Quote from: meanig on June 24, 2013, 07:29:25 PM

Quote from: BitcoinAshley on June 24, 2013, 06:15:35 PM

Quote from: Seth Otterstad on June 24, 2013, 05:49:08 PM

Quote from: meanig on June 21, 2013, 10:33:31 PM

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum. Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

-1.
The post you responded to completely missed the point regarding arbitrage, which is that now instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp, one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp. So we can affect not only the LTC/BTC but the USD/BTC since other exchanges have LTC/USD and LTC/BTC. Both you and meanig need to go learn what "arbitrage" means Wink

But, I lol'd that you overlooked that and +1'd it anyways Grin

Ok, let me try to understand what you're proposing.

Quote

instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp

So lets say I have $100 on Gox and I want to transfer that to Bitstamp because bitcoins are cheaper there. I'll then send those bitcoins back to Gox and sell them at the higher Gox price giving me more than $100 at the end.

Quote

one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp.

I sell the $100 on Gox for litecoins and then send the litecoins to Bitstamp. Then exchange the litecoins for Huh

Please explain how to finish the arbitrage trade keeping in mind that the LTC/BTC rate will be almost identical between Gox and Bitstamp (much like it is between BTC-e and Vircurex which already do LTC/BTC trading)

This post and your original post show a fundamental misunderstanding of the way economies and arbitrage work. Arbitrage is not a bad thing and is not something that should be combated; arbitrage is healthy in a functioning economy. LTC on Mt. Gox enables easier arbitrage because extracting LTC from Mt. Gox will be considerably faster than extracting USD, and subject to much smaller fees. There are lots of explanations about how arbitrage works. You should find such an explanation and read it. Once you really understand it, it will be obvious why LTC on Mt. Gox will make arbitrage easier (assuming it is quicker and cheaper to move LTC around than USD, which is a fairly safe assumption), and thus the cryptocurrency economy healthier.

As for whether or not LTC or some other alt fills this role, I have no opinion (well, I have one, but it's not really important to the idea of arbitrage).

tycho

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