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You can cash out Bitcoin and the price is actually very accurate. The money I see in my bank account is real I can assure you of that. Also I know friends that

You can cash out Bitcoin and the price is actually very accurate. The money I see in my bank account is real I can assure you of that. Also I know friends that cash out six figures at a time and the price they get is within less than 1% difference to the last sell price. The number is accurate enough for most orders under $10,000,000. Has this person actually traded Bitcoin? You might not be able to sell a large order to the cent, but with Bitcoin you are certainly able to cash out within less than 1% of the listed price. I move orders around a lot and I see real money, so I know it's not fictional. In addition I frequently use an exchange with about 100 times less volume than the USA exchanges. Also shares have a spread too. The Bitcoin order book is not razor thin, unless you are trying to sell $10,000,000 in one go. Then you just need to spread out the sell over about 5 hours. Also the issue with arbitrage isn't the Bitcoin side of the transactions, it's often the USD or AUD side. But arbitrage does work and the price is much closer worldwide than it used to be. These little islands that the author talks about range from $1,000,000 24 hour volume for the smallest exchanges to $200,000,000 24 hour volume for a mid - high size exchange. TL:DR I can assure you the price is real, cashing out is easy and viable. If you want to cash in $10 million just expect your limit order to execute gradually over about 5 hours.

sytelus 9y ago
Article author actually makes a great point and it stands regardless of your ability to cash out within 1%. Big investors on current markets can whip out huge profits for themselves by using techniques such as front running, wash trades, willybot, spoofing etc. Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. If you are a trader with deep pockets, you should immediately realize all above established techniques (which is illegal on stock market) can generate you huge profits in no time in crypto market. Big players would literally have all the strings to play the market according to their will. Currently prices are 100X higher and 1% difference seems irrelevant but in mature markets 1% move is news worthy event. I think its also worth pointing out that less than 1000 entities owns 40% of the bitcoins. I wouldn't be surprised if set of entities are willing to burn short term cash to inflate the prices just to attract other large scale investors in the game. This is like burning tinder to start the fire. The end game usually is massive cash outs as soon as fire has started. Typically this would kill the fire but in some cases it may keep going. In any case, the bad news to small investors is that expect to get killed at any point in time when your big brother decides to cash out. Until then, party on.
- runeks 9y ago
  > Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. Are we sure about this? The two largest USD-exchanges are Coinbase/GDAX and Bitstamp, which operate out of California and London, respectively. If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gys 9y ago
    > If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? Based on what ? Because some people might think that is immoral ? Trading in most things is not regulated. So there is no law to be broken, expect very basic ones (you have to deliver if you receive fiat money). If I have a trading platform in art, then I can still buy and sell for my private collection. Crypto coins are not different.
    - lagadu 9y ago
      The difference is that GDAX is part of Coinbase, which is registered as a regular exchange under the New York DFS which puts them under the same regulations as non-crytop exchanges.
    - lawlessone 9y ago
      >Because some people might think that is immoral ? No because they're actually laws and you can go to jail.
    - dmichulke 9y ago
      > are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? > Based on what ? Fraud?
- paps 9y ago
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
I think the point he’s making is that everybody could not cash out at the listed price at once if something were to happen that made holding bitcoin undesirable (such as say, a possible crack for their elliptic curve crypto implementation). However, the same is true for banks which only keep 10% of deposits. Bank deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000 though.
- krrrh 9y ago
  Banks are also backed by the fed which is there to prevent failures, and the government through too big to fail. Even in the case of the Bank of the United States (which despite its name was just an ordinary bank) whose failure in 1930 kicked off the bank panics of the 1930s, when it was liquidated the depositors received 92.5% of their deposits. Most failures of crypto exchanges have resulted in a total or near-total loss for depositors, and triggered rushes to the exit on other exchanges.
- g09980 9y ago
  But the same would happen for any similar-functioning market. If every AAPL shareholder tried to simultaneously sell for $173.97 (current price), many would end up disappointed. Instead, the article seems like FUD that would confuse non-tech users into thinking they couldn't cash out their 0.5 BTC at the price they're seeing on their exchange (they can.)
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >But the same would happen for any similar-functioning market. If every AAPL shareholder tried to simultaneously sell for $173.97 (current price), many would end up disappointed. Yes. But if one thinks Bitcoin, with its distribution of holders, price volatility, and "quality" of trading implementations etc has the same tolerances as the regular stock market (which indeed can crash too), one is beyond deluded. It's like saying "sure, I can crash on my custom built hot-rod made from a modified jet ski if I go into a wall, but so can someone in their Hammer". The impact, and the implications are not going to be the same... (Heck, when the market tried to go trashing, it got a 1 trillion bailout to help it out. Who is gonna do that for bitcoin?)
pjc50 9y ago
So which exchange are you using? How viable is it to cash out smaller amounts, few hundred or thousands?
madaxe_again 9y ago
If cashing out is easy and reliable, why can’t I withdraw from Coinbase, six months after verifying my bank account? I’ll tell you: they don’t have the capital to pay anyone, so nobody can withdraw. It’s Mt Gox all over again.
- lagadu 9y ago
  I withdraw every month, usually in about ~1200€ worth: if you're having trouble with that you should contact coinbase support.
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    I did, in October. They send me an email every few week saying “is your query still important? Reply within 24h or we’ll assume it’s resolved.” Starting to think that there is no capital behind it and my money (>€100k) is gone.
drcode 9y ago
The subconscious message of this article is "people that you've heard get rich from Bitcoin can't really become rich so easily, there has to be a catch"
kasey_junk 9y ago
Is there a way to verify this somehow? One of the biggest issues in the Bitcoin space seems to be counter party risk with the exchanges. How do large Bitcoin traders price that risk? With most modern financial exchanges the accounts are open, audited and they’ve had a long time to generate trust with their members so pricing the counter party risk is straight forward.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  if your treating bitcoin as anything short of gambling, you probably in for a big surprise one day.
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    Professional gamblers price counter party risk into their bets as well. Using similar methods now that the bet takers are frequently public corporations.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pc86 9y ago
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?
- celticninja 9y ago
  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.
  - pc86 9y ago
    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.
    - mikulas_florek 9y ago
      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.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      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.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sytelus 9y ago

Article author actually makes a great point and it stands regardless of your ability to cash out within 1%. Big investors on current markets can whip out huge profits for themselves by using techniques such as front running, wash trades, willybot, spoofing etc. Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. If you are a trader with deep pockets, you should immediately realize all above established techniques (which is illegal on stock market) can generate you huge profits in no time in crypto market. Big players would literally have all the strings to play the market according to their will. Currently prices are 100X higher and 1% difference seems irrelevant but in mature markets 1% move is news worthy event. I think its also worth pointing out that less than 1000 entities owns 40% of the bitcoins. I wouldn't be surprised if set of entities are willing to burn short term cash to inflate the prices just to attract other large scale investors in the game. This is like burning tinder to start the fire. The end game usually is massive cash outs as soon as fire has started. Typically this would kill the fire but in some cases it may keep going. In any case, the bad news to small investors is that expect to get killed at any point in time when your big brother decides to cash out. Until then, party on.

runeks 9y ago
> Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. Are we sure about this? The two largest USD-exchanges are Coinbase/GDAX and Bitstamp, which operate out of California and London, respectively. If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Gys 9y ago
  > If someone were to reveal that these exchanges were trading against their customers, are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? Based on what ? Because some people might think that is immoral ? Trading in most things is not regulated. So there is no law to be broken, expect very basic ones (you have to deliver if you receive fiat money). If I have a trading platform in art, then I can still buy and sell for my private collection. Crypto coins are not different.
  - lagadu 9y ago
    The difference is that GDAX is part of Coinbase, which is registered as a regular exchange under the New York DFS which puts them under the same regulations as non-crytop exchanges.
  - lawlessone 9y ago
    >Because some people might think that is immoral ? No because they're actually laws and you can go to jail.
  - dmichulke 9y ago
    > are we sure that the authorities would be unwilling to press charges? > Based on what ? Fraud?
paps 9y ago

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

I think the point he’s making is that everybody could not cash out at the listed price at once if something were to happen that made holding bitcoin undesirable (such as say, a possible crack for their elliptic curve crypto implementation). However, the same is true for banks which only keep 10% of deposits. Bank deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000 though.

krrrh 9y ago
Banks are also backed by the fed which is there to prevent failures, and the government through too big to fail. Even in the case of the Bank of the United States (which despite its name was just an ordinary bank) whose failure in 1930 kicked off the bank panics of the 1930s, when it was liquidated the depositors received 92.5% of their deposits. Most failures of crypto exchanges have resulted in a total or near-total loss for depositors, and triggered rushes to the exit on other exchanges.
g09980 9y ago
But the same would happen for any similar-functioning market. If every AAPL shareholder tried to simultaneously sell for $173.97 (current price), many would end up disappointed. Instead, the article seems like FUD that would confuse non-tech users into thinking they couldn't cash out their 0.5 BTC at the price they're seeing on their exchange (they can.)
- coldtea 9y ago
  >But the same would happen for any similar-functioning market. If every AAPL shareholder tried to simultaneously sell for $173.97 (current price), many would end up disappointed. Yes. But if one thinks Bitcoin, with its distribution of holders, price volatility, and "quality" of trading implementations etc has the same tolerances as the regular stock market (which indeed can crash too), one is beyond deluded. It's like saying "sure, I can crash on my custom built hot-rod made from a modified jet ski if I go into a wall, but so can someone in their Hammer". The impact, and the implications are not going to be the same... (Heck, when the market tried to go trashing, it got a 1 trillion bailout to help it out. Who is gonna do that for bitcoin?)

pjc50 9y ago

So which exchange are you using? How viable is it to cash out smaller amounts, few hundred or thousands?

madaxe_again 9y ago

If cashing out is easy and reliable, why can’t I withdraw from Coinbase, six months after verifying my bank account? I’ll tell you: they don’t have the capital to pay anyone, so nobody can withdraw. It’s Mt Gox all over again.

lagadu 9y ago
I withdraw every month, usually in about ~1200€ worth: if you're having trouble with that you should contact coinbase support.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  I did, in October. They send me an email every few week saying “is your query still important? Reply within 24h or we’ll assume it’s resolved.” Starting to think that there is no capital behind it and my money (>€100k) is gone.

drcode 9y ago

The subconscious message of this article is "people that you've heard get rich from Bitcoin can't really become rich so easily, there has to be a catch"

kasey_junk 9y ago

Is there a way to verify this somehow? One of the biggest issues in the Bitcoin space seems to be counter party risk with the exchanges. How do large Bitcoin traders price that risk? With most modern financial exchanges the accounts are open, audited and they’ve had a long time to generate trust with their members so pricing the counter party risk is straight forward.

sharemywin 9y ago
if your treating bitcoin as anything short of gambling, you probably in for a big surprise one day.
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  Professional gamblers price counter party risk into their bets as well. Using similar methods now that the bet takers are frequently public corporations.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pc86 9y ago

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?

celticninja 9y ago
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.
- pc86 9y ago
  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.
  - mikulas_florek 9y ago
    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.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    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.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]