Research

Bitcoin arbitrage and unofficial exchange rates

Year 2015
Author G Pieters, S Vivanco - 2015
Publisher Trinity University
Link View Research Paper
Categories

Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies / Exchanges / Trading

We compare the implied bitcoin exchange rates between 18 currencies and the US dollar to official spot exchange rates, and find that they can vary greatly. We show that this difference can be partially explained by government intervention in the official markets. This implies that the bitcoin exchange rate can be used to evaluate the accuracy of the official exchange rate data, and provides a method to approximate the time trend of the black market exchange rate if such data is not available.