Arbitrage Opportunity for Koreans

in #steem7 years ago

I was looking at the price of Steem today on Coinmarketcap.com and I decided to see how much the Korean exchange Upbit was skewing the numbers. Then I noticed something.

CCapSteem.png

That's almost 40 cents difference between the two pairs, so any fees involved in the trades shouldn't matter right? Why can't these arbitrage opportunities I always see just fall into my lap? Why are they always out of reach? I've never tried to get an account on Upbit, but seeing as I don't speak the language and they've banned foreigners from participating in the Korean crypto market, I don't think I'll be able to do it even if I could get the account approved and move some coins over there in time to take advantage.

The more pertinent question is; why aren't the people on this exchange taking advantage of the arbitrage and leveling the prices between STEEM/KRW and STEEM/BTC? It looks like the volume might be an indicator here. Since the volume of STEEM/KRW is over ten times that of STEEM/BTC on that exchange, arbitrage hasn't caught up with it yet. I'm assuming this also must mean that a lot of new KRW from noobs is coming into Steem at the moment, as experienced traders would take advantage of the price difference so that they would level out.

Any of our Korean members have any input here? Maybe I'm missing something here. It would also be nice to know why so much attention has been given to Steem this past week by Korean traders. Is it just the Weiss ratings or is there something more? I mean the $300 million volume the other day was no joke.

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