BTC in exchange 2 and buying it again on Exchange 1 let's you earn 500USD, that's a merely 7.5% gain. Just be aware of long transaction time , that could be a problem.

[breathlessz]

There is still one way to carry out Arbitrage execution beautifully by placing fresh funds in several exchanges. When the price of a coin goes down we can buy it then we transfer it to another exchange that has a more expensive price. it's more rational when many exchange bots thwart your plan to do the Arbitrage.

right, by netting in many exchanges we can take advantage of price differences, but it must be implemented immediately, of course it will not last long, and prices will return to normal

[Pamadar]

Arbitrage is not that simple, one wrong movements could end up losing money, you can't rely only on the price that you see, but you need to consider the transaction volume, the speed transaction and the transaction fee, and most of the coin that you see is infamous coin, so if you not acting fast then you will miss the chance and end up losing money

That's something we can be sure, one mistake will lead you to sudden loses, nowadays arbitrage is really harder to execute decent profits, high demands of risk is always accompanied by one mistake, those delays and bots from  different exchange will affect our opportunities, needs to be done with extra precautions and with variety of knowledge with this system.

[adaseb]

Providing an update on my arbitrage and so far nothing has changed the premium is still around 4-4.5%

A few hours ago Bitfinex issued a statement on improved deposits so I will give it another day or two and if the premium doesn't start to shrink I will just close the arbitrage most likely at break-even because I don't want to get stuck holding these positions when there is another $1000 premium like there was 2 days ago when it went to $7800-$6800.

[1Referee]

If someone manage to somehow have a South Korean bank account and a USD bank, it may be possible to make nice arbitrage with some altcoins which are more valuable in south korea.

It's not as easy as it may seem for regular traders, especially when it concerns new markets, which applied to South Korea when there was a $5000 difference in price. By the time western traders managed to get everything ready, the premium was gone already. I doubt that we'll ever see such premiums again in South Korea.

In most cases the exchange operators are pretty harsh on those who try to withdraw liquidity from their markets, especially when the price differences are so far apart. It happens frequently where traders deposit whatever crypto asset to exploit the difference in price, but then the exchange in question doesn't let the deposit come through for obvious reasons.

[pumbum]

I believe that arbitrage is relevant at any time, in any market, just during the overall growth it is not as profitable as trading

[GregH37]

Honestly i tried out Arbitraging a few months back but i found out that it's not quite profitable these days for the following Factors

• TRADING BOTS
  Too many trading bots in play have made it quite hard to catch those coin price gaps between different exchanges. The coin price gap will be long gone even before the transaction is confirmed
  
  
• VOLATILE COIN PRICE
  Successful crypto arbitrage requires when the price of a coin is not so volatile but in the case of coins like Bitcoin, the price can change by $50 in matter of minutes. You may end up buying it thinking you have bought low, you try to transfer it to another exchange only for the price to drop there too within minutes before even the transaction is confirmed.
  
  
• SLOW TRANSACTION CONFIRMATION
  This is the case especially for Bitcoin, You have to wait for more than about 20 to 30 minutes of which the price or coin market gap will have be long filled up.
  
  
• WALLET MAINTENANCE
  Some coin market price gaps are just due to the different wallet maintenance schedules in different exchanges. You buy a coin and try to transfer it to another exchange so as to sell high only to realize that the other exchange's wallet is under maintenance and they do not accept a deposit of that coin
  
  
• DECEPTIVE MARKET PRICE ON DIFFERENT EXCHANGES
  This is common with altcoins since some have low trade volumes, for example the sell price you may see in the exchange you want to transfer your coins to and sell may not be reflected well in the order-book. It could just be a small sale volume which was made at a very high price yet in the order-book the next bid order is either at the same price range as the price with which you bought the coin or even slightly lower implying will just make a loss if you dare to transfer the coins and sell them.
  

Those are the few shortcomings that i experienced and i thought i could share with you.[/list]

Trading bots actually have spoilt a whole lot of the show for most arbitrage traders, as there are bots now monitoring transactions on every exchange and then acting accordingly still within the exchanges to take advantage of the movement in price across different exchanges.

However, with the one the Op mentioned, there is not even a single possibility of arbitrage trading as what happened with the pump only happened with USDT pairs and not the general market with USD, so there is absolutely no way anyone can even do arbitrage with that. Nonetheless, what happened with USDT is the fact that something shady is going on and people should really be careful holding it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Nonetheless, what happened with USDT is the fact that something shady is going on and people should really be careful holding it.

USDT's market cap has fallen by almost $500 million in the last couple of days, and its price is still slipping down towards $0.96. Meanwhile other stable coins have seen a significant boost - GUSD's volume went from 29 thousand to 2 million in 2 days, and peaked at a price of $1.19. TUSD went from a volume of 12 million to 73 million, and peaked at $1.15.

All because they wouldn't do an independent audit, and I think we all now know why. Time to exit this coin.

[ShowOff]

I believe that arbitrage is relevant at any time, in any market, just during the overall growth it is not as profitable as trading

About profitable or not, it depends on what we arbitrage. Because sometime every arbitrage activity only happen with big amount of spread in market. But before we do that, we must think a lot about risk to do it. Even bitcoin price on every market have far different, people who know it must be already arbitrage it.

[kaisa]

~snip~

right, by netting in many exchanges we can take advantage of price differences, but it must be implemented immediately, of course it will not last long, and prices will return to normal

Such a method is at least one step faster than having to send funds right away. I have done it that way and it's effective. I keep some fresh funds in several markets to arbitrage and for daily trading, I need to focus on just one exchange.

[olubams]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

One needs to look deeply before concluding there is an arbitrage opportunity because it might seem so but that is not what is practicable when one is involved. For one reason, the price shown on coinmarket or blockfolio is most times not the sell price when you get to the exchange as this price is expected to drop. Also, the price is subject to volatility and another thing is the price quoted could be as a result of technical glitch. The fees to pay and the timing difference is another factor. Putting all of these together means understanding the end of the exercise before delving into such activity.

[rebrik7]

In general, the situation with the Tether is not the only reason that traffic arbitraging is not so simple.
Such nuances as commissions for deposit and withdraw, fees for placing orders (such also happens) play a big role.
So you need to know all this details very well in order to get positive results in arbitraging.

[Reid]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

Isn't that going to cause a lot of transaction fees rather than making profits out of it?
And also the fact that you need an account for each one which have been there for a longer period is a must. For withdrawal purposes too.

That Tether is really something. It had helped whales to shit with us average holders of different coins. Now, they can move freely without even a little fear that their investment will go down.
It should be taken out. Or if that company wants to rob all the investors there then please do it already. Let us go back to the way crypto is before Tether even enter.

[wuvdoll]

I believe that arbitrage is relevant at any time, in any market, just during the overall growth it is not as profitable as trading

About profitable or not, it depends on what we arbitrage. Because sometime every arbitrage activity only happen with big amount of spread in market. But before we do that, we must think a lot about risk to do it. Even bitcoin price on every market have far different, people who know it must be already arbitrage it.

Arbitrage is something that has been ongoing for years and we have seen it even in every other market outside cryptocurrency. What is just important is to always look for those big spreads and take advantage of them, even though it can be risky at times, and it makes sense if you are at least doing with some good amount of funds. One way or the other, across board, there would always get to be some little bit of differences in price of markets, but it is still a lot risky considering how volatile the market can be and you really want to be sure you are not making the wrong decision at every single time. Now bots are even popping up daily to help with a lot of that.

[figmentofmyass]

you can sell coins at bitfinex or on USDT markets and hope the price disparity dies down, but that's about it. you can't actually withdraw USD and complete the arbitrage cycle.

This situation is scary. Mt. Gox closed withdrawls as well when they had problems. I hope bitfinex solves this situation fast.

supposedly they have. they said a couple days ago that withdrawals are now flowing without interference (though they admitted there was a backlog). and they've brought fiat deposits back online. this suggests they've established new banking relationships. 

the price disparity between exchanges will tell the real story though.......

About arbitrage, it's possible when when market volatility is high. It's also possible if you have exchanges in different countries with different currencies, such as USD and some other local currency.

If someone manage to somehow have a South Korean bank account and a USD bank, it may be possible to make nice arbitrage with some altcoins which are more valuable in south korea.

it's difficult in practice. you need to open a korean bank account in person and establish alien registration. then you are restricted to $50k in remittances per year. and that's if you can even trade on korean exchanges---many only allow koreans.

i think that's why the korean price disparities often persist: because very few people can effectively arbitrage there.

[b3llsf1l3s]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

arbitration cannot be that simple. let alone use other platforms as a benchmark. it would be better if you directly access the intended website. because of course the arbitration is not only 1 or 2 people. not to mention the confirmation time for withdrawal

[Bitcotalk]

Browsing through blockfolio, the wide contrast in prices of bitcoin on different exchanges presents a huge opportunity arbitrage traders to make profits.

From Coinbase to bitfinex and Bittrex  bitcoin's value is spread widely. And it seems to all be down to the implosion of tether.

Stop deceiving yourself mate, you cannot see any arbitrage opportunity across those exchanges you are talking about, because not all of them use Tether. What you saw was just a pump of Tether and a lot of people just trying to get out holding Tether as the case may be.

There is absolutely no way you will get anything from using USDT to want to trade a USD pair, so in that case, there is no form of arbitrage anyone can take advantage of. Talking about tether, things are really beginning to get out of hand, and the way things are going, I would not be surprised if we get to see tether out of the market pretty soon.