Intersango GBP Market

[epetroel]

Anyone know why the Intersango GBP market seems to be consistently overpriced relative to the USD market?  I've noticed this for at least the past month or so. 

For instance, right now the Gox USD price is $5.18 and the Intersango GBP price is 3.31 which according to Google is $5.30.  So Bitcoins on the Intersango GBP market are overpriced by about 2.5%, which is pretty consistent with what I've been seeing just about every day for at least a month.

[1715193505]

1715193505

[jkminkov]

seems that more ppl are willing to buy coins than those that are willing to sell

btc-e for example is underpriced

[coin_toss]

It's not just Intersango, the same is true for pretty much all exchanges that are not Mt.Gox. Mt.Gox has more liquidity so you get consistently better prices

[Nefario]

It's not just Intersango, the same is true for pretty much all exchanges that are not Mt.Gox. Mt.Gox has more liquidity so you get consistently better prices

Unless you're selling bitcoins, in which case Intersango has a better price.

[epetroel]

It's not just Intersango, the same is true for pretty much all exchanges that are not Mt.Gox. Mt.Gox has more liquidity so you get consistently better prices

Unless you're selling bitcoins, in which case Intersango has a better price.

Very true, already sold a bunch, but unfortunately I have no use for GBP other than to buy more coins with it

[Stephen Gornick]

Very true, already sold a bunch, but unfortunately I have no use for GBP other than to buy more coins with it

If you do enough trading, there are options:
 - http://currencyfair.com
 - http://transferwise.com  (GBP  <--> EUR)

among other options.

Unfortunately there is no way to do a person-to-person transfer on Intersango of any of their currencies (e.g. GBP, EUR, PLN, USD), similar to what Mt. Gox offers for MTGUSD redeemable codes.  That way you could trade your Intersango GBPs for PPUSD or for whatever trade with somone who wanted GBPs is willing to offer.

The entire account could be traded, I suppose.  Though that can become a mess too.

[R-]

This is because of the liquidity unfortunately. We should see Intersango expand in coming months however.

[gabbynot]

We should see Intersango expand in coming months however.

Why is this?

[R-]

We should see Intersango expand in coming months however.

Why is this?

Relative to Gox, Intersango is a relatively new exchange so the user base has not had time to fully expand. Furthermore, BitInstant will be bringing us Europeans a very nice surprise in the next few weeks which will make funding an Interango account easier. Lastly, Intersango is less strict on AML proceduring which may be appealing to some.

Robert

[epetroel]

This is because of the liquidity unfortunately. We should see Intersango expand in coming months however.

The USD and EUR markets had pretty so-so liquidity, but their GBP market is quite active, at least as active as say CryptoXChange for example, but I'm not seeing the same kind of price imbalances at CryptoXChange.

Could have something to do with the new commission structure as well.  0.95% is pretty steep.

[Nefario]

This is because of the liquidity unfortunately. We should see Intersango expand in coming months however.

The USD and EUR markets had pretty so-so liquidity, but their GBP market is quite active, at least as active as say CryptoXChange for example, but I'm not seeing the same kind of price imbalances at CryptoXChange.

Could have something to do with the new commission structure as well.  0.95% is pretty steep.

Intersango has the largest GBP market, also what doesn't show in the stats are the number of bots trading on Intersango, there are a lot. I've made quite a few orders which got snapped up by bots.

[toffoo]

If anyone can come up with a good way to move GBP->USD from Intersango to any of the other Bitcoin exchanges, I'd be happy to help arbitrage out that price differential for you.

[Stephen Gornick]

a good way to move GBP->USD from Intersango to any of the other Bitcoin exchanges

Does CurrencyFair come in handy for this? 
 - http://www.currencyfair.com/

[toffoo]

Does CurrencyFair come in handy for this? 
 - http://www.currencyfair.com/

That looks like a very interesting idea but I think any potential arbitrageur would still need to open a bank account in the 'foreign' country to move, for example, the pounds from Intersango to CurrencyFair.

I'll look into how feasible this is, along with all the other usual costs, fees, and risks involved in one of these kinds of trades.

I suspect that by the time anyone gets this all set up and working, Intersango will have come out with something that allows to you move funds directly between their different currency markets, or will unveil the capability to move funds directly to other Bitcoin exchanges or other traders (like BitInstant or redeemable codes).  As soon as either of these happen, that consistent % overpricing you've discovered should probably go away.

Of course, if they were really clever, Intersango would just do this trade themselves.  I bet they'd earn more arbing the 2.5% Bitcoin price differential on their GBP and USD markets than the 0.65% that they make on commissions.

[Stephen Gornick]

Does CurrencyFair come in handy for this? 
 - http://www.currencyfair.com/

That looks like a very interesting idea but I think any potential arbitrageur would still need to open a bank account in the 'foreign' country to move, for example, the pounds from Intersango to CurrencyFair.

I see, yes -- that's where the problem is.  You can only transfer to Currency Fair from your own bank account, apparently.  You can transfer out of Currency Fair (e.g., in USDs after the GBP -> USD trade) to any bank though -- e.g.., right back to your USD account at an exchange (e.g., Mt. Gox)

So this would be mostly only useful for someone that has a bank account in the originating currency.  So someone in the UK wanting to arb the BTC/GBP on Intersango against the BTC/USD on Mt. Gox, this would probably work well.    The problem is there are two sets of wire fees though, one for the transfer from Intersango to the bank and then again on the transfer from the bank to CurrencyFair.

There are a couple things that would solve this problem.  The issuance of Redeemable Codes by the exchanges eliminates the need for a bank intermediary. Also, a low cost cash transfer service, such as what Dwolla gives for USDs complements or can be a substitute for the Redeemable Codes as well.  If Barclay's PingIT, for example, could be used by Intersango to send GBP funds wouldn't that solve half the problem?

[R-]

a good way to move GBP->USD from Intersango to any of the other Bitcoin exchanges

Does CurrencyFair come in handy for this? 
 - http://www.currencyfair.com/

This looks awesome!

[epetroel]

Did you know that Intersango has a Facebook page?

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As well as being the largest GBP/BTC market in the world BitcoinConsultancy (Intersango's operators) have just teamed up with Bitcoinica!

This is great to hear!  Hopefully the two of you together can put together something that will seriously compete with Gox