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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

What I don't get from the arbitrage side is why is the spread so much between exchanges? Surely if there is a $500 difference between two exchanges it makes sense to build up volume in both and simply move between them as the price fluctuates? Are the fees and transaction times really so onerous that $500+ differences are washed out in the process?

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Exchange A price is $1000

Exchange B price is $1250

Makes sense to buy on A and sell on B for a nice profit. So I buy 3 coins on A and send them to Be, sell on B and have a nice $750 profit. Now you need to get fiat from B to A and this is where you hit your bottleneck.

Assuming you can legally operate on both A and B in your country, isn't it a matter of sending your $3750 from B to your bank then depositing $3750 from your bank to A? Obviously that step alone (fiat B => bank => fiat A => crypto A) could take well over a week before fiat in B is back to crypto in A.

I know I'm missing something because a lot of people a lot smarter than me are in this space. I just don't know what it is I'm missing from the outside.

Difference between exchanges is ~0% to 5%. Price can change 5% easily in an hour on a single exchange so if you take a day or more to transfer money from one exchange to another, it's very likely you would earn more just by holding BTC.

Not every exchange has perfect withdrawal to fiat methods. Wex.nz doesn't have the facility to move fiat to a bank account. Bitfinex you cannot withdraw USD others only allow EUR withdrawals etc.

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