Tomasz Czapliński

Poznań University of Economics and Business,

Poznań, Poland

contact@tczaplinski.pl

Using FIAT currencies to arbitrage on cryptocurrency exchanges

Elena Nazmutdinova

Institute of Service and Industry Management

Industrial University of Tyumen

Tyumen, Russian Federation

nazmelena@gmail.com

Abstract. This paper fits in the trend of discussing the efficiency of cryptocurrency markets. Since 2008, when Bitcoin appeared on the market, arbitrageurs from all over the world have been trying to find the gaps in the markets, which will let them earn risk-free money using financial operations. Although a lot of researchers are trying to figure out arbitrage opportunities, looking at different exchanges and using different cryptocurrencies, so far hardly anyone has looked at arbitrage opportunities with the use of FIAT currencies within the same or different exchanges. This paper examines such opportunities for three different exchanges, i.e. Kraken, Bitfinex and Bitstamp - exchanges that enable trading  in USD and EUR against Bitcoin at the same time. The main empirical results suggest that there are significant arbitrage opportunities on these markets. In the paper, we also show the main constraints in FIAT currencies arbitrage on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Received: September, 2018

1st Revision: December, 2018

Accepted: February, 2019

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2019/12-1/12

JEL Classification: D02, O17, P31

Keywords: cryptocurrency, exchange, arbitrage