Is arbitrage still profitable? and how has your experience been so far running this?
Arbitrage is
less profitable now that a lot of bots exist. As I said I have abandoned this for a rolling buy sell bot which is proving more profitable. I did make several B over the course of a few weeks using this bot. I would think that other exchanges and auto transfers could be added in order to take advantage of the dozen or so alts out there with different prices and faster transaction times than B.
All of that said. I'm not one to turn down making even $.01 a day while I sleep, eat and work. Free money is free money.
Can you point a noob to something that explains what the strategy is for a rolling buy sell bot?
Thanks.
BTC to USD rolls, as in the value repeatedly crosses the same point or the same trailing/advancing points.
In it's simplest form a lot of people roll BTC just by buying at 120,110,100,90,80 and selling at 100,110,120,130.
In a more advanced form BTC experiences hundreds of micro spikes and dips (my trade engine V2) which lets you buy at 114.26 and sell at 114.84 etc.
Buy = Last*(1-.002)*((1-$profitThreshold/2)^(1+iteration))
Sell = Buy/(1-.002)/((1-$profitThreshold/2)^(1+iteration))
up to hundreds of times a day.
In a more advanced form, BTC experiences macro-rolls of 2-10% on a daily/weekly/monthly basis allowing you to buy at almost any price and sell at an advancing price of +2.5/5/10% while at the same time experiencing micro-rolls mentioned above (my trade engine V3)
Sell = Dolar Cost Average /(1-.002)/(1-.002)/((1-$biggerProfitThreshold)^(1+iteration))
In an even more advanced form, BTC Appreciates and Depreciates to USD at different intervals (rolling price) and moves toward and away from a rolling 24 hour high and low. If you were always 100% in BTC as it approached and broke the high, and were always 100% in USD as BTC approached and broke the low, you would profit (a lot) from the resulting appreciation of BTC vs USD and USD vs BTC.
Omitted
The n00b answer is "a rolling bot, automatically buys low and sells high using a very volatile vehicle"
My trade history for the first three versions of the engine show low buys followed by high sells in each version. They also show an overall loss due to B appreciation beating the profit from rolling. If the price of B slowly declined I would have made a profit from the micro and macro rolls in addition to USD vs BTC appreciation.