Has anyone ever tried this? I've read up on the difficulties of doing it manually, but some of the spreads I've seen are insane. I think it would be worth a try but I don't know where to start.
3 Answers
Yes and still at it full time. I have created a monitor that calculates the spread in % between several exchanges. Sometimes we see 25% spread! Those are the moments and getting fiat back from one exchange to another is bottleneck.
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That’s awesome! May I ask which exchanges are you using? Also, do you do it manually or do you use a bot?– JasonCommented Dec 10, 2017 at 22:43
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At the moment I do it manually and between exchanges in different countries (so using fiat as that has the biggest difference). You will need a good international network of people though. But I am also researching some bots but not sure which one will work for me. It can be really any exchange.– JTFCommented Dec 12, 2017 at 8:07
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Very cool. I've developed an arbitrage platform that calculates the spreads for you and let's you make the decision where to buy and sell. We're in private beta and we're looking for users, such as yourself, who are well versed in crypto arbitrage and already trade for it on their own. If you're interested, I can give you access but the only thing I'd ask in return is that after you played with it, you allow me to answer some questions about your experience. Let me know if you're interested.– JasonCommented Dec 17, 2017 at 2:34
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We have developed one ourselves. I am only researching trading bots but I trust none of them.– JTFCommented Dec 18, 2017 at 8:03
imo i have started a week ago and did some testing on various platforms. my issue is im using cryptopia as a base of info and i noticed i see some incredible deals available but by the time i send btc to for example then buy said coin cheap, then send to cryptopia? forget it. takes hours and hours to even show up as a deposit then depends which coin becuse as ive learned some have to wait for 200 confirmations and that in most cases is 12 hours min. so instead of making 500 dollars i lost money because price hit bottom. I wish there was an easier way to do arbitrage. seems to me cryptopia is either seeing super long periods of confirmations or some sort of manipulations.
Successful and consistent arbitrage is a catch 22. If there was an easy way to do it, everyone would do it. It would be conventional practice. However, supply and demand is an economical law, and its forces in this case are no exception. If there's a flood to buy on one exchange and sell on another, it would quickly balance out. Prices would equalize among exchanges long before most sellers could profit on the spread.
However, exchanges and users should still hope for arbitrage to be easier. First, it would add stability to BTC price overall, not just for individual exchanges. Second, it would open competition for exchanges to offer better features, such as advanced order types and obscure altcoins.
One such exchange has developed a method to make arbitrage easier. It's called Tether, a centrally controlled cryptocurrency with a fixed value on par with the USD. I personally think it's a great and fascinating idea, but I have far too little trust in the company controlling it. Frankly, I wouldn't trust it unless it was run by a US or European bank.
All this is to say that if you do it successfully, you probably got lucky.